Angela's review
Snow Country
by Yasunari Kawabata
Angela's review
Snow Country by Yasunari Kawabata
Angela's review
rating:
bookshelves:
japanese-authors
recommended for: folks interested in Japanese culture and literature, obviously.
I think I read prize-winning novels just to wrinkle my nose at their non-prize-winning writing.
Depending on the day of the week, I like Japanese literature a whole lot... or I despise it for the almost inevitable copout (but it's supposed to MEAN something) endings. Snow Country succeeded in keeping me somewhere around the middle of the road. Didn't love it, didn't hate it - it's just one of my "should-read"s that has finally been read.
I found the "hero" (as he's described in the introduction, though he is no hero) to be annoying in his apathy and cynicism (maybe because I identified more than I'd like to admit) and the "heroine" annoying in her willingness to be played... and not just because she was a geisha. Though Kawabata seems to have attempted to write some sort of strong and/or independent woman by having her say things like "I work when I want to work," she's still just a tagalong on the heels of men.
All of the Mil...more
Depending on the day of the week, I like Japanese literature a whole lot... or I despise it for the almost inevitable copout (but it's supposed to MEAN something) endings. Snow Country succeeded in keeping me somewhere around the middle of the road. Didn't love it, didn't hate it - it's just one of my "should-read"s that has finally been read.
I found the "hero" (as he's described in the introduction, though he is no hero) to be annoying in his apathy and cynicism (maybe because I identified more than I'd like to admit) and the "heroine" annoying in her willingness to be played... and not just because she was a geisha. Though Kawabata seems to have attempted to write some sort of strong and/or independent woman by having her say things like "I work when I want to work," she's still just a tagalong on the heels of men.
All of the Mil...more
