Whitaker's comments (member since Aug 25, 2008)

Whitaker's comments from the Constant Reader group.

Yeah, it was a jaw-dropping moment for me too. What was just as startling was finding out that almost all women only got the right to vote sometime in the 20th century. I'd always figured it for late 19th.

Triggered by Kenneth's comment (and by having just learnt about this over the weekend): I was rather startled to find out that a woman's right to vote was only given in some developed countries only very recently:
France - 1944
Italy - 1945 (same year as Japan)
Switzerland - 1971 !!!!
Portugal - 1976 !!!!!

I thought CRer's might find this bit of info as interesting as I did.

Kenneth, thanks for post. I'm glad you enjoyed the book. :-)

Capitu, here's your wish :-)

I read this book shortly after finishing Kazuo Ishiguro’s An Artist of the Floating World. Both books cover similar ground: a man in the twilight of his years reflecting on his past. I was going to write a review about how the book deals with old age and coming to terms with our life, about how Kawabata writes luminous prose with each chapter a beautiful image fading into the next.

But then I read a comment by Ishiguro. He said he didn’t get Kawabata because he was too plotless, too Japanese. And this is something that I’ve been struggling with: whether it’s even possible to communicate across beliefs, time and cultures.

I confess I had problems with this book. It’s by no means an easy read for a reader more used to Western modes of narrative. Almost nothing seems to happen. And if it does, it is barely set off by an act of the protagonist, Shingo. We see him trying to deal with his children’s problem marriages, but resolution takes place outside of his involvement. At best, we see an unfolding of a quiet acceptance towards himself and the waning of his years. And this communicated not directly but through very Japanese-based allusions and imagery. I had to spend some time googling to even get a rough sense of what the novel was about.

In the end, I enjoyed it. But what did I enjoy or even understand? A friend of mine once remarked how much he enjoyed Brideshead Revisited and its coruscating criticism of the Church and religion. Waugh, I’m afraid, would have rolled in his grave. He was Catholic, devoutly so, and Brideshead Revisited was his encomium, paean even, to the loving embrace of the Bride of God. A Catholic friend, reading the same book, talked of how it aptly captured the strong Catholic belief in the need for self-sacrifice and self-denial. Words of anathema of course to the me-generation who see the depiction of self-denial as a trenchant put-down of religion’s repression rather than as the path to salvation.

It’s like listening to an Indian raga or Indonesian gamelan music. My ear hears only noise. I’d have to spend time training myself to understand it before I’d be able to appreciate it. So, I ask this, is it even possible to understand the art of another culture, without at least some work towards an immersion in that culture? And even then, are we seeing through a glass darkly, or worse, reading only a warped image of our own reflection?

Capitu, thank you so much for your post. And please don't feel guilty at all. I'm happy for you; as a city boy I can only imagine how satifying it must be for you to look at these beautiful living things that you have planted. I'm eagerly awaiting discussing Dom Cassamuro here with you in January 2010.

Thank you too to everyone who took the time to read this book and to discuss it. And thanks also for allowing me to explore this lovely book with you. I too learn from so many of the comments and insights here on CR and I'm glad that I have been able to share some of my own with the people here.

Anything I say will only sound banal. Thank you for sharing that.

Wow, so much to respond to in all the posts!

Capitu wrote: "But, as much as I sympathize with Shingo, the western cultural baggage in me wants to slap him hard. For all his thoughtfulness towards Kikuko, he is oblivious to his only daughter and grand-daughter. I have a sense that the Japanese and Latino (my own) cultures sit on the opposite spectrum when comes to the expression of feelings, love and family ties. Therefore the experience of reading this book is beautifully alien, and quite puzzling to me."

Yes, I had a hard time grappling with the novel too. I sometimes wonder whether it is possible to truly understand a work from a different culture or a different age. An analogy would be like listening to an Indian raga. I don't get it. My ear isn't attuned to that kind of sound. I also recall overhearing a teen saying of some song from the 80's, "Is that music?" Of course, there's always the reverse, when a parent of a teen yells, "Turn off that noise!"

carol (akittykat) wrote: "I think his acceptance of age, like all of us,does bring a certain amount of lassitude towards his family and events in his life..."

It's a very interesting observation you've made, Carol. I know that in Indian cultures, each age is seen as having a specific duty. The years after the children are grown are supposed to be devoted to the spiritual side of life. Kind of gels with what you are saying. I guess there must also be a sense of perspective to the shape of life, something I hope to have more of when I reach those years too. :-)

Ricki wrote: "In a way I feel that the ending was more about the changes in Japanese society than the mere changes in Shingo and the ending shows a going forward in society."

Ricki, that's a very interesting comment. Could you elaborate?

Hmmm.... Let's see if we can jump start this again.

The novel starts with a dinner and ends with a dinner. Did you feel Shingo was happier at the dinner that ends the novel? Was the end of the novel a positive or negative ending for Shingo; was there some form of redemption for him or has he just passively accepted his slide into death?

The other nature image that came to mind was that of the gingko in the chapter entitled “The Chestnut”. Here Shingo notices that the gingko tree has put out unseasonable leaves in the autumn:

“The gingko has a sort of strength that the cherry doesn’t,” he said. “I’ve been thinking the ones that live long are different from the others. It must take a great deal of strength for an old tree like that to put out leaves in the fall.”
…
Besides being small, the leaves were scattered, too few to hide the branches. They seemed thin, and they were a pale yellowish colour, insufficiently green.
It was as if the autumn sun fell on a gingko that was, after all, naked.

It evokes so beautifully Shingo’s own situation.

And now, it's bedtime here in this timezone.

carol (akittykat) wrote: "In most arranged marriages love does not come until time spent and events shared are reached. There is not the first bloom of passion usually. When they come to know each other, love develops into a deep and abiding love, much deeper than the passion, because they become friends and allies."

What a beautiful way of putting it, Carol. :-)

Oooo, I'm so glad you brought that up Kenneth. And thank you for pulling out those references, Ricki.

Yes, the writing is heavily saturated with naturalist images that are also symbolic or just simply evocative. Reading the one on Basho's nature images, I was fascinated to notice how strongly the images in the first few chapters are associated with autumn: the moonviewing by Shingo, the typhoon, the reference to the chestnut falling during his marriage ceremony, and of course the maple. I also liked how the kirigirisu (cricket) is an image associated with age and loneliness, which is exactly how Shingo feels at the start.

Here’s a lovely passage that describes how he feels:

Shingo looked up at the sky. The moon was in a blaze….But the clouds, and the moon too, were cold and faintly white. Shingo felt autumn come over him.

Ricki, I really liked the way you put it: "It's almost like the image of 'unpeeling the onion' or, even better, the way most of us learn about our friends as friendship progresses." Such a wonderful image.

I'll have to think about Shingo/Yasuko's sister a bit more.

As for Shingo and Kikuko, what did everyone think of their shared love of nature? I was particularly taken by their walk in the park together. It seems that they connect via this shared love of nature.

I believe that contemplating nature is a somewhat spiritual, Zen thing in Japanese culture. It's both contemplative of beauty, and also a reminder that all things beautiful also fade and die. So, I saw Shuichi's interactions with Kikuko as both revitalising him and helping him accept his coming end.

I saw Kikuko's story somewhat differently.

I think that she went into the marriage somewhat naive and innocent. She's described as child-like and passive. That seems to form part of Shuichi's lack of attraction to her. Gradually, however, she becomes more adult, more realized. I think it's significant that it's after she "mothers" Shuichi when he returns home drunk that they have sex (it's implied that this is the episode that gets her pregnant). When she decides to abort the child, she's taking a stand and taking responsibility for her own life. She loses some of her passivity. When she goes back to her family home and returns, it's almost as if she returns as a new woman. She's described as having grown, becoming bigger. She is also more assertive. As Ricki points out, she talks about working in a shop with Fusako. Shuichi is ready to enter into a full adult relationship with this new woman.

Carol, I agree that the sensibility is somewhat strange. Was that what put you off?

To come back to your question about Shuichi's relationship with Kinu, I think that he basically regarded her as someone to have sex with, not someone that he loved and wanted to eventually marry. So, when she becomes pregnant, he wants her to abort the baby. And when she refuses, that breaks the understanding between them.

The way I read it, it seems that if she were to bear his child, she (and it) would become the family responsibility. That seems to be what Shingo is getting at. She doesn't seem to want this either which is why she asserts that it's not Shuichi's baby and hence not his responsibility.

At least that's how I saw things.

And to kick things off, more questions than answers...

So, what did you make of it? Did you like Kawabata's depiction of old age, post-war Japanese society, and Japanese culture and sensibility?

What did you think of Kikuko? Did you find her attitudes towards her husband, Shuichi, and her marriage very culturally alien? Do you think Kikuko has grown by the end of the novel? Or is she still the same passive, child-like creature? Do you think that she is never fully fleshed out as a character?

Just what is going on between Shingo and Kikuko? Is it a dirty old man thing: lusting after his daughter-in-law? Or is it more spiritual: a common love for beauty in nature? In his Nobel Prize speech, Kawabata said:

Dr. Yashiro Yukio, internationally known as a scholar of Botticelli, a man of great learning in the art of the past and the present, of the East and the West, has summed up one of the special characteristics of Japanese art in a single poetic sentence: "The time of the snows, of the moon, of the blossoms - - - then more than ever we think of our comrades." When we see the beauty of the snow, when we see the beauty of the full moon, when we see the beauty of the cherries in bloom, when in short we brush against and are awakened by the beauty of the four seasons, it is then that we think most of those close to us, and want them to share the pleasure. The excitement of beauty calls forth strong fellow feelings, yearnings for companionship, and the word "comrade" can be taken to mean "human being". The snow, the moon, the blossoms, words expressive of the seasons as they move one into another, include in the Japanese tradition the beauty of mountains and rivers and grasses and trees, of all the myriad manifestations of nature, of human feelings as well.

Perhaps this illuminates the relationship between Shingo and Kikuko?

And what's this whole thing between Shingo and Yasuko's sister (who never even gets a name)? Do you think he's laid to rest his infatuation for her by the end of the novel?

Kawabata's Work

During his career, critics had difficulty classifying Kawabata because he developed a unique style combining elements of traditional and modern literature. International audiences, including the Nobel Prize Committee, thought of Kawabata as representing traditional Japanese literature. This view often confused Japanese audiences, who considered Kawabata a modernist.

Kawabata's fiction combines elements of modern and traditional literature. In addition to remaining true to traditional forms, Kawabata often focused on retaining traditional culture in the face of the modern world as the subject of his fiction. He presented and defended such traditional Japanese forms as the tea ceremony in Sembazuru (.Thousand Cranes; 1952), the game of Go in Go sei-gen kidan (The Master of Go; 1954), and folk art in Koto (The Old Capital; 1962).

Kawabata wrote in a style similar to traditional Japanese haiku poetry, known as renga, or linked poetry. His work is filled with imagery and symbolism. Kawabata never wrote about political turmoil, but instead focused on personal and spiritual crises. His major themes included loneliness, alienation, the meaninglessness and fleeting nature of human passion, aging, and death. Indeed, when he accepted the Nobel Prize, he said that in his work he tried to beautify death and to seek harmony among man, nature, and emptiness. A transcript of his speech may be read here.

Typical of Japanese literature, there are no clear-cut good or evil forces in Kawabata's fiction. He leaves matters unresolved, and his endings are ambiguous. Kawabata's fiction relies on his readers and their imagination to decide the fate of his characters.

Some reviewers have pointed out the difference in characterization found in Japanese literature as opposed to Western literature. They assert that Kawabata's characterization is not fully fleshed out and sometimes falls into symbolism

Yasunari Kawabata




Kawabata was born in Osaka in 1899. His early life was filled with loss. His father died when he was two years old, his mother when he was three, his sister when he was nine, and his grandfather when he was 16. He spent most of his childhood living in school dormitories. Family life is very important in Japanese culture, and the loneliness and alienation that characterized his youth infused his later fiction.

Kawabata attended the elite First Higher School from 1917 to 1920 and received a degree from the English Literature Department of Tokyo Imperial University in 1920; in 1924 he received a degree from the Japanese Literature Department.

As a young writer in 1924, Kawabata worked with other writers to create the Bungei jidai, or Literary Era, in opposition to the proletarian literature popular at the time. They were known as "Neoperceptionists," and they were concerned with the aesthetics of literature. Their work focused on diction, lyricism, and rhythm. While involved in this literary movement, Kawabata was better known as a critic than as a writer himself.

In 1926 he gained attention for his fiction with the publication of his short story "The Izu Dancer" in a literary monthly. He went on to write short stories and several novels which earned him an international reputation.

He became a member of the Art Academy of Japan in 1953, and in 1957 was appointed chairman of the P.E.N. Club of Japan. Kawabata received the Goethe Medal in 1959 in Frankfurt and in 1961 was awarded Japan's highest recognition for a man of letters, the Order of Culture. He went on to win the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1968.

Yasunari Kawabata committed suicide in April of 1972, leaving no note or explanation.

Rather than begin a new thread, I thought I'd just add to this one: keeps everything all in one place. :-)

Almost forgot. I've been meaning to post a short note on the wearing of the kimono. Remember that episode where everyone makes a fuss over Shingo wearing his kimono right flap over left flap? What's the big deal right?

Did some googling, and it turns out that the kimono is worn left over right. These images show the correct way to wear the kimono:






Right over left is only used when dressing a corpse for a funeral.

Capitu wrote: "I am sorry if I jumped the gun sharing this passage."

No, no, twin, don't apologise. I'm cool with this, and you make a super great point: "if I focus on the aesthetic beauty of the flowers, trees and landscapes he describes over and over again, I will still “get” the emotional meaning of the story."