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Snow Country

3.76 of 5 stars 3.76 · rating details · 4,617 ratings · 444 reviews

To this haunting novel of wasted love, Kawabata brings the brushstroke suggestiveness and astonishing grasp of motive that earned him the Nobel Prize for Literature. As he chronicles the affair between a wealthy dilettante and the mountain geisha who gives herself to him without illusions or regrets, one of Japan's greatest writers creates a work that is dense in implicati...more

paperback / 単行本, 175 pages

Published January 1957 by Charles E. Tuttle Co. / チャールズ・イ・タトル出版 (first published 1935)

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Apr 02, 2011 Mariel rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition Recommends it for: northern lights

Recommended to Mariel by: sky phenomenon

Shelves: rubber-ring

I read the other reviews of Snow Country before I read the book. I'm nervous to look at any more right now, before I begin writing my own review (erm technically I'm writing it right now). It's like when you mishear lyrics in a song and find out the line that killed you wasn't what they were singing at all. Lights turned on and it's not as beautiful when it's the real world in day time? So the introductions I've read... I didn't read Snow Country as a love triangle. I don't want to.

Yukio Mishim...more I read the other reviews of Snow Country before I read the book. I'm nervous to look at any more right now, before I begin writing my own review (erm technically I'm writing it right now). It's like when you mishear lyrics in a song and find out the line that killed you wasn't what they were singing at all. Lights turned on and it's not as beautiful when it's the real world in day time? So the introductions I've read... I didn't read Snow Country as a love triangle. I don't want to.

Yukio Mishima's introduction of The House of the Sleeping beauties says this: "There would seem to be, among the works of great writers, those that might be called of the obverse or the exterior, their meaning on the surface, and those of the reverse or interior, the meaning hidden behind; or we might liken them to exoteric and esoteric Buddhism. In the case of Mr. Kawabata, Snow Country falls in the former category, while "House of the Sleeping Beauties" is most certainly an esoteric masterpiece.
In an esoteric masterpiece, a writer's most secret, deeply hidden themes make their appearance. Such a work is dominated not by openness and clarity but by a strangling tightness. In place of limpidness and purity we have density; rather than the broad open world we have a closed room. The spirit of the author, flinging away all inhibitions, shows itself in its boldest forms."

He sure sounds smart and shit. But fuck that. (Sorry to keep picking on you Mishima! I'm going to read two more of your books soon.)

I say that Snow Country is attaching oneself to a significant expression in life or death desperate hopes that it is going to light up the unreal times. I really, really wish I could be poetic about this. I can't hold it in my hands. The most is maybe holding onto the burned on images on the backs of my eyeballs. Soaring (with will or no) on the images/ideas/brain waves and the tops of the life, your house, everyone you know and don't know, everything is seen all down below. It all looks small as shit too. Floating, or swimming, against the tide. Going to where you've already been? What's exterior about that? Only the need for it... I don't know how to connect the unreal times that feel realer than most else to things that I CAN see in my life.

Leave Mishima alone, Mariel! (I'd post a photo of him looking sad if I were the Mariel reviewer of two months ago.)

Shimamura came into money. He doesn't really have to do anything like work, or think about his wife and kids. I see him as a guy who lives for those eyelid image times. He wouldn't want them to be burned on. If anything, he is a tight rope walker of avoiding anything burned in favor of, say, a haunting melody that would bring forth vague nostalgia for times past. Enough to hurt just a little. (I like it when it's a little cold because I feel more alive being concious of my skin. To myself I call it the slightly cold feeling. Mariel circa age 15!)

Yoko is uncomplicated (to Shimamura!) eyelid image with a promise of more gravity. She could possibly pull to something. When Shimamura first sees her she is taking care of a dying man on a train. It's only a moment, a fleeting idea, in his mind. Nothing to him but that moment (and everything to Yoko. Probably the foundation of everything to Komako the geisha, as well. With this man, at least, they are not observers). Yoko appears in moments tied to nothing but more weightier ways of floating (a mother's embrace, not dying alone...).

Shimamura and the geisha Komako have a relationship like I feel I have with my stories, songs, a walk through the rain after a storm (my absolute favorite times ever). Shimamura feels about everything that is Komako's life is a "wasted effort". These are not heavy floating times, yet feel more dangerous all the same for being less able to pin down to a single idea. Shimamura has difficulty recalling Komako when they are apart.

Her wasted efforts are mine. Lots and lots of staying up all night scribbling impressions on something like Snow Country that touched me. No, it isn't going to change anything. The point is the effort. I wonder if Yoko made an effort... I feel more wonder about Komako's dreaming because there is potential in not knowing what it will look like down at the bottom.

Komako feels about Yoko that she is the weight on her chest. I know the weight on the chest. It's the miscommunication. Guilt for maybe owing each other something more than moments. Shimamura is afraid of being tied and Komako is very much tied to the other woman because of a mutual past they share with the dying man from the train (the past isn't clear). I'd call it the fear of looking down if you're afraid of heights. That fear is probably why they live so much in wasted efforts/unreal times...

The wasted effort isn't too long. But what about the time inbetween? I don't know if it is knocked wind out of me that Komako was really in love with Shimamura. He's the wasted effort, right? The unreal life of travel (as he's a tourist). The rules and regulations that come with the territory of being a geisha. It's a stage play, right? And the stage lights are the strange twilights casting all kinds of shadows of ideals to become wasted efforts in the morning. Yeah, I can see a lot from up here and I did fall to my death when the morning came. Maybe they shouldn't have tried to ride that too high... (Poetical people are so lucky. They can make these wasted efforts for themselves whenever they want.)

I've been craving more Kawabata.(less)

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May 04, 2013 Richard rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

The Book Report: Married, bored (but I repeat myself) aesthete, philanderer, and flâneur Shimamura, an aficionado of Western ballet (although he's never seen one), takes a solo trip into Japan's Snow Country. While there in the wildest of boondocks Japan possesses, he meets Komako, probably the world's worst geisha, but apparently a fascinating contrast to all other women for Shimamura. They meet a total of three times in two years. Another woman, Yoko, hovers purposelessly around the narrative...more The Book Report: Married, bored (but I repeat myself) aesthete, philanderer, and flâneur Shimamura, an aficionado of Western ballet (although he's never seen one), takes a solo trip into Japan's Snow Country. While there in the wildest of boondocks Japan possesses, he meets Komako, probably the world's worst geisha, but apparently a fascinating contrast to all other women for Shimamura. They meet a total of three times in two years. Another woman, Yoko, hovers purposelessly around the narrative until, for no apparent reason, Komako and Shimamura have a fight over his feelings (?) for Yoko, who for some reason nursed Komako's not-quite-fiance Yukio while he died, despite the fact that Komako indentured herself to the (apparently quite unsuitable) career of geisha to pay for his death expenses.

Then a fire breaks out and Komako runs into the burning building and saves Yoko while Shimamura stands there and looks up at the sky. Fin.

No, seriously.

My Review: I spent the entire month I was reading this book, all 175pp of it, alternately claustrophobic and bemused. WTF, I kept thinking, why am I still at this rock-pile, trying to winkle out some small purpose to the narrative; then along would come a gem, eg:

It was a stern night landscape. The sound of the freezing of snow over the land seemed to roar deep into the earth. There was no moon. The stars, almost too many of them to be true, came forward so brightly that it was as if they were falling with the swiftness of the void.
p44, Vintage ed., trans. Seidensticker

Oh wow, I thought, and plowed on. And on. And on. Every damn time Komako exhibits what today we'd call a bipolar break exacerbated by alcohol abuse, I'd find myself thinking, "This damned book is Come Back, Little Sheba directed by Kurosawa." Seriously. Shirley Booth did the same bloody role in that movie, only Burt Lancaster (whose role as her husband bewitched by a younger woman was pretty much exactly like Shimamura) is the one who drank.

I drank a good bit myself, trudging ever onward, marching off to war with the cross of Jesus going on before; okay, I'm a piss-poor Christian soldier, but you get the sense of futility I was experiencing. Then, it happened.

Pp154-155: He had stayed so long that one might wonder whether he had forgotten his wife and children. He stayed not because he could not leave Komako nor because he did not want to. He had simply fallen into the habit of waiting for those frequent visits. And the more continuous the assault became, the more he began to wonder what was lacking in him, what kept him from living as completely...All of Komako came to him, but it seemed that nothing went out from him to her. He heard in his chest, like snow piling up, the sound of Komako, an echo beating against empty walls. And he knew he could not go on pampering himself forever.

So there *is* a point to this hike! And a profound one: The sudden awakening of human feeling in an otherwise dead heart. It was a payoff, and a major one. But did it have to be such a Bataan Death March of a journey to get here? And the stupid-ass last line of the book, which made me so bloody angry that I began raining curses on the lady whose idea it was our book circle read the book...! INFURIATINGLY SOPHOMORICALLY PORTENTOUS, I shrieked. The dog ran away from me. The same dog who, at an earlier moment in my tossing about of the book, expressed her opinion of it by fanging the corner. She calmed down after I did, but really...does one *want* to read this book? I won't do it again. But, on balance and after sleeping on it, I'm glad that I did.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.(less)

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May 18, 2012 Jenn(ifer) rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition Recommends it for: the pure of heart

Recommended to Jenn(ifer) by: vincent van gogh

Shelves: japanese, read-in-2012, nobel-laureates, my-reviews-that-dont-suck

New love is as delicate as the wings of a moth.

I try to write but the words disintegrate between my fingertips. They melt like snow on my tongue. Maybe a light breeze could carry them across the ocean and drop them at your feet. They will slip through your fingers like sand. They will drift through the air like dandelion wishes.

New love is as fleeting as the blossoms of an almond tree.

The words might cut you like the sharp edge of this paper. The tiny cuts will sting. They buzz around your ear...more

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May 11, 2013 Tony rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: japanese

I view Asian Art through Western eyes. Not that I have a choice, I guess. That process enhances, even as it limits.

description

I love the beauty, the intricacy of Japanese woodblock prints, but I fear I’m seeing them superficially. Am I missing something, I wonder, if only a nuance? And Murakami. Even though his works owe much to Bulgakov and The Beatles, there is a descent from Japanese forerunners and the history and culture of those islands that probably – okay, certainly - eludes me.

Once an artist hits...more

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Nov 30, 2011 Paquita Maria Sanchez rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: literature

In slow motion until the point of contact, this novella quite simply and mercilessly spends its energy reserves back-handing you with the its last few pages. I am getting ahead of myself, but it is important that you know this fact. I hear a lot of trash talked on Japanese novels and films from time to time (excluding those centering on martial arts, of course), of how they are slow, simple, boring, plotless, and where are the explosions, anyway? Well...

First off, I think that's a lot of hooey....more In slow motion until the point of contact, this novella quite simply and mercilessly spends its energy reserves back-handing you with the its last few pages. I am getting ahead of myself, but it is important that you know this fact. I hear a lot of trash talked on Japanese novels and films from time to time (excluding those centering on martial arts, of course), of how they are slow, simple, boring, plotless, and where are the explosions, anyway? Well...

First off, I think that's a lot of hooey. Doesn't life consist of an exorbitant amount of mundanities sprinkled with an occasional bit of the bizarre? Don't you want your art to simulate, illuminate and comment upon reality, at least every once in a while? Second, there are thrills to be had in this slow-burning, somber story if you could just hold your freaking horses for a minute, cowboy. Regardless, the Action is reserved for the finale; it's the sword in the guts of the story's body, the last touches on what is otherwise a, yes, simple, honest portrayal of human desire.

The majority of the text illustrates the untethered relationship that develops over a series of years--depicted through seasonally-themed vignettes--between a Geisha and a married vacationer. As with any other entanglement (to those who aren't fooling themselves), once intimacy is established, emotions begin to steep and complicate what should be, in theory, a simple exchange of, hrrrrm, cash for services. In short, just because a relationship is stated as following such and such rules ( you know, "casual," "open," "sexwork," etc), that does not mean that human nature won't eventually rear its many ugly Hydra heads. Regarding the conflicting urges to possess and set free a loved one, Kawabata manages to be poignant without beating you over the head with oversimplified bits of obvious, sappy nonsense. In fact, it is downright uncomfortable at times. To portray the growing complexity of the relationship, Kawabata moves from calm, serene daytime exchanges between the Geisha and her client to 4 a.m. verbal wrestling matches where said Geisha is sauced to the nines and expressing her real emotions via standard drunken repetition before catching and attempting to correct her grievous error in the power struggle that is romance. Back and forth between these poles she moves, and the client's lust and disgust for her shift accordingly. If you know anything about that (I personally have no idea, and am definitely not guilty of telling someone they are the best and they completely suck in practically the same breath three days ago), then you will find some catharsis in this narrative. In short, if you are human, you will find some catharsis in this narrative. Or anyway, it will at least have to do until Angelina Jolie shows up at your door to inform you that you are the child of a professional killer, and it is your destiny to suddenly become a Matrix-worthy assassin and live a life of action-adventure and excessive ass-getting. You know, reality. (less)

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Jan 01, 2008 brian rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

at tosh's prodding i'd been on something of a japanese kick in '07, burned through mishima, dazai, tanizaki, murakami, etc. -- when deciding which kawabata to tackle, charles forwarded an interview in which vollmann mentioned snow country as in his all-time top ten. well, i read it on the flight from florida to california and stumbled off that plane utterly & totally flattened. snow country. whew. snow country. sad and enigmatic and spare and packed with some of the most odd & lyrical im...more

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Feb 12, 2013 [P] rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: bitchin

Let’s suppose that you are fortunate/unfortunate enough to be in love right now, with a girl called Becky no less, and let’s also imagine that your friend, who we will call Mike, having noted your permanently beaming countenance, poses you a difficult question; Mike’s an inquisitive sort, so he straight out demands a serious response to this query: “what is it about Becky that makes you love her?”

After regaining your composure at Mike’s brashness, you would likely reply with general, mostly vac...more

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Dec 05, 2012 umberto rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: fiction, japan

I think reading Kawabata should be all right for those readers seeking solitude, nature and tradition. I mean we simply can't find any emotional sentimentality related to love at first sight or an adventurous journey to find one's true love or both lovers-to-be in a romantic mood somewhere we've never been to.

Literally, this most famous one of his classic Japanese novels (as claimed at the back cover) should inspire those willing to read him for the first time by these three excerpts I personal...more I think reading Kawabata should be all right for those readers seeking solitude, nature and tradition. I mean we simply can't find any emotional sentimentality related to love at first sight or an adventurous journey to find one's true love or both lovers-to-be in a romantic mood somewhere we've never been to.

Literally, this most famous one of his classic Japanese novels (as claimed at the back cover) should inspire those willing to read him for the first time by these three excerpts I personally selected for you to browse:

" 'Suppose I were to go too far with you. Very probably from tomorrow I wouldn't want to talk to you. I couldn't stand the sight of you. I've had to come into the mountains to want to talk to people again, and I've left you alone so that I can talk to you. And what about yourself? You can't be too careful with travelers.' " (pp. 21-22 )

"Shimamura was moved by a wave of feeling he could not define himself. He thought he must indeed be the plainest, most honest person in the world. He no longer worried about sending Komako home. She said nothing more." (p. 84)

"But this love would leave behind it nothing so definite as a piece of Chijimi. Though cloth to be worn is among the most short-lived of craftworks, a good piece of Chijimi, if it has been taken care of, can be worn quite unfaded a half-century and more after weaving. As Shimamura thought absently how human intimacies have not even so long a life, the image of Komako as the mother of another man's children suddenly floated into his mind. He looked around, startled. Possibly he was tired." (p. 154)

However, his last paragraph's interesting and worth reading and, I think, this is his style I want to read with such a unique impact for imagination and appreciation.

"He tried to move toward that half-mad voice, but he was pushed aside by the man who had come up to take Yoko from her. As he caught his footing, his head fell back, and the Milky Way flowed down inside him with a roar." (p. 175)

I hope interested readers may find some words, phrases, sentences, etc. illuminating while reading here or in the novel. Finally, I think our reading process would be rest assured by his brilliant dialogs and narrative.(less)

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Feb 07, 2008 Nick rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Let it be known that this is a terrible translation. I am convinced that I would have enjoyed this book ten times as much if someone other than Edward Seidensticker had bothered to translate it. My reasoning? Kawabata's Palm-of-the-Hand Stories is one best collections of short stories I have ever read. In the back of that book is "Gleanings from Snow Country," the last work Kawabata wrote before he died. It is a condensation of the novel in question. Remarkably, it is not even a rewriting but r...more

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Apr 24, 2013 Navaneeta rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: japanese, ebooks

A feeling of nagging, hopeless impotence came over Shimamura at the thought that a simple misunderstanding had worked its way so deep into the woman's being.

Is that what love is all about in the end! A misunderstanding shaping one's entire existence, weaving into the essense of your being. Throughout, pain is a heavy undercurrent that at some point morphs into life itself. The elusive nature of people, of feelings, of love can be understood only in the context of the fleeting snowscape viewed fr...more

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Jun 26, 2012 Joselito Honestly and Brilliantly rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

This book was supposed to have been written from 1934 to 1947. The principal protagonist, a married man named Shimamura, is the prototype of the modern Japanese sex tourist. Once in a while, without his family, he goes to a place in Japan where snow falls the heaviest [the "Snow Country"] so he can have sex with geishas.

If this is made into a movie, it would be better that this be in a black and white film, the scenes always dark and cold, like Shimamura himself, who does not seem to be capable...more

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May 04, 2009 Mashael Alamri rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: translated

إلى بلد الثلوج تشده ذكرى ملمس يد ناعمة وتسريحة جيشا عالياً جداً كالجبل الشامخ وسط كل ذلك البياض , ينجذب بقوة لذلك الإتجاه بلا سبب واضح مع أنه لا يعرف حقاً ماذا يجدر به أن يفعل ,
على سكك الحديد وقوف وتلويجة يد كم تبدو سهولة هذا المشهد لمن يتأمله من بعيد , لكن إن مرَّ عليه يوماً سيكون أصعب موقف قد يصادفه في حياته .

الروايات اليابانية هي روايات وصف وطبيعة حتى أن التشبيهات التي يستخدمها أبطال القصة كلها مستوحاة من الثلوج الوزهور والشجر والأنهار تشعرنا حينَ القراءة بأننا نقتعد كرسيا في وسط حديقة على ي...more

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Feb 05, 2008 Sarah rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

i was a bit disappointed with this, especially if it's one of kawabata's more celebrated (or just famous?) books, or one of his break-out books, and since he is a nobel winner. his prose is lovely, but i felt like i was watching a very tactful and well-mannered movie from the 50s where they divert your attention to nice scenery shots or where they only show the actors' legs when they're kissing. the narrative skipped forward so much that it was hard to stay oriented, and the aforementioned allus...more

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Jan 25, 2009 Trina rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Short, haiku-like story set in a hot springs resort in the mountains on the west part of Japan where it snows heavily each winter. The nature images are very strong. Since the story is about a dissolute man and a geisha, I didn't relate to either protagonist, but the aura of the novel is intense.

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Jun 13, 2008 Jerome Hsiang rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

How fitting that Kawabata is a master exposing the sublime in the most mundane; Snow Country creates a grand study of the human heart out of a mish-mash of the vulgar and pathetic. Make no mistake, Shimamura is essentially a playboy, Komako a geisha lush. Their indulgent lives play out in ritual, sometimes nonsensical, sometimes pointedly direct. Through it all, snow, beautiful and lulling, anesthetizes even the reader. Living in the snow country is committing to the whisper, the smirk and the d...more

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Feb 01, 2009 Marcy rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Maybe the translation is lost on me....I know that Yasunari Kawabata was the winner of the Nobel Prize for literature. His writing is rich with poetry:

"The color of evening had already fallen on the mountain valley, early buried in shadows. Out of the dusk the distant mountains, still reflecting the light of the evening sun, seemed to have come much nearer. Presently, as the mountain chasms were far and near, high and low, the shadows in them began to deepen, and the sky was red over the snowy...more

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May 09, 2013 James rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: asian-lit, fiction, nobel-prize

Nobel Prize winner Yasunari Kawabata’s Snow Country is widely considered to be the writer’s masterpiece: a powerful tale of wasted love set amid the desolate beauty of western Japan. The novel began as a single short story published in a literary journal in January 1935. Kawabata continued writing about the characters afterward, with parts of the novel ultimately appearing in five different journals before he published the the book in whole. He continued working on the novel over a period of yea...more Nobel Prize winner Yasunari Kawabata’s Snow Country is widely considered to be the writer’s masterpiece: a powerful tale of wasted love set amid the desolate beauty of western Japan. The novel began as a single short story published in a literary journal in January 1935. Kawabata continued writing about the characters afterward, with parts of the novel ultimately appearing in five different journals before he published the the book in whole. He continued working on the novel over a period of years. Finally, in 1948, the novel reached its final form as "Snow country", a literal translation of the Japanese title "Yukiguni". The name comes from the place where the story takes place, where Shimamura arrives in a train coming through a long tunnel under the border mountains between Gunma and Niigata Prefectures. Sitting at the foot of mountains, on the north side, this region receives a huge amount of snow in winter because of the northern winds coming across the Sea of Japan. The winds accumulate moisture over the sea and deposit it as snow while running up against the mountains. The snow reaches four to five meters in depths, sometimes isolating the towns and villages in the region from others. The lonely atmosphere suggested by the title is infused throughout the book.
At an isolated mountain hot spring, with snow blanketing every surface, Shimamura, Kawabata's stark tale of a love affair between a Tokyo dilettante and a provincial geisha takes place in the town of Yuzawa. The hot springs in that region were home to inns, visited by men traveling alone and in groups, where paid female companionship had become a staple of the economy. The geisha of the hot springs enjoyed nothing like the social status of their more artistically trained sisters in Kyoto and Tokyo and were usually little more than prostitutes whose brief careers inevitably ended in a downward spiral. The liaison between the geisha, Komako, and the male protagonist, a wealthy loner who is a self-appointed expert on Western ballet, is thus doomed from the opening. The nature of that failure and the parts played by others form the theme of the book. I thrilled at the dense simplicity and sadness of Kawabata's story.(less)

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Feb 14, 2013 J. rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: japanese

"Snow Country" is a subtle, poetic, love story set in the remote northern mountains of Honshu. A rich aimless dilettante called Shimamura arrives in the village from Tokyo, he procures the services of Komako a reluctant geisha who is seeking a better life.

Kawabata's style is demonstrative of classical Japanese prose writing. This style places emphasis on lyricism, mood and reflection rather than on plot and character development. The snow country landscape is intense, shadowy, bleak, enclosed,...more

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Dec 28, 2012 طَيْف rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

الرواية اليابانية...تأتيك بنكهة خاصة...تمتزج فيها الطبيعة الثريّة...باللمسة الشاعرية العذبة...تتهادى على أنغام كلاسيكية ناعمة...وتحكي لك عن تجارب متفردة في عالم مختلف بقيمه الحضاريّة...يضيف لها كواباتا النهاية الآسرة وإن امتزجت ببعض الأسى...والتي تعيد لرتابة الرواية ألقها وزخمها.

يقول كواباتا: "يكفي غصن شجرة، إذا كان مرسوما بإتقان، لكي يسمع صوت الرياح"

ومن مثلك يا كواباتا يتقن رسم التفاصيل بعناية وعلى مهل؟؟!!...حتى أحسست ببرودة الثلج تتسرب إلى أطرافي!!

شيمامورا...أسير امرأتين...أسير صوت إحداهما الم...more الرواية اليابانية...تأتيك بنكهة خاصة...تمتزج فيها الطبيعة الثريّة...باللمسة الشاعرية العذبة...تتهادى على أنغام كلاسيكية ناعمة...وتحكي لك عن تجارب متفردة في عالم مختلف بقيمه الحضاريّة...يضيف لها كواباتا النهاية الآسرة وإن امتزجت ببعض الأسى...والتي تعيد لرتابة الرواية ألقها وزخمها.

يقول كواباتا: "يكفي غصن شجرة، إذا كان مرسوما بإتقان، لكي يسمع صوت الرياح"

ومن مثلك يا كواباتا يتقن رسم التفاصيل بعناية وعلى مهل؟؟!!...حتى أحسست ببرودة الثلج تتسرب إلى أطرافي!!

شيمامورا...أسير امرأتين...أسير صوت إحداهما المتدحرج كالصدى على الثلج وفي أنحاء الليل...صوتٌ له سحر الكآبة المقلق...وأسير لمسة أصابع يد الأخرى...والتي تحتفظ يده بذكراها الدافئة المتوقدة...ما بين كوماكو ويوكو...يدور صراع داخله...منجذبا لجمال كلتيهما وإن اختلف منبعه...باتجاه الجسد وكمال الأنوثة...أو باتجاه الروح والكمال الأخلاقي

شيمامورا الحائر في عيشه وكثير الأهواء...الذي يترك زوجته وأطفاله بحثا عن متعة استثنائية خاصة، محاولا الاهتداء إلى ذاته، في بلد الثلوج حيث الرتابة تحاصرها كما يحاصرها الثلج...يأتي في القطار بحثا عن فتاة الغيشا كوماكو والذي ارتبط بها من لقاء سابق...ليخترقه جمال آخر يشرق بفتنة خرافية خارقة

نلمح من خلال حكاية شيمامورا الطبيعة اليابانية في مدينة تكتسي بالثلج أغلب أيام السنة، وكذلك الإنسان الياباني بهمومه وأحلامه وكل ما يميزه عن غيره...نلمح عادات الناس وتقاليدهم...ونلمح التغيرات التي طرأت على المجتمع الياباني نتيجة العولمة...فها هو شيمامورا يحدثنا عن تعلقه بالبالية الغربي رغم أنه لم يشاهده مرة في حياته...وإقلاعه عن مشاهدة الرقص الياباني نهائيا...

تنساب الأحداث برتابة وبطء...وإن لم تكن من محبي الوصف والإغراق فيه سيتسلل لك الملل من حيث لا تشعر...ولكنك مع النهاية ستجد الدهشة...وتجد نفسك أمام ياسوناري بكل غرابته وإبداعه في تحليل نفسيات شخوص روايته...ونهاياته الغريبة...

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Sep 08, 2012 Anh rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: fiction

Vẫn phong cách quen thuộc của Kawabata. Truyện nhạt,có lẽ nhất là với những ai quen đọc văn học Nhật qua các tiểu thuyết của Murakami. Thêm nữa là diễn biến tâm lý các nhân vật trong truyện của ông thường có phần khó hiểu.
Tuy nhiên Kawabata lại là một nhà văn mình rất yêu thích và chưa có tác phẩm nào của ông làm mình thất vọng. Tác phẩm của ông luôn rất đẹp và vô cùng tinh tế. Một cái đẹp u buồn, hoài niệm. Một thế giới ảo ảnh, mơ hồ. Nói như vậy nghe thật sáo rỗng và giả tạo quá mức ( có phần...more

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Gathienology Murakami hình như cũng bị ảnh hưởng nhiều từ Kawabata.
Sep 09, 2012 05:18am

Gathienology Ko biết mình đọc được ở đâu cái tin đó hay tự khịa ra :)). Giờ search mãi ko thấy nói Murakami có thừa kế gì từ VH Nhật cả. Nhưng mình vẫn cảm giác gi...more
Sep 09, 2012 05:29am

Anh Mình cũng không rõ và chắc chắn lắm về vấn đề này, nhưng theo như mình nhớ, trong một bài phỏng vấn hoặc là trong phần tựa của các tác phẩm được xuất...more
Sep 09, 2012 05:42am

Aug 29, 2012 Mara Cee rated it 1 of 5 stars · review of another edition

This book can be read in two ways: as the story of a love affair between a man looking to escape city life in the country and two women, one of whom is a country geisha; or as a commentary about Japan's shift towards Western modernity. Being obligated to read it for class and having little enthusiasm for the book, I read it as the latter--that is, at face-value--and found it exceedingly dull. Barely anything happens, aside from exchanges between characters and observations made by the protagonis...more

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Aug 11, 2012 Bernard Batubara rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here. Saya membaca buku ini versi terjemahan Indonesianya, oleh A. S. Laksana.

Saya tengah berada dalam sebuah toko buku dan melihat-lihat rak buku, mencari bacaan. Saya terhenti pada sebuah buku bersampul putih. Saya raih buku itu, saya lihat sampul depannya, lalu saya balik.

“Lagu pertama itu menyentuh sesuatu yang kosong di dasar perutnya, dan dalam kekosongan itulah suara shamisen bergema. Shimamura terkejut-atau, lebih tepatnya, ia terjengkang oleh sebuah pukulan telak. Terbenam dalam perasaan khid...more

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Jul 17, 2012 Amber rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: category-fiction, group-oak-hill-library

Loved this book. It's such a gem of a novel with the most amazing imagery. The introduction makes note of the author being accustom to the haiku format and it shows. It's amazing what he can describe with just a few very choice words.

What I loved:
The language first and foremost. But the story itself was sad in the best of ways. The relationships were carefully drawn but there were a lot of lose threads hanging that really kept the reader wondering.

What I learned:
I have enjoyed a lot of Japanese...more

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Apr 23, 2012 Friederike Knabe rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Unless you are familiar with Japanese culture and language, you will find Snow Country different from most any novel you may have read. Read superficially the novel appears to follow a simple plot and structure. Yet, its intensity and beauty lies in the lyrical imagery of landscape and evocation of the protagonists' complex psyche and their relationships. The novel can be compared to a Japanese brushstroke painting, economic and suggestive, where the observant eye is able to complete the picture...more Unless you are familiar with Japanese culture and language, you will find Snow Country different from most any novel you may have read. Read superficially the novel appears to follow a simple plot and structure. Yet, its intensity and beauty lies in the lyrical imagery of landscape and evocation of the protagonists' complex psyche and their relationships. The novel can be compared to a Japanese brushstroke painting, economic and suggestive, where the observant eye is able to complete the picture or the story. To fully appreciate Kawabata's prose in English, newcomers are well advised to empty their minds of other, mainly western, literary experiences and expectations and open up to a different world. Snow Country has to be read at a very slow pace. Every word has importance, with sometimes more than one meaning. With these preparations and attitude of mind, Snow Country is an enriching experience that will linger on long after reading it.

Kawabata tells the story of Shimamura, a wealthy man of leisure who's visiting a hot springs mountain resort to meet the local geisha, Komako. He comes for distraction and out of boredom with his real life in Tokyo. Komako is a reluctant geisha, but has resigned herself to her role, while hoping for some other life. The contrast between what they are and what they would like to be is played out in their interactions. Shimamura is drawn to the unreal or the unlikely or impossible. He wants to remain "just friends" with Komako. Her chatty and highly emotional outbursts leave him somewhat amused and bored, yet he misses her when away from her. She does not behave like a real mountain geisha. His room is like a refuge from that life, a place where she can literally let her hair down. Shimamura's attraction for the other young girl, Yoko, a friend and rival to Komako, is as contradictory. In her shyness and reserve she is desirable. She appears to him beautiful and pure, a delicate reflection in the window against the mountain landscape.

Nature and landscape are of great importance to Kawabata and articulated through Shimamura. Nature's beauty is felt more intensely by him than anything else. When he and Komako find themselves outdoors, they have nothing to say to each other. Yet even nature provokes contradictory emotions in Shimamura. "...he looked upon mountain climbing as almost a model of wasted effort. For that very reason it pulled at him with the attraction of the unreal." Kawabata was one of Japan's most famous writers. He won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1968. His Nobel Lecture elucidates his deep affinity to and understanding of classical haiku poetry. Haiku represents a fundamental element of Japanese culture then and now. Snow Country has been described as haiku in prose. Kawabata uses a shorthand style for his descriptions, evoking simultaneously multiple senses, like colour and temperature, stillness and motion, attraction and rejection. Nature is all encompassing with people one component of the wider picture.

The novel is rich in symbolism and references to Japanese traditions and mythology. However, some are easier to identify than others. While accepting that the English language reader will miss some of the deeper meanings and connotations, Snow Country is a novel that opens a fascinating world and deservedly has an enviable place in international literature. It is difficult to comment on the quality of Seidensticker's translation. Still, as others have expressed, one wonders whether the translation could have contributed more to the novel's appreciation by the reader.(less)

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Mar 16, 2010 Eddie Watkins rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

This is the story of three different trips by Shimamura up into the Snow Country of Japan. Each trip occurs in a different season, and each in turn reflects his deepening involvement with a country geisha in a small village. While journeying by train there for his second visit he is struck by the beauty of a fellow passenger who by chance is traveling to the same village. As Shimamura gets more deeply involved, at least physically, with the geisha, he remains deeply intrigued by the other woman....more This is the story of three different trips by Shimamura up into the Snow Country of Japan. Each trip occurs in a different season, and each in turn reflects his deepening involvement with a country geisha in a small village. While journeying by train there for his second visit he is struck by the beauty of a fellow passenger who by chance is traveling to the same village. As Shimamura gets more deeply involved, at least physically, with the geisha, he remains deeply intrigued by the other woman. Her distance from him, and his lack of knowledge of her, deepens his attraction; yet all the while he remains detached from both, appraising them remotely through a scrim of intellectual aestheticism, even as the depths of the geisha’s world are irrevocably being changed by him.

The second woman remains on the fringe of the narrative, though her involvement in the geisha’s life is slowly revealed. In the end, inevitably, as he’s a family man and had no intention of forging a permanent relationship, he leaves the village for the last time. His leaving coincides with the apparent death by fire of the other woman, and the revelation of how deeply the geisha was attached to her.

Shimamura drifts through the narrative safely ensconced within his own fantasies and projections, yet nevertheless he manages to grasp the trailing fringe of fleeting authentic love and beauty; human love and beauty. If he doesn’t actually cross the abyss from pure abstracted aesthetic appreciation to an appreciation of the raw human fires at the heart of aesthetics, from a contemplation of distant stars to the reflective gleam in the eye of the woman before him, he does hear the cries of life’s entangled souls traversing that abyss. But do those cries only serve to deepen (by saddening with subtle tragedy) his solipsistic aestheticism? Only Shimamura knows in the end, and isn’t that how it must be? doesn’t that only serve to make more profound the intensity of encountering the sublime, the fact that we can’t fully grasp it, that we can’t even understand it?

One summer when I was nine I developed a deep attachment to a girl who was about my age. Even then I couldn’t specify why I was so attracted to her. Her exoticism helped, as she was from California, and California was as exotic as it got for a young small town Delawarian. She was living with her aunt for the summer, so consequently she knew no one, had no friends; not that she showed any signs of loneliness.

I spent all my childhood summers at the pool – the mornings at swim team practice, the afternoons playing in the water and eating Nekot crackers and lemon ice. What a lovely carefree time it was. The summers felt endless, not that I even bothered to feel that they were endless, let alone think it. Thoughtlessly they were so.

The diving boards were a big attraction for kids, but while I was a very good swimmer the boards terrified me. On a good day I had the courage to walk very carefully out to the end of the board, and then without disturbing the board too much I would jump (never dive!) into the deep end. One of the reasons I admired this girl was her fearless diving ability. Ever the voyeur I would swim to the edge of the deep end and pretend to play with the strand of plastic floats separating it from the rest of the pool while she dove. And when she hit the water I would mirror her by going under myself where I watched her blurry form trailing bubbles.

She was blonde, slender, tan, and very cute; but my attraction wasn’t physical in that way. Even now I can’t say what attracted me to her. Maybe it was her solitary grace, her silent solitary grace and confidence, as I was a terribly shy and socially awkward child. While she exuded confidence, I don’t ever remember hearing her talk. All I remember is her body arcing off the board and into the water, and her wet walk back to the ladder and back up on the board, and diving again. An eternal cycle. I could’ve watched her all summer, and in my memory it’s as if I did, as if I spent all summer with my head just above water level watching her. She totally consumed me, but as summer neared the end she left town; went back to California.

I must’ve told my mom about my attraction to this girl. At the time I rarely spoke myself, even to my family, so even if I only mentioned her once my mom’s curiosity would’ve been piqued. My mom must’ve known of my attraction to this girl because that fall, just a couple months beyond the end of summer, she told me that soon after returning to California this girl died in a house fire. I was devastated, shocked really, shocked by how the intensity of my memory of her contrasted with the fact that she no longer existed. Even now, as I think of her, my memory touches on the eternal; I see her bright and dripping body in an endless dive, lit by a sun that never sets.

I can’t remember her name. I never even spoke to her. Yet she’ll inhabit my mind until I die. Am I now and was I then living only in my own fantasies and projections? Most certainly. But that in no way detracts from the profundity of my love for her, from my apprehension of her grace and beauty. My solipsism most definitely crossed the abyss and contacted authentic, even eternal, love and beauty.

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Feb 21, 2010 77ships rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

It is a love story of sorts, it is a love story but not the conventional they-lived-happy ever after kind. It is the story of an affair between a man and a prostitute, well that is a love story as well just not the type that is often approved of.
A loner travels to Yuzawa (the name isn’t mentioned in the book itself), where he comes once a year to meet a geisha. The town lives almost exclusively on its tourism generated by its hot springs. He is an expert of sorts on Western ballet but in realit...more It is a love story of sorts, it is a love story but not the conventional they-lived-happy ever after kind. It is the story of an affair between a man and a prostitute, well that is a love story as well just not the type that is often approved of.
A loner travels to Yuzawa (the name isn’t mentioned in the book itself), where he comes once a year to meet a geisha. The town lives almost exclusively on its tourism generated by its hot springs. He is an expert of sorts on Western ballet but in reality he just seems himself a failure and Western ballet is his expertise because it is just a fantasy, he has read about it only and books and has never seen it actually performed. He likes it because he preferce the dream over reality. He comes to this town officially on vacation and that is basically what he does, he is there in order to see a particular geisha with whom he has had an affair before. I am aware that I shouldn’t describe geishas as prostitutes in general, seeing that their profession was closer that of a courtesan or an entertainer but that was just in the big cities like Tokyo and Kyoto, in the smaller places the were little more then prostitutes.

It is a love story or rather the desire for a love story then an actual love story, the need but not the presence of love. A novel about failure, failed lives, failing yourself, failing your friends and family, failing society and a failed love story. It is subble, to subtle for me in order to fully grasp it all and truly appreciate it. I am certain that I have missed out a lot, unintentionally skimming over all the subtleties. Not knowing Japanese, I have read a translation, I don’t have the cultural heritage either. It is really compact, Kawabata put a lot of effort into it in order to make sure that not a single word was wasted.

Conclusion: To me it was nice but nothing amazing but it seemed to have been a huge hit in Japan, Kawabata was awarded the Nobel prize in literature in 1968 (the meaning of that achievement has been a bit inconsistent over the years). Like I mentioned before I think that I missed a lot of the subtleties and lacked full understanding of the cultural situation of small remote tourist towns and villages of Japan in the ‘30s. If you want to read this, given its reputation, I would advice you to read up a lot of background and explanations prier to delving into this novel.
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Nov 20, 2009 Joe rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: nobel-prize-laureates, x2009-november, 2009

Most of this book is a close character study of two people. An older, idle gentleman of wealth falls for a young geisha in a mountain village. There interactions are both subtle and schizophrenic, and I was often catching up to the characters' thoughts. Their interactions read more like the screenplay - one with many full silences - than a novel.

For the last 20 pages, we're torn out of the fragmented dialogue and shown a huge, flowing metaphor. The novel's final action suddenly shows the entire...more

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Jun 16, 2007 Blair rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Kawabata creates a timeless poetic lovestory interspersed with poetic moments in descriptions of landscapes that speak for the characters' moods and provide subtle indications and foreshadowings on the relationship. While the main story is the skeleton of the book, the poetic descriptions are like joints; each reader interprets them according to his or her own experience and mentally twists the limbs of the skeleton to give shape to the creature that is this novel. Or something like that.

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Apr 12, 2013 Nikolai Kim rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition Recommends it for: The Tragic, or Aspirants Thereto

Shelves: japan

I'm going to try to write two reviews of Kawabata's "Snow Country," a light version and one that sets out more fully what I really think about this novel in the context of recent events.

This is the light(er) version.

I've heard "Snow Country" described as a "love story" on several occasions. If there is some aspect of love that operates as one of the major themes in "Snow Country" it's the same sort of love that one encounters in "Leaving Las Vegas". In other words, it is the self-absorbed fascin...more

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Aug 03, 2011 Nick rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

This novel has a beautiful title, and some beautiful (literary) metaphors. Some images that I was able to spot: The washing of the Chijimi kimono in the snow, on the background the raising Sun (had it been the washing of clothes at the fountain, on the white stones of a Spanish market, I would have thought "Carmen", but the comparison doesn't do justice, for there is the symbol of the Japanese Sun) .... the trembling fingers longing to touch the passion .... The book generally describes a World...more This novel has a beautiful title, and some beautiful (literary) metaphors. Some images that I was able to spot: The washing of the Chijimi kimono in the snow, on the background the raising Sun (had it been the washing of clothes at the fountain, on the white stones of a Spanish market, I would have thought "Carmen", but the comparison doesn't do justice, for there is the symbol of the Japanese Sun) .... the trembling fingers longing to touch the passion .... The book generally describes a World foreign to me, with strange habits, and even stranger characters (for instance, how can I understand the "kimono in trousers" invitation to sensuality; or the mistake Shimamura made, when initially calling Komako a "good girl", then changing to "good woman"). There is certitude however in Kawabata's writing, for these characters all have inner life and strength; and that makes for a more intense and more captivating reading than the average book would do to me .... While reading, for instance, I thought that one could "Chijimi" (i.e. that's how griping the lecture was, I was transforming a thing into a verb - I let you read the book, then translate this new "Chijimi" verb of mine to yourselves).

Make no mistake: This is definitely a Japanese novel, and this writer is a Japanese (i.e. he might have received the Nobel, but it wasn't for his Universal message). I read some other Japanese writers who had "eloped" to other shores .... This was not the case with Kawabata (who lived his entire life in Japan, and died a Samurai death). All the Japanese writers have insight, powerful introspective reflections - just that Kawabata has the distinct Made in Japan feeling attached to it.

Only 3 *s in my book, just because I could not completely understand this novel. It is still a bit of a mystery, to me, even now, after finishing it; and am afraid I'd need a patient Japanese to explain it to me fully. If this is any indication whatsoever, I am usually neutral for the 3 *s ratings. In this case, however, I look forward to read another Kawabata novel (i.e. hope to find Thousand Cranes somewhere).
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About Yasunari Kawabata

Yasunari Kawabata (川端康成) was a Japanese short story writer and novelist whose spare, lyrical, subtly-shaded prose works won him the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1968, the first Japanese author to receive the award. His works have enjoyed broad international appeal and are still widely read.

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House of the Sleeping Beauties and Other Stories

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Quotes from Snow Country

“But even more than her diary, Shimamura was surprised at her statement that she had carefully cataloged every novel and short story she had read since she was fifteen or sixteen. The record already filled ten notebooks.
"You write down your criticisms, do you?"
"I could never do anything like that. I just write down the author and the characters and how they are related to each other. That is about all."
"But what good does it do?"
"None at all."
"A waste of effort."
"A complete waste of effort," she answered brightly, as though the admission meant little to her. She gazed solemnly at Shimamura, however.
A complete waste of effort. For some reason Shimamura wanted to stress the point. But, drawn to her at that moment, he felt a quiet like the voice of the rain flow over him. He knew well enough that for her it was in fact no waste of effort, but somehow the final determination that it was had the effect of distilling and purifying the woman's existence.” — 23 people liked it

“The road was frozen. The village lay quiet under the cold sky. Komako hitched up the skirt of her kimono and tucked it into her obi. The moon shone like a blade frozen in blue ice.” — 12 people liked it

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