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The Lake is the history of an obsession. It traces a man's sad pursuit of an unattainable perfection, a beauty out of reach, admired from a distance, unconsummated. Homeless, a fugitive from an ambiguous crime, his is an incurable longing that drives him to shadow nameless women in the street and hide in ditches as they pass above him, beautiful and aloof. For their beauty is not of this world, but of a dream--the voice of a girl he meets in a Turkish bath is "an angel's," the figures of two students he follows seem to "glide over the green grass that hid their knees." Reality is the durable ugliness that is his constant companion and is symbolized in the grotesque deformity of the hero's feet. And it is the irreconcilable nature of these worlds that explains the strangely dehumanized, shadowy quality of the eroticism that pervades this novel.
In a sense The Lake is a formless novel, a "happening," making it one of the most modern of all Kawabata's works. Just as the hero's interest might be caught by some passing stranger, so the course of the novel swerves abruptly from present to past, memory shades into hallucination, dreams break suddenly into daylight. It is an extraordinary performance of free association, made all the more astonishing for the skill with which these fragments are resolved within the completed tapestry.
134 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1954
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3786 people want to read
About the author
Yasunari Kawabata
393?books3,651?followersYasunari Kawabata () 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 today.
Nobel Lecture: 1968
Nobel Lecture: 1968
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 319 reviews
September 27, 2019
After reading and enjoying this author’s lyrical and understated writing in four other books I was surprised by this book’s tone – much harsher if I can use that term. The main character is a socially inept guy, age 34, a loner who stalks young women by following them and then trying to come on to them. But he’s so inept that his first topic of discussion often ends up being his severe athlete’s foot! That’s a way to get the women!
He had a job as a college lecturer, but he lost it precisely because of his harassment of women. He seems to be unable to control himself. He did have one long-term affair with a young woman at the college, but she broke that off and married someone else. He is angered by and jealous of other happy couples he sees.
One of the major incidents in the story is that of a purse with a lot of money that he picked up when a woman he was following either threw at him or tried to strike him with it. She ran into a store and he kept the purse, thinking he didn’t steal it if she threw it at him. The story shifts for a while to this woman and her elderly ‘sugar-daddy’ lover.
In a couple of ‘overly-coincidental’ coincidences it turns out that the main character had job ghost-writing speeches for this elderly man. Later he stalks a young girl whose boyfriend is the brother of the woman who owned the purse. But these coincidences just happen – they don’t really advance the story in any way that I could see.
The other works I’ve read by this author are The Sound of the Mountain, First Snow on Mount Fuji, Thousand Cranes and Snow Country. Kawabata was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1968, the first Japanese author to receive the award. While it has good writing, it didn’t grab me the way his other stories did. I also note that of his dozen or so novels, The Lake is the least know of his works based on the number of GR ratings and reviews. A decent read but I can’t really say I recommend it as I do the other four.
Photo of Mount Fuji and Lake Kawaguchi from img.traveltriangle.com
Photo of the author from mutanteggplant.com
He had a job as a college lecturer, but he lost it precisely because of his harassment of women. He seems to be unable to control himself. He did have one long-term affair with a young woman at the college, but she broke that off and married someone else. He is angered by and jealous of other happy couples he sees.
One of the major incidents in the story is that of a purse with a lot of money that he picked up when a woman he was following either threw at him or tried to strike him with it. She ran into a store and he kept the purse, thinking he didn’t steal it if she threw it at him. The story shifts for a while to this woman and her elderly ‘sugar-daddy’ lover.
In a couple of ‘overly-coincidental’ coincidences it turns out that the main character had job ghost-writing speeches for this elderly man. Later he stalks a young girl whose boyfriend is the brother of the woman who owned the purse. But these coincidences just happen – they don’t really advance the story in any way that I could see.
The other works I’ve read by this author are The Sound of the Mountain, First Snow on Mount Fuji, Thousand Cranes and Snow Country. Kawabata was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1968, the first Japanese author to receive the award. While it has good writing, it didn’t grab me the way his other stories did. I also note that of his dozen or so novels, The Lake is the least know of his works based on the number of GR ratings and reviews. A decent read but I can’t really say I recommend it as I do the other four.
Photo of Mount Fuji and Lake Kawaguchi from img.traveltriangle.com
Photo of the author from mutanteggplant.com
August 18, 2013
To the singing oars,
Jump the watery imp,
Moon-lit skies wake,
Tender palms aglow,
Lonely hearts to split,
Weeping willows below,
Cages with open doors,
Fireflies over the lake.
On a nearby tree, the screeching became louder with every passing minute. I knew it then, it was already past midnight. The bats were probably having a little party; for once their pairs of lustrous eyes were not being meticulously counted by a silly woman amid the flickering of the street light. I did not care about these nocturnal visitors; I was more fascinated with the valiant fireflies that nestled in monstrous human palms. The haiku of great poet Issa ran through my mind:-
Issa says:-
So quickly they join
the human goblins...
fireflies.
Tiny insects being chased by humongous strangers, trying to capture their splendor in a glass jar and as they glow in dark, gaze obsessively; till they glow no more. Behind the glass cage, as these fireflies flutter, radiating through their fears, smiles are painted as we take pleasure in their confined beauty. Is it then the beauty of our eyes that bestow upon the flies a claustrophobic existence, pleasing? What is it that drives human psyche to harbor a blinding compulsion of illicit beauty? Does a soul find an empty heart desirable? Do murderers find their hands beautiful? Does a sleeping man discover beauty in his nightmarish mind? Or, like Gimpei, is there a need to reveal ugliness of the body to rationalize the craving of a dream-like beauty?
“How many times in his youth had he told different lies because of his ugly feet?”....”Was the ugliness of a part of his body crying out, longing for beauty? Was it part of the divine plan that ugly feet chased beautiful women?..."
Gimpei likes to pursue strange, gorgeous ladies because similar to his athlete’s foot, the women keep coming in his path and never fade away. The surreal delicateness in a woman’s youth is ephemeral and Gimpei needs to embrace it by trailing his “angels” before he may misplace them forever. Gimpei followed the women to the theatre, the concert halls, in the school where he used to once teach, but with the exception of Hisako, he never stopped to talk to these strange pretty ladies as it would be the end of his hallucinatory paradise.
"One can’t stop and suddenly speak to a complete stranger, can one?......When it happens I could die of sadness. I feel somehow empty and drained...."
The glances of Gimpei’s memory are an ongoing charade of past and present; chronicling his lonesome and insufferable life. His stubbornness about not sharing secrets delineates the existential truth of secrets being the only personal and constant companion of a man in this transient world.
“Perfect awareness might exist in heaven or hell, but not in human world. If you have no secrets, it means that you don’t exist, that you are not living your life….. No human emotion can survive without them..."
See, this is why I love Kawabata, he speaks my genuine sentiments. Your secrets, your deepest scars belong only to you. You might lose an arm, you might lose loved ones, but you never lose your secrets. And when you become an open book, your life somehow amalgamates into someone else’s surreptitious world and you feel lost in their secrets, once again. Happiness sometimes perishes, but sorrows live on in the darkest corner of your heart.
Kawabata employs the ‘mono no aware’ concept, strongly. Similar to his , he delineates the power of beauty that walks along the path of emptiness and lingering sadness.
The thought of her life savings being gone brought a momentary joy to Miyako; as if her life had avenged the ignominy of Arita’s hideous monetary compensation for Miyako’s lost youth, somehow restoring her dignity. The power of money came with the ugliness of being a mistress to an elderly man.
“The two hundred thousand yen was Miyako’s compensation for the loss of her youth-that brief flowering which she had wasted by giving her body to a half dead, gray haired old man.....When one loses the money one has saved, the very thought of saving is a bitter memory..."
By making a bizarre comparison of sucking his mistresses’ firm breasts to breast feeding in his mother’s warm arms, Arita found a respite for his nightmarish dreams. The loveliness of youthful breasts was marred by Arita’s despair of an unfulfilled motherly love.
“For only with a mother could the old man find peace of mind.”
The tranquility of a Turkish bath destroyed by Gimpei’s chaotic dreams, his arousing upheavals over his newly acquired obsession, the stillness of the lake disfigured by ghostly memories and his ever festering illusionary Athlete’s foot; made Gimpei fall even further in depths of self-loathing lies sinking in the “inky waves” of wretchedness.
“I want to follow them to the ends of the earth, but I can’t. The only way to chase a person that way is to kill him”.
Kawabata allows human emotions to escape the culpabilities through an abstract tunnel by entitling remorse to non-living objects. Hence, the reader can see Gimpei’s innate desire to pursue “angels” being weighed down by the guilt harboring in the inadequacies of his diseased feet. The frosty lake being the victim of Gimpei’s past and present regressions. The mono no aware concept reaches its climax with Gimpei questioning the compelling reality of one-sided love and Miyako experiencing a vague ecstasy when being followed by odd men. Here, we have a man who mixes the very purity of love with sinister passion and a woman who finds affection from her creepy followers; both these people sensing beauty from their repulsive occurrences.
Kawabata with precise erudition slips in the wabi-sabi theory of transience and imperfections.
“The world’s most beautiful is not always some towering green peak, but a vast, barren mound covered with volcanic ashes and rocks.”
To every beginning there is an unavoidable end. An attractive hand must accept the fate of someday being covered with nasty liver spots. To every thriving life there is death and to every beauty there is an awaiting decay. A clean existence is always muddled with clandestine stories. The beauty of prostitutes being robbed by the war, the infant for whom death would be a lucky escape, Gimpei’s women who would one day prefer being old rather than be stalked for their youth; Hisako momentary gifting Gimpei his first true happiness and the lake whose serene waters carry secrets of melancholic human corpses; are buried in the aesthetic core of impermanence.
Kawabata does not insist on liking Gimpei, Miyako, Arita,Hisako etc… ; he does not either seek sympathies for them . He yearns for the reader to perceive these actors for who they really are. Kawabata hopes that in order to avoid viewing flaws in the standing perfect picture, we stop squinting till our eyelids hurt. Even if the eyes are shut, the flaws still exists. The missed line, the shabby strokes, is what makes the painting comprehensible. Nothing last forever, nothing is faultless because perfection itself is a vibrant masquerade of imperfections. Let the night be dark without the radiance of fireflies, let the lake be silent even with floating scary images because some day the chase for a single firefly or the need for counting the eyes of screeching bats could be repulsive as a diseased foot. The advent of insanity.
“You fool! You fool!”
The ephemera of beauty and a prospect of leering blemish.
October 19, 2013
I’ll Find You
I’ve just read three Kawabata works in succession to try and appreciate the merits of this Nobel Prize Winner.
Based on one fairly distracted reading, I have to say that this was the weakest of the three novels.
I would probably rate it at three stars, possibly 3 ?, but I’ll increase it to four, because of the quality of the prose.
Less than Exquisite Fantasy
The prose is precise and economical, insofar as it describes external realities. It is as graceful and evocative as brush strokes or haiku.
The question is: what does it evoke?
The plot deals with two males in difficult personal situations, partly regarding women.
We see them from the outside. I question whether we see them from the inside. You could argue that we see the effect, without necessarily understanding or appreciating the cause.
The inner life of the characters is a matter of inference from their externalities. This could be an exciting literary achievement if Kawabata pulled it off. However, I have to question whether he did.
A Lie, Once Told, Never Vanishes, But Chases After Us
My judgement could be harsher because of the nature of the two protagonists: an older man who sleeps with two younger women on his domestic payroll, and a younger man who follows or stalks several school-aged girls over a number of years.
We learn little about the internal psychology of the males, as we do in "Lolita". We don’t have that degree of information in order to make a judgement, whether positive or negative, about their conduct, except that they occasionally resort to lies.
There are suggestions that their conduct might have some explanation in their past – one has neuralgia, while the other has misshapen feet (which are described as "an ugliness" as was the birth mark in "Thousand Cranes") and his father died when he was very young. However, I find these causes unconvincing and less than exculpatory of sexual abuse.
I just didn’t find any useful analysis of the male gaze or desire. Nor did I see any realistic description of the impact of such conduct on the women concerned.
Instead, I suspect that the appeal of the novel when it was published in 1954 partly derived from the level of sexual explicitness (which by today’s standards is almost non-existent).
This explicitness and other sexual concerns continue to resonate in more recent Japanese fiction, especially that of Haruki Murakami.
I’ve just read three Kawabata works in succession to try and appreciate the merits of this Nobel Prize Winner.
Based on one fairly distracted reading, I have to say that this was the weakest of the three novels.
I would probably rate it at three stars, possibly 3 ?, but I’ll increase it to four, because of the quality of the prose.
Less than Exquisite Fantasy
The prose is precise and economical, insofar as it describes external realities. It is as graceful and evocative as brush strokes or haiku.
The question is: what does it evoke?
The plot deals with two males in difficult personal situations, partly regarding women.
We see them from the outside. I question whether we see them from the inside. You could argue that we see the effect, without necessarily understanding or appreciating the cause.
The inner life of the characters is a matter of inference from their externalities. This could be an exciting literary achievement if Kawabata pulled it off. However, I have to question whether he did.
A Lie, Once Told, Never Vanishes, But Chases After Us
My judgement could be harsher because of the nature of the two protagonists: an older man who sleeps with two younger women on his domestic payroll, and a younger man who follows or stalks several school-aged girls over a number of years.
We learn little about the internal psychology of the males, as we do in "Lolita". We don’t have that degree of information in order to make a judgement, whether positive or negative, about their conduct, except that they occasionally resort to lies.
There are suggestions that their conduct might have some explanation in their past – one has neuralgia, while the other has misshapen feet (which are described as "an ugliness" as was the birth mark in "Thousand Cranes") and his father died when he was very young. However, I find these causes unconvincing and less than exculpatory of sexual abuse.
I just didn’t find any useful analysis of the male gaze or desire. Nor did I see any realistic description of the impact of such conduct on the women concerned.
Instead, I suspect that the appeal of the novel when it was published in 1954 partly derived from the level of sexual explicitness (which by today’s standards is almost non-existent).
This explicitness and other sexual concerns continue to resonate in more recent Japanese fiction, especially that of Haruki Murakami.
August 23, 2023
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April 23, 2011
"Have you ever had that experience... a feeling of profound regret after passing some stranger in the street? I've had it often. I think to myself, 'What a delightful looking person!' or 'What a beautiful woman!' or 'I've never seen anyone quite as attractive as that before.' It happens when I'm just strolling around the streets, or sitting next to a stranger in the theatre or walking down the steps from a concert hall. But once they've gone, I know I'll probably never meet them again in my life... One can't stop and suddenly speak to a complete stranger, can one? Perhaps that's life, but when it happens I could die of sadness. I feel somehow drained and empty. I want to follow them to the ends of the earth, but I can't. The only way to chase a person that way is to kill him."
I love you, Kawabata. The Lake is my seventh Yasunari Kawabata (how long has it been? A month, if that) and the third on my favorites shelf ("rubber-ring" for my gotta have The Smiths reference. I will not let them run away from me). You can take my review with all the salt in the pacific ocean because for all the big time numbers The Lake crunched on me, I keep a distance of culture differences and times. Whatever the back of the box says isn't my box. My mood ring that's mysteriously stagnated on black is tinged with something else than beauty and country lines. Purple? Blue? Black and blue for the shit that beat the shit out of me? I'm just glad there are colors. It isn't those kinds of differences. I could chase down the person down the street and the measured space (ragged breathing. From the running?) between us wouldn't be about that. I wouldn't chase, though. I'd not chase. I'd make up a story if I didn't look for this feeling in a Kawabata.
The Lake is my kind of book. This is what I wish I could articulate what I want in my life (ahem books). I'm going to try like the little heart that could(n't) and anyone who reads this who has found this in the book lives of another might feel I am someone they can share it with. Really, why can't these kinds of books fly out at me whenever I enter a bookshop or library? (Or abandoned benches, beaches, green eggs and ham eateries, whatever.)
I find this in books because it isn't the attractive person that I look for, unlike Gimpei. I'm looking for what drives and what walks...
"Perhaps he had followed the woman because something inside her made her susceptible to being chased by him. They might be inhabitants of the same infernal world. He could see it from his own experience. He rejoiced at the thought that Miyako Mizuki might be like him, and bitterly regretted not having copied down her address.
Miyako must certainly have been frightened while she was being followed by Gimpei, but she might also have experienced a tingling pleasure, without recognizing its prescence. Can an entirely one-sided pleasure really exist in the human world? Had it not, perhaps, been like a drug addict's sensing out a fellow sufferer, that he should have made a special point of following Miyako when there were so many other pretty women walking about town?"
This! Kawabata, I really love you. Do books sense on the other sides of the pages? Are the eyes clinging to the words windows into the soul? Writers bleed out words and decades later someone picks it up and maybe a side by side reflection appears, allowing a donation of that too rich for my blood into my tired blood. It is really too bad that I don't know my own blood type. The point is that the suffering doesn't have to be exact science. Side by side! I've tried to make sense of this to me because I am pitiful enough to consider these mental round and rounds of mine to be my "life's work". The best Gimpei ever is gonna get is this realization that Miyako might've had it too. He's not the stereotypical only after the chase guy. He's down in the dumps and the acoustics in his trashcan don't reverberate honest reflections of his subjects. How could they? It couldn't transform him. The beauty coulda depressed me a whole fucking lot if Kawabata wasn't Kawabata. His books that aren't as purely amazing as this and The Sound of the Mountain were harder to hear above the day and out fray. Beauty. I can't see it. Transforming is a lost cause. I don't believe in redemption that way. Side by side! What good is vicarious when it doesn't have anything to do with you? If you imagine it hard enough does it come true?
"Was his habit of chasing after women related to this ugliness, since it was his feet that did the chasing? He was surprised at the thought. Was the ugliness of a part of his body crying out, longing for beauty? Was it part of the divine plan that ugly feet chased beautiful women?"
Not this. I know what the plot description says. I know what Gimpei says. I don't believe it. (This might be where smart goodreaders who have the ability to seperate the emotional might wanna ignore me.) It was so much more than the feet. Timelessness. Hope. The walking is GOING somewhere, not the getting. He doesn't GET anything. I know about what it means to look forward to something. Possibility can be a lot.
One of the women that he follows, Miyako, desperately watched the horizon of her own youth like it's the beach on the other side. She's probably in that proverbial boat with the seventy something man she's mistress to. The one you gotta decide if you're going to let them live and sacrafice yourself or not. Not making a choice they both are. The old man says he's had revenge taken on him for being old. Miyako misses the youth she still has. It's all too fucked up. Being followed makes her feel as if she is still going somewhere, I think. I love to read this and think to myself "This is what they are feeling" as if I was following them on the street and catching our mutal reflections in store windows. Unlike the old man, however, it isn't youth or beauty for sale. Miyako wants to see someone be happy. The envy hurts. Hurting is better than being in that proverbial boat with a dead man.
"Anyway, it's just a morbid fantasy, a cover for girlish weaknesses, to believe in the kind of intimate friendship where you share absolutely everything. Perfect awareness might exist in heaven or hell, but not in the human world. If you have no secrets from Miss Onda it means that you don't exist, that you're not living your own life."
When Gimpei was a teacher, he had an "affair" with a student, Hisako. Gimpei chased Hisako eternally. Hisako keeps running in place, I guess. I'm haunted by her because even though she got married, it is hard to chase her any further than we went with Gimpei.
The young girl in the bathhouse was almost forgotten to me when I "met" Gimpei's other loves. What is it with that word love? I don't know what other word to use. My ex told me many times that we English speakers used love for everything so that it no longer had any meaning. That made me self concious of ever using it at all. Well, I guess I don't know really a word for hoping to have found a dream in another. I don't use vocabulary any better than I use all of my brain or all of my heart. Adrenaline might make me run faster. The Lake isn't an adrenaline book. It's a round and round mental book and I want to take my time. Stop thinking me to death, Mariel! So, the bathhouse girl doesn't either. Gimpei makes her so shy with his ecstacy over her voice that she can only whisper.
"A lie, once told, never vanishes, but chases after us. Just as Gimpei followed women, so his lies trailed behind him. Perhaps it is the same with crime. A crime, once committed, pursues a person until he repeats it. Bad habits are like that. The first time Gimpei followed a woman led to the second, and so on..."
There are more...
"Gimpei felt shattered, heartbroken. Never again could he be the boy who had played with Yayoi or the teacher who had been in love with Hisako."
Machi, the young girl in the park with the shiba (I've long wanted a shiba. I have a virtual one in nintendodogs on nintendods! Useless Mariel information alert!) replaces the former loves with her younger beauty. I don't grasp purity like that. The two don't go side by side in my mind. Miyako's staring after the figure she felt was happy meant much, much more to me than Gimpei's beauty gravity.
"Though he felt nothing but self-loathing as they walked entangled up the street, he still had an urge to see her feet without rubber boots. Yet it seemed he could already see them- toes not simian like his own, but misshapen, with thick, brownish skin. When he pictured himself lying with the woman with their legs stretched out, Gimpei felt like vomiting."
It's stuck in my throat. I know that Gimpei's beauty is about his own ugliness... (A way to keep something that flies. The huge firefly he mistook for a star could be that love. In a cage, hooked on the back of Machi's dress.) But I wish it was more than reading the plot description and going "Oh, his ugly feet followed beauty". I kinda want to cut out Gimpei's reflection all together because if that is all he can see...
How can you get side by side when you're always running?
It is in the back of my mind that the point was that all along. But I've got it in me too to look for my own when living my life, and I stop in my tracks. And that was this book too because it has shared its blood with my own. What I'm looking for is more than beauty... I just gotta listen. Bind those fucking chicken feet. Dance on some hot coals. Fetishize. Something. Don't leave me behind!
P.s. All of the salt raining on the little girl with the umbrella! The Lake is a strangled kinda erotic. The there is no such thing as no strings attached sex. The boat with the dead man. Little mermaid loses her voice shyness.
I love you, Kawabata. The Lake is my seventh Yasunari Kawabata (how long has it been? A month, if that) and the third on my favorites shelf ("rubber-ring" for my gotta have The Smiths reference. I will not let them run away from me). You can take my review with all the salt in the pacific ocean because for all the big time numbers The Lake crunched on me, I keep a distance of culture differences and times. Whatever the back of the box says isn't my box. My mood ring that's mysteriously stagnated on black is tinged with something else than beauty and country lines. Purple? Blue? Black and blue for the shit that beat the shit out of me? I'm just glad there are colors. It isn't those kinds of differences. I could chase down the person down the street and the measured space (ragged breathing. From the running?) between us wouldn't be about that. I wouldn't chase, though. I'd not chase. I'd make up a story if I didn't look for this feeling in a Kawabata.
The Lake is my kind of book. This is what I wish I could articulate what I want in my life (ahem books). I'm going to try like the little heart that could(n't) and anyone who reads this who has found this in the book lives of another might feel I am someone they can share it with. Really, why can't these kinds of books fly out at me whenever I enter a bookshop or library? (Or abandoned benches, beaches, green eggs and ham eateries, whatever.)
I find this in books because it isn't the attractive person that I look for, unlike Gimpei. I'm looking for what drives and what walks...
"Perhaps he had followed the woman because something inside her made her susceptible to being chased by him. They might be inhabitants of the same infernal world. He could see it from his own experience. He rejoiced at the thought that Miyako Mizuki might be like him, and bitterly regretted not having copied down her address.
Miyako must certainly have been frightened while she was being followed by Gimpei, but she might also have experienced a tingling pleasure, without recognizing its prescence. Can an entirely one-sided pleasure really exist in the human world? Had it not, perhaps, been like a drug addict's sensing out a fellow sufferer, that he should have made a special point of following Miyako when there were so many other pretty women walking about town?"
This! Kawabata, I really love you. Do books sense on the other sides of the pages? Are the eyes clinging to the words windows into the soul? Writers bleed out words and decades later someone picks it up and maybe a side by side reflection appears, allowing a donation of that too rich for my blood into my tired blood. It is really too bad that I don't know my own blood type. The point is that the suffering doesn't have to be exact science. Side by side! I've tried to make sense of this to me because I am pitiful enough to consider these mental round and rounds of mine to be my "life's work". The best Gimpei ever is gonna get is this realization that Miyako might've had it too. He's not the stereotypical only after the chase guy. He's down in the dumps and the acoustics in his trashcan don't reverberate honest reflections of his subjects. How could they? It couldn't transform him. The beauty coulda depressed me a whole fucking lot if Kawabata wasn't Kawabata. His books that aren't as purely amazing as this and The Sound of the Mountain were harder to hear above the day and out fray. Beauty. I can't see it. Transforming is a lost cause. I don't believe in redemption that way. Side by side! What good is vicarious when it doesn't have anything to do with you? If you imagine it hard enough does it come true?
"Was his habit of chasing after women related to this ugliness, since it was his feet that did the chasing? He was surprised at the thought. Was the ugliness of a part of his body crying out, longing for beauty? Was it part of the divine plan that ugly feet chased beautiful women?"
Not this. I know what the plot description says. I know what Gimpei says. I don't believe it. (This might be where smart goodreaders who have the ability to seperate the emotional might wanna ignore me.) It was so much more than the feet. Timelessness. Hope. The walking is GOING somewhere, not the getting. He doesn't GET anything. I know about what it means to look forward to something. Possibility can be a lot.
One of the women that he follows, Miyako, desperately watched the horizon of her own youth like it's the beach on the other side. She's probably in that proverbial boat with the seventy something man she's mistress to. The one you gotta decide if you're going to let them live and sacrafice yourself or not. Not making a choice they both are. The old man says he's had revenge taken on him for being old. Miyako misses the youth she still has. It's all too fucked up. Being followed makes her feel as if she is still going somewhere, I think. I love to read this and think to myself "This is what they are feeling" as if I was following them on the street and catching our mutal reflections in store windows. Unlike the old man, however, it isn't youth or beauty for sale. Miyako wants to see someone be happy. The envy hurts. Hurting is better than being in that proverbial boat with a dead man.
"Anyway, it's just a morbid fantasy, a cover for girlish weaknesses, to believe in the kind of intimate friendship where you share absolutely everything. Perfect awareness might exist in heaven or hell, but not in the human world. If you have no secrets from Miss Onda it means that you don't exist, that you're not living your own life."
When Gimpei was a teacher, he had an "affair" with a student, Hisako. Gimpei chased Hisako eternally. Hisako keeps running in place, I guess. I'm haunted by her because even though she got married, it is hard to chase her any further than we went with Gimpei.
The young girl in the bathhouse was almost forgotten to me when I "met" Gimpei's other loves. What is it with that word love? I don't know what other word to use. My ex told me many times that we English speakers used love for everything so that it no longer had any meaning. That made me self concious of ever using it at all. Well, I guess I don't know really a word for hoping to have found a dream in another. I don't use vocabulary any better than I use all of my brain or all of my heart. Adrenaline might make me run faster. The Lake isn't an adrenaline book. It's a round and round mental book and I want to take my time. Stop thinking me to death, Mariel! So, the bathhouse girl doesn't either. Gimpei makes her so shy with his ecstacy over her voice that she can only whisper.
"A lie, once told, never vanishes, but chases after us. Just as Gimpei followed women, so his lies trailed behind him. Perhaps it is the same with crime. A crime, once committed, pursues a person until he repeats it. Bad habits are like that. The first time Gimpei followed a woman led to the second, and so on..."
There are more...
"Gimpei felt shattered, heartbroken. Never again could he be the boy who had played with Yayoi or the teacher who had been in love with Hisako."
Machi, the young girl in the park with the shiba (I've long wanted a shiba. I have a virtual one in nintendodogs on nintendods! Useless Mariel information alert!) replaces the former loves with her younger beauty. I don't grasp purity like that. The two don't go side by side in my mind. Miyako's staring after the figure she felt was happy meant much, much more to me than Gimpei's beauty gravity.
"Though he felt nothing but self-loathing as they walked entangled up the street, he still had an urge to see her feet without rubber boots. Yet it seemed he could already see them- toes not simian like his own, but misshapen, with thick, brownish skin. When he pictured himself lying with the woman with their legs stretched out, Gimpei felt like vomiting."
It's stuck in my throat. I know that Gimpei's beauty is about his own ugliness... (A way to keep something that flies. The huge firefly he mistook for a star could be that love. In a cage, hooked on the back of Machi's dress.) But I wish it was more than reading the plot description and going "Oh, his ugly feet followed beauty". I kinda want to cut out Gimpei's reflection all together because if that is all he can see...
How can you get side by side when you're always running?
It is in the back of my mind that the point was that all along. But I've got it in me too to look for my own when living my life, and I stop in my tracks. And that was this book too because it has shared its blood with my own. What I'm looking for is more than beauty... I just gotta listen. Bind those fucking chicken feet. Dance on some hot coals. Fetishize. Something. Don't leave me behind!
P.s. All of the salt raining on the little girl with the umbrella! The Lake is a strangled kinda erotic. The there is no such thing as no strings attached sex. The boat with the dead man. Little mermaid loses her voice shyness.
January 12, 2019
In un alternarsi di passato e presente, che si sfiorano, si toccano e a volte si sovrappongono, passiamo dall’immobilità del lago dell’infanzia, ritrovato a distanza di anni, a uno stagno affollato per una caccia alle lucciole, a una città del Giappone distrutto dalla guerra, tra le cui rovine, luci e rumori figure femminili si muovono come in un sogno.
Ginpei le segue, incapace di resistere, ossessionato dal fascino delle sconosciute che probabilmente non rivedrà più.
“Che creatura seducente, che splendida donna! In questo mondo non esiste nessun'altra che sia affascinante come lei." E poi lei si allontana e io non potrò mai più rivederla. D'altra parte non è lecito chiamare una sconosciuta, rivolgerle la parola. ? dunque questa la vita?
In simili circostanze mi sento triste sino alla morte, sono colto da vertigini. Vorrei inseguirla sino ai con-fini del mondo, ma neppure questo è possibile. L'unico modo per farlo sarebbe ucciderla. ”
Lo sguardo si perde nei particolari, il candore della pelle, i lobi delle orecchie, un gesto improvviso, il modo di camminare. ? il suo modo di sentirsi libero, risarcito delle delusioni della vita e dell’angoscia di un’infanzia funestata dalla morte del padre, ritrovato nel lago del suo paese natale. Amore e morte si uniscono nell’ossessione di Ginpei, come se la morte fosse l’unico modo per fermare il tempo e fissare la bellezza.
“Il solo delicato colore della carnagione che appariva tra i risvolti a scacchi rossi e le bianche scarpe di tela era sufficiente per opprimergli il cuore di una tristezza tale da desiderare di morire o di uccidere la ragazza.”
? una prosa sinuosa ed elegante, che dal grigiore di una quotidianità disperata ci guida attraverso la nebbia di un lago che nasconde l’infinito rivelando in una trama non lineare una storia insolita e profonda.
Ginpei le segue, incapace di resistere, ossessionato dal fascino delle sconosciute che probabilmente non rivedrà più.
“Che creatura seducente, che splendida donna! In questo mondo non esiste nessun'altra che sia affascinante come lei." E poi lei si allontana e io non potrò mai più rivederla. D'altra parte non è lecito chiamare una sconosciuta, rivolgerle la parola. ? dunque questa la vita?
In simili circostanze mi sento triste sino alla morte, sono colto da vertigini. Vorrei inseguirla sino ai con-fini del mondo, ma neppure questo è possibile. L'unico modo per farlo sarebbe ucciderla. ”
Lo sguardo si perde nei particolari, il candore della pelle, i lobi delle orecchie, un gesto improvviso, il modo di camminare. ? il suo modo di sentirsi libero, risarcito delle delusioni della vita e dell’angoscia di un’infanzia funestata dalla morte del padre, ritrovato nel lago del suo paese natale. Amore e morte si uniscono nell’ossessione di Ginpei, come se la morte fosse l’unico modo per fermare il tempo e fissare la bellezza.
“Il solo delicato colore della carnagione che appariva tra i risvolti a scacchi rossi e le bianche scarpe di tela era sufficiente per opprimergli il cuore di una tristezza tale da desiderare di morire o di uccidere la ragazza.”
? una prosa sinuosa ed elegante, che dal grigiore di una quotidianità disperata ci guida attraverso la nebbia di un lago che nasconde l’infinito rivelando in una trama non lineare una storia insolita e profonda.
March 13, 2020
Grotesque, hallucinatory and uncomfortable - 1.5 Stars
As he follows women, secrets follow him
Impressive in structure and contrasting themes, but I felt unengaged and uncomfortable reading this novella. Stealing, sexual relationships with a student, incestuous and semi-murderous thoughts; doesn’t even have to give Gimpei Momoi extraordinary ugly feet to make him revolting.
Later on our narrator even ponders of molesting a dog with a needle, just to get the blame on his niece and we have a scene of him abandoning his own child with a prostitute.
When we switch from perspective to a young woman, with whom Gimpei had a chance encounter, this felt as a relieve. She apparently attracts men that follow her around on the streets, which according to her much older lover is her fault, a stark contrast with Gimpei his ugliness and repulsiveness.
In this part of many characters who don’t really come into focus at all are introduced, while everyone seems to know everyone else. Kawabata gives us hardly anything in terms of introduction or characteristics to keep track of all the characters.
Despite it being a rather unsympathetic book, the escape out of window of Gimpei, and how he gets rid of a friend of his love interest by shoving her into a taxi were great, filmic scènes, showing the storytelling talents of Kawabata.
In the end however The Lake felt both very cerebral and also viscerally repulsive. For me this was not an easy or compelling read. In terms of fever dream feeling I can compare this book most to of , but then without the sci-fi (but definitely including the cliche treatment of the women in the story).
As he follows women, secrets follow him
Impressive in structure and contrasting themes, but I felt unengaged and uncomfortable reading this novella. Stealing, sexual relationships with a student, incestuous and semi-murderous thoughts; doesn’t even have to give Gimpei Momoi extraordinary ugly feet to make him revolting.
Later on our narrator even ponders of molesting a dog with a needle, just to get the blame on his niece and we have a scene of him abandoning his own child with a prostitute.
When we switch from perspective to a young woman, with whom Gimpei had a chance encounter, this felt as a relieve. She apparently attracts men that follow her around on the streets, which according to her much older lover is her fault, a stark contrast with Gimpei his ugliness and repulsiveness.
In this part of many characters who don’t really come into focus at all are introduced, while everyone seems to know everyone else. Kawabata gives us hardly anything in terms of introduction or characteristics to keep track of all the characters.
Despite it being a rather unsympathetic book, the escape out of window of Gimpei, and how he gets rid of a friend of his love interest by shoving her into a taxi were great, filmic scènes, showing the storytelling talents of Kawabata.
In the end however The Lake felt both very cerebral and also viscerally repulsive. For me this was not an easy or compelling read. In terms of fever dream feeling I can compare this book most to of , but then without the sci-fi (but definitely including the cliche treatment of the women in the story).
December 19, 2017
Kawabata, Nobel Edebiyat ?dülünü Japonya'ya g?türen ilk yazar olma ?zelli?iyle, Japon edebiyat?n?n en 'vitrin' isimlerinden birisidir. 1968'de ?dülü kazand???nda, ilk kez Japon edebiyat?na kar?? dünyada bir merak olu?mu?, akabinde de yava? yava? ba?ka dillere ?eviriler ba?lam??t?r. Keza Japon Edebiyat?ndan Türk?eye de, ilk kez bu d?nemde kitap ?evrilmi?tir; bu da Kawabata'n?n bir eseridir. O zamandan günümüze de?in -?uan bask?s? bulunamasa bile- Kawabata'n?n bir ?ok eseri (ne yaz?k ki bir tanesi hari? hepsi bat? dillerinden) Türk?eye ?evrildi. Bunlar aras?nda en az ilgi g?reni ise Can Yay?nlar?'n?n bast??? bu eserdir. Dünyada da Kawabata hayranlar?n? ikiye b?len bir roman oldu?unu bildi?imden, okumak i?in inan?lmaz bir istek i?erisindeydim. Yorucu ?abalar sonunda esere ula?mak mümkün oldu da okuyabildim.
Bildi?imiz Kawabata'dan ?ok, farkl? bir yazar?n elinden ??km?? gibi eser. Mishima'dan al???k oldu?umuz bir edebiyat?n izlerini g?rmek mümkün. Ba?karakter Gimpei Momoi
üzerinden, do?rusal olmayan, s??ramalarla sürüp giden, lirizmden uzak, tekinsiz bir ?ykü sunmu? usta yazar. Lirizmden uzak bir Kawabata nas?l olur demeyin, oluyormu? valla, bende ?a??rd?m:)
Di?er yandan yak?n zamanda ?evrilen 'Alt?n K??k Tap?na??'nda Mishima'n?n delice i?ledi?i güzellik kavram?, benzer bir bak?? a??s?yla burada da kendine yer bulmu?. Mishima ne kadar g?stere g?stere ve sert bir ?ekilde ?iziyorsa resmi, Kawabata'da o kadar sessiz ve alttan altta g?stermeyi tercih etmi?. ?ok k?tü bir ?eviri olmas?na ra?men, Kawabata'n?n orijinalli?ine ?a?mamak mümkün de?il.
?yi okumalar.
7.5/10
Bildi?imiz Kawabata'dan ?ok, farkl? bir yazar?n elinden ??km?? gibi eser. Mishima'dan al???k oldu?umuz bir edebiyat?n izlerini g?rmek mümkün. Ba?karakter Gimpei Momoi
üzerinden, do?rusal olmayan, s??ramalarla sürüp giden, lirizmden uzak, tekinsiz bir ?ykü sunmu? usta yazar. Lirizmden uzak bir Kawabata nas?l olur demeyin, oluyormu? valla, bende ?a??rd?m:)
Di?er yandan yak?n zamanda ?evrilen 'Alt?n K??k Tap?na??'nda Mishima'n?n delice i?ledi?i güzellik kavram?, benzer bir bak?? a??s?yla burada da kendine yer bulmu?. Mishima ne kadar g?stere g?stere ve sert bir ?ekilde ?iziyorsa resmi, Kawabata'da o kadar sessiz ve alttan altta g?stermeyi tercih etmi?. ?ok k?tü bir ?eviri olmas?na ra?men, Kawabata'n?n orijinalli?ine ?a?mamak mümkün de?il.
?yi okumalar.
7.5/10
December 10, 2017
tak?nt?l? ?iirsel ütopik ama ger?ek. klasik bir Kawabata
June 29, 2017
Μ?σα απ? δι?φορε? ερωτικ?? ιστορ?ε? του πρ?ην καθηγητ? Τζινμπε? γ?νεται ?να βαθ? ψυχογρ?φημα του χαρακτ?ρα του, εν? ταυτ?χρονα βλ?πουμε μικρ?? στιγμ?? των ζω?ν που αυτ?? με κ?ποιον τρ?πο επηρ?ασε. Η πρ?ζα του συγγραφ?α μου ?ρεσε π?ρα πολ?, ?χει κ?τι νοσταλγικ? / μελαγχολικ? και για αυτ? θα δι?βαζα ευχ?ριστα κ?τι ?λλο δικ? του. ?μουν πιο κοντ? στο 3.5/5.
April 3, 2016
M?i nhà v?n hay có m?t vài ch? ?? ?a thích, tr? ?i tr? l?i. V?i Kawabata ?ó là ám ?nh v? cái ??p.
H? là c?u chuy?n v? Gimpei, m?t ng??i ?àn ?ng k? quái, b? ?m ánh b?i v? ??p c?a nh?ng c? gái, ??ng th?i, mang trong ng??i m?c c?m v? cái x?u. ?m ?nh làm cho anh ta tr? nên k? quái, th?m chi b?nh ho?n, nh?ng t?n cùng trong anh ta là m?t t?m h?n c? ??n và d? b? t?n th??ng. Có l? ph?n nào Gimpei c?ng là hình ?nh n??c Nh?t th?i h?u chi?n.
V?n c?a Kawabata b?ng l?ng nh? m?t h? ??y s??ng khói, mang v? khó n?m b?t ??c tr?ng.
Nh? Nam ch?n ???c m?t cái bìa th?t h?p cho cu?n sách.
H? là c?u chuy?n v? Gimpei, m?t ng??i ?àn ?ng k? quái, b? ?m ánh b?i v? ??p c?a nh?ng c? gái, ??ng th?i, mang trong ng??i m?c c?m v? cái x?u. ?m ?nh làm cho anh ta tr? nên k? quái, th?m chi b?nh ho?n, nh?ng t?n cùng trong anh ta là m?t t?m h?n c? ??n và d? b? t?n th??ng. Có l? ph?n nào Gimpei c?ng là hình ?nh n??c Nh?t th?i h?u chi?n.
V?n c?a Kawabata b?ng l?ng nh? m?t h? ??y s??ng khói, mang v? khó n?m b?t ??c tr?ng.
Nh? Nam ch?n ???c m?t cái bìa th?t h?p cho cu?n sách.
May 31, 2016
M?t cu?n sách ??p ?? ??c trong m?t ngày ?m u nh? h?m nay. Kawabata miêu t? v? cái ??p, d?c tính và s? ám ?nh tràn ng?p n?i bu?n và l?ng ??ng nh? m?t h? mù s??ng.
N?i ám ?nh v? cái ??p, v? m?c c?m c?a s? thi?u hoàn h?o, ám ?nh vì quá kh? kh?ng tr?n v?n hay s? ch?i t? , nh?ng ám ?nh ?y t?o thành nh?ng ?o ?nh ng?n cách h? v?i th? gi?i và c? h?nh phúc mà h? ch?ng th? nào ??t t?i.
N?i ám ?nh v? cái ??p, v? m?c c?m c?a s? thi?u hoàn h?o, ám ?nh vì quá kh? kh?ng tr?n v?n hay s? ch?i t? , nh?ng ám ?nh ?y t?o thành nh?ng ?o ?nh ng?n cách h? v?i th? gi?i và c? h?nh phúc mà h? ch?ng th? nào ??t t?i.
March 17, 2025
Dac? ar mai fi tr?it scriitorul japonez Yasnuri Kawabat devenea cu siguran?? un rival a lui Haruki Murakami, un pic cam ?nc?lcit? la ?nceput , cartea devine surprinz?toare pas cu pas cu c?t murmurul lacului care ascunde o moarte ?n ad?ncuri ?i obsesia maniacal? a protagonistului ?n a urm?ri fete tinere pe strad? cu o inten?ie morbid? se ?mpletesc ?i se dezmint , nimeni nu ?tie ce ascunde ungherele ?nc?lcite ale min?ii unui psihopat solitar urm?rit ani la r?nd de fantoma tat?lui s?u de pe malul unui lac p?r?sit...
April 28, 2023
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November 6, 2016
Yukio Mishima t?ng g?i Yasunari Kawabata là k? l? hành miên vi?n. Kawabata c?ng t?m s? v?n là tr? m? c?i kh?ng m?t ch?n g?i là nhà, ?ng lu?n khao khát ???c lang thang v? ??nh m?t cách bu?n b?. B?i th? r?t nhi?u tác ph?m c?a nhà v?n Nh?t ??u tiên ??t gi?i Nobel n?m 1968 này m? t? nh?ng cu?c tr?i d?t mà c?u m? ??u tr? thành n?i ám ?nh khi m? ra m?t kh?ng gian m?i n?i nh?ng phiêu l?u, b?t ??nh, m?i m?, ch? s?n các nh?n v?t. ?ó là chi?c tàu ra kh?i ???ng h?m dài d?n vào “X? Tuy?t” hay c?n m?a s?m s?p ?? xu?ng con ???ng du l?ch c?a nh?n v?t trong “V? N? Izu,” hay Gimpei Momoi v?a ??t ch?n ??n Karuizawa cu?i mùa h? trong “H?.” ? ti?u thuy?t ng?n “H?,” ng??i ??c b?t g?p c? hai hành trình, m?t ngoài hi?n th?c c?a Gimpei, m?t ? trong h?i ?c c?a y b?i Gimpei kéo lê th?n xác qua h?t ?o?n ???ng này t?i ?o?n ???ng khác, là m?t k? xê d?ch, k? b? m?t ch? ? trong t?m trí c?ng nh? cu?c ??i. Tr?ng thái xê d?ch c?a Gimpei, ???c d?ng l?i qua nh?ng l?n bám ?u?i ph? n?, v?a ?óng vai trò nh? thú vui c?a nh?n v?t, ??ng th?i là l?i thoát, cho m?t cá nh?n què qu?t v? m?t t?m h?n l?n th? xác.
Gimpei Momoi v?n là m?t giáo viên nay ?? b? ?u?i vi?c vì quan h? tình c?m v?i h?c trò c?a mình nay trên ???ng l?n tr?n vì m?t t?i nào ?ó kh?ng r?. Truy?n m? ??u b?ng chi ti?t y vào m?t nhà t?m Th? và khi ???c c? gái ph?c v? v?i gi?ng nói nh? thiên th?n mát xa, bao k? ?c xa x?m ch?t quay v?, tràn ng?p dòng t? s?. “H?” ???c k? b?ng k? thu?t xáo tr?n th?i gian n?i m?i k? ?c ???c ??y ??a theo nh?ng kích thích c?a hi?n t?i, t?o thành m?t dòng t?m t??ng. K? thu?t liên t??ng t? do khi?n tr?n thu?t ph?n thành các m?nh nh?, tan v? theo k? ?c và ??t ng?t chuy?n c?nh kh?ng theo quy lu?t nào ngo?i tr? quy lu?t c?a trí nh? và liên t??ng. Ch?ng h?n, h?i ?c Gimpei b? kích nh? m?t cú ??p vào m?t th? là k? ?c b? qu?t vào m?t b?i cái túi ti?n c?a m?t ph? n? ??a ng??i ??c t?i m?t mi?n kh?ng gian khác. C? nh? v?y các k? ?c lu?n chuy?n, ?an cài, chao ?i chao l?i gi?a các th?i giúp ng??i ??c hình dung ra cu?c ??i c?a Gimpei qua các lát c?t: ng??i cha ch?t ?u?i ? h? và tu?i th? ? ng?i làng kh?ng tên v?i ??a em h?c v?a xinh x?n v?a ác ??c, k? ?c v? c? gái ?i?m ?? ?? con cho y r?i y v?t b? ngoài ???ng, nh?ng c? gái y bám ?u?i ngoài ???ng. Kawabata ?? phát tri?n nhu?n nhuy?n nh?ng ?nh h??ng c?a ch? ngh?a hi?n ??i, n?i ?ng b? ?nh h??ng l?n b?i James Joyce c?ng nh? Virginia Woolf, khi dùng th? pháp dòng ? th?c, ?? kh?c h?a nh?ng ?n ?c, ?en t?i và th?m h?i, nh?ng m?ng t??ng, trong t?m trí Gimpei. Nh?ng phát x?c c?a k? ?c ? Gimpei, r?t g?n v?i nh?ng l?n vi?ng th?m trong quá kh?, m?t th? pháp Kawabata ?? thành th?c trong “Ti?ng r?n c?a núi” qua nh?n v?t ?ng l?o Shigo.
Xem toàn b? review:
Gimpei Momoi v?n là m?t giáo viên nay ?? b? ?u?i vi?c vì quan h? tình c?m v?i h?c trò c?a mình nay trên ???ng l?n tr?n vì m?t t?i nào ?ó kh?ng r?. Truy?n m? ??u b?ng chi ti?t y vào m?t nhà t?m Th? và khi ???c c? gái ph?c v? v?i gi?ng nói nh? thiên th?n mát xa, bao k? ?c xa x?m ch?t quay v?, tràn ng?p dòng t? s?. “H?” ???c k? b?ng k? thu?t xáo tr?n th?i gian n?i m?i k? ?c ???c ??y ??a theo nh?ng kích thích c?a hi?n t?i, t?o thành m?t dòng t?m t??ng. K? thu?t liên t??ng t? do khi?n tr?n thu?t ph?n thành các m?nh nh?, tan v? theo k? ?c và ??t ng?t chuy?n c?nh kh?ng theo quy lu?t nào ngo?i tr? quy lu?t c?a trí nh? và liên t??ng. Ch?ng h?n, h?i ?c Gimpei b? kích nh? m?t cú ??p vào m?t th? là k? ?c b? qu?t vào m?t b?i cái túi ti?n c?a m?t ph? n? ??a ng??i ??c t?i m?t mi?n kh?ng gian khác. C? nh? v?y các k? ?c lu?n chuy?n, ?an cài, chao ?i chao l?i gi?a các th?i giúp ng??i ??c hình dung ra cu?c ??i c?a Gimpei qua các lát c?t: ng??i cha ch?t ?u?i ? h? và tu?i th? ? ng?i làng kh?ng tên v?i ??a em h?c v?a xinh x?n v?a ác ??c, k? ?c v? c? gái ?i?m ?? ?? con cho y r?i y v?t b? ngoài ???ng, nh?ng c? gái y bám ?u?i ngoài ???ng. Kawabata ?? phát tri?n nhu?n nhuy?n nh?ng ?nh h??ng c?a ch? ngh?a hi?n ??i, n?i ?ng b? ?nh h??ng l?n b?i James Joyce c?ng nh? Virginia Woolf, khi dùng th? pháp dòng ? th?c, ?? kh?c h?a nh?ng ?n ?c, ?en t?i và th?m h?i, nh?ng m?ng t??ng, trong t?m trí Gimpei. Nh?ng phát x?c c?a k? ?c ? Gimpei, r?t g?n v?i nh?ng l?n vi?ng th?m trong quá kh?, m?t th? pháp Kawabata ?? thành th?c trong “Ti?ng r?n c?a núi” qua nh?n v?t ?ng l?o Shigo.
Xem toàn b? review:
December 30, 2011
Wow, that was dark.
None of Kawbata's books that I've read so far have been what you'd call light-hearted. But it felt to me as if this one plumbed depths of the human spirit that even Kawabata didn't usually descend to in his fiction.
The technique of this novel plays around with linear narrative, giving us the whole picture of a sad, twisted man's life and psyche in bits and pieces, saving some crucial revelations for the very end while circling around motifs whose meaning is only gradually elucidated.
I was impressed by the way Kawabata digressed from the main thread - the story of a man who is obsessed with following attractive women he sees on the street - to several other character-stories that intersect with the main story and with each other.
The end result is somehow fragmented and panoramic at the same time; a strange kind of double vision that seems to parallel the main character's mental and physical wanderings between past, present and multiple objects of obsession. The other novel by Kawabata that comes closest to this for the sheer power of its vision of human nature twisted into jagged, fatal shapes was Beauty And Sadness.
None of Kawbata's books that I've read so far have been what you'd call light-hearted. But it felt to me as if this one plumbed depths of the human spirit that even Kawabata didn't usually descend to in his fiction.
The technique of this novel plays around with linear narrative, giving us the whole picture of a sad, twisted man's life and psyche in bits and pieces, saving some crucial revelations for the very end while circling around motifs whose meaning is only gradually elucidated.
I was impressed by the way Kawabata digressed from the main thread - the story of a man who is obsessed with following attractive women he sees on the street - to several other character-stories that intersect with the main story and with each other.
The end result is somehow fragmented and panoramic at the same time; a strange kind of double vision that seems to parallel the main character's mental and physical wanderings between past, present and multiple objects of obsession. The other novel by Kawabata that comes closest to this for the sheer power of its vision of human nature twisted into jagged, fatal shapes was Beauty And Sadness.
April 26, 2016
"H?" vi?t v? n?i bu?n mênh m?ng c?a k? su?t ??i khao khát cái ??p - m?t khao khát v??t trên nh?c d?c tuy có bao g?m nh?c d?c - trong khi b?n th?n mình, ít nh?t là v? m?t th? xác, hoàn toàn ??i l?p v?i cái ??p. Càng b? ám ?nh b?i s? x?u xí c?a th? xác mình, g? ?àn ?ng trong truy?n, m?t cách v? th?c, càng b?t an - nh? th? s? r?ng s? x?u xí v? th? xác c?a y c?ng s? ám sang và làm x?u xí c? linh h?n y -. và, càng b?t an, y càng kh? s? bám l?ng nh?ng theo cái ??p - nh?ng c? gái ??p mà v?i y là hi?n th?n c?a cái ??p -, m?t cách th?m h?i, m?t cách v? v?ng, nh? m?t con chó ?ói, b?nh, cùng ???ng.
?ó là th?m tr?ng c?a m?t s? ng??i - c?a m?t b? ph?n nh?n lo?i: m?i m?i v??n t?i m?t s? toàn h?o, s? toàn h?o mà h? m?i m?i b? cách ng?n.
?ó là th?m tr?ng c?a m?t s? ng??i - c?a m?t b? ph?n nh?n lo?i: m?i m?i v??n t?i m?t s? toàn h?o, s? toàn h?o mà h? m?i m?i b? cách ng?n.
October 5, 2017
Σαφ?? κατ?τερο σε σχ?ση με το αριστουργηματικ? "Η χ?ρα του χιονιο?", αλλ? και το εντυπωσιακ? "Το σπ?τι των κοιμισμ?νων κοριτσι?ν". Εντο?τοι?, αυτ? η μικρ? νουβ?λα…?ζει Kawabata στυλιστικ? και θεματολογικ?. Τελικ?, κ?τι σ?πιο υπ?ρχει στο Βασ?λειο τη? Ιαπων?α?. Ο ?ρωτα? δεν ε?ναι ποτ? απλ? υπ?θεση, ?ποτε η φαντασ?ωση, η ενοχ? και ο ψυχικ?? ακρωτηριασμ?? μετουσι?νονται σε Τ?χνη.
January 20, 2013
In my head, Kawabata is the kindly, elegant grandfather of J. fiction, writing novels about the light falling across scrolls in tokonoma alcoves.
But then I pick up a book and remember "Oh, yes. 'Japanese mental' didn't start with Mishima or Oe."
"The Lake": Do you remember Patrick Swayze's character sobbing in his "kiddie-porn dungeon" at the end of "Donnie Darko"? This is the Japanese literary equivalent of those two seconds of American cinema.
Certainly with his later works that were serialised in journals, there was some rewriting by others. Kawabata could get confused by the sleeping pills. He would then revise for publication as a novel. It would have been useful to have had an introduction to my edition of "The Lake" with a bit of information on how this may have influenced the development of the story.
...I forgot... one of the characters was reading !
But then I pick up a book and remember "Oh, yes. 'Japanese mental' didn't start with Mishima or Oe."
"The Lake": Do you remember Patrick Swayze's character sobbing in his "kiddie-porn dungeon" at the end of "Donnie Darko"? This is the Japanese literary equivalent of those two seconds of American cinema.
Certainly with his later works that were serialised in journals, there was some rewriting by others. Kawabata could get confused by the sleeping pills. He would then revise for publication as a novel. It would have been useful to have had an introduction to my edition of "The Lake" with a bit of information on how this may have influenced the development of the story.
...I forgot... one of the characters was reading !
May 11, 2019
A musing on beauty and ugliness - something the Japs are obsessed by.
Imagine a perv with deformed feet, having his bunions caressed by
A geisha in elegant dress; well that’s what this book is like.
If you like such, then give it a read; if you don’t, then be on your bike.
Imagine a perv with deformed feet, having his bunions caressed by
A geisha in elegant dress; well that’s what this book is like.
If you like such, then give it a read; if you don’t, then be on your bike.
October 3, 2022
?να? κεντρικ?? ?ρωα? και παρενθετικ?? ιστορ?ε? ανθρ?πων που συνδ?ονται μαζ? του. Κ?ποιοι υπ?ρξαν κομμ?τι τη? ζω??, με κ?ποιου? συναντ?θηκε ελ?χιστα, κ?ποιοι ?λλοι ?ταν ονειρικ?? εκδοχ?? τη? πραγματικ?τητα?.
Ο Τζιμπ?ι ζει τη ζω? του κουβαλ?ντα? μ?σα του τη λ?μνη των παιδικ?ν του χρ?νων. Εκε? που ο πατ?ρα? του αυτοκτ?νησε, εκε? που ?παιζε με την ξαδ?ρφη του, εκε? που εκστασιασμ?νο? παρακολο?θησε δ?ο ?μορφε? κοπ?λε? να καθρεφτ?ζονται στα νερ? τη?.
Στην εσωτερικ? του λ?μνη βυθ?ζεται μετ? απ? κ?θε στιγμ? συναισθηματικ?? ?νταση?. Κ?θε φορ? που παρασ?ρεται απ? την ομορφι? και δεν μπορε? να αντισταθε?, κ?θε φορ? που ακολουθε? κορ?τσια στο δρ?μο, κ?θε φορ? που ερωτε?εται την αγν?τητα του?.
Στη λ?μνη αυτ? επιστρ?φει κ?θε φορ? που αντικρ?ζει τα κακοσχηματισμ?να π?δια του, την ασχ?μια που κληρον?μησε απ? τον πατ?ρα του. Το δ?πολο τη? δυστυχ?α? του, η ομορφι? γ?ρω του και η ασχ?μια π?νω του. Κυριευμ?νο? απ? αυτ? του την εμμον? παραδ?νεται, κ?θε λογικ? υποχωρε? εν? αναδ?ονται μν?με?.
Αλληλ?νδετε? ιστορ?ε? σε μη γραμμικ? αφ?γηση, συνδ?ονται δ?νοντα? την α?σθηση τη? νοηματικ?? συν?φεια? στην δ?μηση των χαρακτ?ρων.
Ο Καβαμπ?τα μ?σω του αυτοσαρκασμο? των ηρ?ων του ενισχ?ει τι? ψυχικ?? μεταπτ?σει? του?, μεγενθ?νει τα αδι?ξοδα του?, φωτ?ζει αδρ? τα σκοτ?δια του?. Παγιδευμ?νοι ε?τε στο εφ?μερο ε?τε στην επιδ?ωξη τη? ομορφι?? και τη? νε?τητα?, λαχταρο?ν τη ζω?. Η ιστορ?α τη? Μιγι?κο με τον ηλικιωμ?νο Αρ?τα κινε?ται στην ?δια θεματικ? με το ?ργο του Καβαμπ?τα "Το σπ?τι των κοιμισμ?νων κοριτσι?ν".
Η αφ?γηση του μεταβ?λλεται σε ?νταση απ? ?ρεμη επιφ?νεια μια? λ?μνη? σε ορμητικ? κ?μα ωκεανο?.
Ο χρ?νο? ε?ναι μια συνεχ?? μετακ?νηση απ? το παρ?ν στο παρελθ?ν.
Η εμμον? με την ομορφι? ε?ναι η προσπ?θεια διαφυγ?? απ? την παραμορφωμ?νη πραγματικ?τητα, οι παραισθ?σει? λειτουργο?ν ω? ?να? μηχανισμ?? ?μυνα? εν?? διαταραγμ?νου νου.
Ο Τζιμπ?ι ζει τη ζω? του κουβαλ?ντα? μ?σα του τη λ?μνη των παιδικ?ν του χρ?νων. Εκε? που ο πατ?ρα? του αυτοκτ?νησε, εκε? που ?παιζε με την ξαδ?ρφη του, εκε? που εκστασιασμ?νο? παρακολο?θησε δ?ο ?μορφε? κοπ?λε? να καθρεφτ?ζονται στα νερ? τη?.
Στην εσωτερικ? του λ?μνη βυθ?ζεται μετ? απ? κ?θε στιγμ? συναισθηματικ?? ?νταση?. Κ?θε φορ? που παρασ?ρεται απ? την ομορφι? και δεν μπορε? να αντισταθε?, κ?θε φορ? που ακολουθε? κορ?τσια στο δρ?μο, κ?θε φορ? που ερωτε?εται την αγν?τητα του?.
Στη λ?μνη αυτ? επιστρ?φει κ?θε φορ? που αντικρ?ζει τα κακοσχηματισμ?να π?δια του, την ασχ?μια που κληρον?μησε απ? τον πατ?ρα του. Το δ?πολο τη? δυστυχ?α? του, η ομορφι? γ?ρω του και η ασχ?μια π?νω του. Κυριευμ?νο? απ? αυτ? του την εμμον? παραδ?νεται, κ?θε λογικ? υποχωρε? εν? αναδ?ονται μν?με?.
Αλληλ?νδετε? ιστορ?ε? σε μη γραμμικ? αφ?γηση, συνδ?ονται δ?νοντα? την α?σθηση τη? νοηματικ?? συν?φεια? στην δ?μηση των χαρακτ?ρων.
Ο Καβαμπ?τα μ?σω του αυτοσαρκασμο? των ηρ?ων του ενισχ?ει τι? ψυχικ?? μεταπτ?σει? του?, μεγενθ?νει τα αδι?ξοδα του?, φωτ?ζει αδρ? τα σκοτ?δια του?. Παγιδευμ?νοι ε?τε στο εφ?μερο ε?τε στην επιδ?ωξη τη? ομορφι?? και τη? νε?τητα?, λαχταρο?ν τη ζω?. Η ιστορ?α τη? Μιγι?κο με τον ηλικιωμ?νο Αρ?τα κινε?ται στην ?δια θεματικ? με το ?ργο του Καβαμπ?τα "Το σπ?τι των κοιμισμ?νων κοριτσι?ν".
Η αφ?γηση του μεταβ?λλεται σε ?νταση απ? ?ρεμη επιφ?νεια μια? λ?μνη? σε ορμητικ? κ?μα ωκεανο?.
Ο χρ?νο? ε?ναι μια συνεχ?? μετακ?νηση απ? το παρ?ν στο παρελθ?ν.
Η εμμον? με την ομορφι? ε?ναι η προσπ?θεια διαφυγ?? απ? την παραμορφωμ?νη πραγματικ?τητα, οι παραισθ?σει? λειτουργο?ν ω? ?να? μηχανισμ?? ?μυνα? εν?? διαταραγμ?νου νου.
November 29, 2016
Tho?t ??u c? ngh? ??y là m?t cu?n sách d? ??c . M?c dù ngay bìa ?? là Nobel v?n ch??ng 1968 . V?n là ch?ng có cu?n nào ?o?t Nobel mà l?i d? ??c c? . Nói g?n thì H? có th? di?n t? b?ng ba t? : ??P. BU?N . CAY ??NG .
Gimpei , nh?n v?t chính c?a H? là ng??i b? ám ?nh b?i cái ??p và bi?u hi?n c?a n?i ám ?nh ?ó là hành vi bám theo các c? gái ??p có khi là kh?ng quen bi?t .
" Em ?? bao gi? b?t g?p c?m giác ?ó ch?a ? Cái c?m giác : ?i! Th?t ti?c , ch? m?t l?n l??t qua nhau r?i m?i m?i cách xa... [...]... Mu?n bám theo ng??i ?y ??n cùng tr?i mà kh?ng ???c . B?i n?u mu?n bám theo ??n cùng tr?i , thì ch? còn cách gi?t ch?t ng??i ?y mà th?i."
Nghe b?nh th?t , nh?ng mà t? sau H.H , thì ch? nh?n v?t nào ?? b?nh v?i mình c? . :)) . Mình th?y ??ng c?m s?u s?c th?i . Bu?n n?a . Gimpei xét cho cùng là m?t k? mê cu?ng ám ?nh v? ??p thi?u n? ( Mình c?ng v?y nên mình hi?u mà =))) ) c?ng thêm n?i m?c c?m t? ti v? s? x?u xí c?a b?n th?n nên thành ra nh? v?y . Mình th?y t?i nghi?p h?n . ??c cu?n này nh? ?i b? trong màn s??ng m? ?o bên m?t h? . M?t c?m giác m? ?o , m?ng lung , ??p ??n ám ?nh , hoang mang . Các k? ?c c?a Gimpei ?an cài vào nhau nh? nh?ng m?ng m?c nhi?u s?c ?? loang ra trên m?t h? làm cu?n sách có v? dài h?n so v?i ?? dài th?c , nh?ng mà mình thích k?t c?u nh? v?y .
Cu?n này ??c trong m?t ngày l?nh l?nh nh? này bu?n l?m . Cái c? ??n c?a Gimpei nó nh? th?m c? vào tim í . Th? m?i thích >"< . Càng ngh? càng th?y t?i nghi?p cho Gimpei , c?m th?y h?n nh? v? hình gi?a cu?c ??i này v?y . Có m?t m?i tình ??p v?i c? h?c trò nh? Hisako thì ng?n ch?ng tày gang . ??n ?o?n cu?i t??ng ch?ng ???c ?m lòng h?n ki?u Chí Phèo Th? N? thì ch? th?y d?i l?i m?t d? v? ??ng ng?t . Dù có th? nào thì Gimpei c?ng thà làm m?t k? x?u xí bám theo cái ??p ??n cùng tr?i còn h?n tìm h?i ?m bên m?t k? x?u xí nh? mình . Kh?ng nén n?i m?t ti?ng th? dài .
Gimpei , nh?n v?t chính c?a H? là ng??i b? ám ?nh b?i cái ??p và bi?u hi?n c?a n?i ám ?nh ?ó là hành vi bám theo các c? gái ??p có khi là kh?ng quen bi?t .
" Em ?? bao gi? b?t g?p c?m giác ?ó ch?a ? Cái c?m giác : ?i! Th?t ti?c , ch? m?t l?n l??t qua nhau r?i m?i m?i cách xa... [...]... Mu?n bám theo ng??i ?y ??n cùng tr?i mà kh?ng ???c . B?i n?u mu?n bám theo ??n cùng tr?i , thì ch? còn cách gi?t ch?t ng??i ?y mà th?i."
Nghe b?nh th?t , nh?ng mà t? sau H.H , thì ch? nh?n v?t nào ?? b?nh v?i mình c? . :)) . Mình th?y ??ng c?m s?u s?c th?i . Bu?n n?a . Gimpei xét cho cùng là m?t k? mê cu?ng ám ?nh v? ??p thi?u n? ( Mình c?ng v?y nên mình hi?u mà =))) ) c?ng thêm n?i m?c c?m t? ti v? s? x?u xí c?a b?n th?n nên thành ra nh? v?y . Mình th?y t?i nghi?p h?n . ??c cu?n này nh? ?i b? trong màn s??ng m? ?o bên m?t h? . M?t c?m giác m? ?o , m?ng lung , ??p ??n ám ?nh , hoang mang . Các k? ?c c?a Gimpei ?an cài vào nhau nh? nh?ng m?ng m?c nhi?u s?c ?? loang ra trên m?t h? làm cu?n sách có v? dài h?n so v?i ?? dài th?c , nh?ng mà mình thích k?t c?u nh? v?y .
Cu?n này ??c trong m?t ngày l?nh l?nh nh? này bu?n l?m . Cái c? ??n c?a Gimpei nó nh? th?m c? vào tim í . Th? m?i thích >"< . Càng ngh? càng th?y t?i nghi?p cho Gimpei , c?m th?y h?n nh? v? hình gi?a cu?c ??i này v?y . Có m?t m?i tình ??p v?i c? h?c trò nh? Hisako thì ng?n ch?ng tày gang . ??n ?o?n cu?i t??ng ch?ng ???c ?m lòng h?n ki?u Chí Phèo Th? N? thì ch? th?y d?i l?i m?t d? v? ??ng ng?t . Dù có th? nào thì Gimpei c?ng thà làm m?t k? x?u xí bám theo cái ??p ??n cùng tr?i còn h?n tìm h?i ?m bên m?t k? x?u xí nh? mình . Kh?ng nén n?i m?t ti?ng th? dài .
March 19, 2013
The Lake is the second book of Nobel laureate Kawabata that I have read. Unlike the House of the Sleeping Beauties and Other Stories, which I thought to be a remarkable text particularly the title story, The Lake came across as a frustrating work in terms of style.
Briefly, it is the story of a homeless stalker, Gimpei, who follows certain women that he finds posses a certain quality of beauty. What we know of Gimpei is that he was a former school teacher until he stalked one of his students, and that he had committed some ambiguous crime in the past.
The first few pages engaged me fully with the bathhouse scene where Gimpei is describing the beauty of the bath girl attending him:
- 'When he got out of the bath, the woman washed him all over. Squatting down at his feet she even washed in between his tows with her girlish fingers. He looked down at her head. Her hair was cut to a little below the nape of the neck and hung straight and loose, in the intimate way women left their hair after washing it.'
This level of detail and attention to the minute is what I loved about House of the Sleeping Beauties. In this novel, such descriptive attention is spread throughout the novel, especially with the introduction of each of the women Gimpei obsesses over. This snippet is of his latest 'victim' who preoccupies him from the middle to the end of the novel:
- 'She wore her jeans a little short, and her fair skin peeped out above her canvas shoes. Her hair was tied back loosely in a ponytail, revealing the long, delicate curve of her neck. Her shoulders were pulled forward by the dog tugging at the rope.'
Descriptive prowess aside, the style of this novel is free association. It is in this technique that my interest waned. There is a consistent shift in time between the present and the past where Gimpei himself is experiencing episodes of free association and I, the reader, am taken along with these threads of thought. There is, of course, nothing wrong with this, stylistically. If anything, it is certainly a hard technique to execute with accomplishment as does Kawabata here.
Kawabata sets up each present scene vividly, with attention to detail and a tantalizing description of a woman. My disappointment lies in having these scenes fractured by jumping back to an association Gimpei connects randomly with. Thus jarring me out of the seductive prose with a new path to follow.
Take, for example, the bathhouse scene, where between the present - Gimpei being attended by the bath house girl - Kawabata uses the word slap to evoke a memory in Gimpei from the past that will describe a parallel event:
- 'While massaging his chest, she pushed her breasts forward and he closed his eyes, not knowing where to put his hands. If he stretched his arms along his body he might touch her. He thought he would be slapped on the face if so much as a fingertip brushed against her. And he could actually feel the shock of being slapped. In sudden terror he tried to open his eyes, but his eyelids refused to move. They had been hit very hard. He thought he might cry, but no tears came, and his eyes ached as though they had been pricked with a hot needle.
It was not the girl's palm but a blue leather handbag that hit Gimpei's face. He hadn't known at the time it was a handbag, but after feeling the blow he found a bag lying at his feet.'
My criticism aside, I do praise Kawabata for capturing a character's thought processes so well. After all, free association is a natural process most of us engage in unconsciously. Kawabata captures the subtleness brilliantly as you can see in the last example above, it took several lines of describing Gimpei's emotional state after the first occurrence of the word slap before his thoughts drifted to the memory evoked by it.
I do think rereading The Lake will offer more pleasure. I can then focus on the details and the prose, since I now know the story.
Briefly, it is the story of a homeless stalker, Gimpei, who follows certain women that he finds posses a certain quality of beauty. What we know of Gimpei is that he was a former school teacher until he stalked one of his students, and that he had committed some ambiguous crime in the past.
The first few pages engaged me fully with the bathhouse scene where Gimpei is describing the beauty of the bath girl attending him:
- 'When he got out of the bath, the woman washed him all over. Squatting down at his feet she even washed in between his tows with her girlish fingers. He looked down at her head. Her hair was cut to a little below the nape of the neck and hung straight and loose, in the intimate way women left their hair after washing it.'
This level of detail and attention to the minute is what I loved about House of the Sleeping Beauties. In this novel, such descriptive attention is spread throughout the novel, especially with the introduction of each of the women Gimpei obsesses over. This snippet is of his latest 'victim' who preoccupies him from the middle to the end of the novel:
- 'She wore her jeans a little short, and her fair skin peeped out above her canvas shoes. Her hair was tied back loosely in a ponytail, revealing the long, delicate curve of her neck. Her shoulders were pulled forward by the dog tugging at the rope.'
Descriptive prowess aside, the style of this novel is free association. It is in this technique that my interest waned. There is a consistent shift in time between the present and the past where Gimpei himself is experiencing episodes of free association and I, the reader, am taken along with these threads of thought. There is, of course, nothing wrong with this, stylistically. If anything, it is certainly a hard technique to execute with accomplishment as does Kawabata here.
Kawabata sets up each present scene vividly, with attention to detail and a tantalizing description of a woman. My disappointment lies in having these scenes fractured by jumping back to an association Gimpei connects randomly with. Thus jarring me out of the seductive prose with a new path to follow.
Take, for example, the bathhouse scene, where between the present - Gimpei being attended by the bath house girl - Kawabata uses the word slap to evoke a memory in Gimpei from the past that will describe a parallel event:
- 'While massaging his chest, she pushed her breasts forward and he closed his eyes, not knowing where to put his hands. If he stretched his arms along his body he might touch her. He thought he would be slapped on the face if so much as a fingertip brushed against her. And he could actually feel the shock of being slapped. In sudden terror he tried to open his eyes, but his eyelids refused to move. They had been hit very hard. He thought he might cry, but no tears came, and his eyes ached as though they had been pricked with a hot needle.
It was not the girl's palm but a blue leather handbag that hit Gimpei's face. He hadn't known at the time it was a handbag, but after feeling the blow he found a bag lying at his feet.'
My criticism aside, I do praise Kawabata for capturing a character's thought processes so well. After all, free association is a natural process most of us engage in unconsciously. Kawabata captures the subtleness brilliantly as you can see in the last example above, it took several lines of describing Gimpei's emotional state after the first occurrence of the word slap before his thoughts drifted to the memory evoked by it.
I do think rereading The Lake will offer more pleasure. I can then focus on the details and the prose, since I now know the story.
November 20, 2020
M?t áng v?n ch??ng quá ma m?, nh?n v?t c?a Kawabata lu?n ??y kh?c kho?i nh?ng trong tác ph?m này nó là s? d?n v?t, ám ?nh c?a m?t con ng??i m?t h?t nh?ng ch? d?a cu?c ??i, ch? còn m?t ?i?m neo duy nh?t v? t?m linh là cái h? (n?i cha mình b? gi?t).
Dòng th?i gian v? cu?c ??i c?a nh?n v?t chính ???c s?p x?p kh?ng theo th? t?, gi?ng nh? l?u ?ài k? ?c v?y, khi g?p s? v?t, s? vi?c nào ?ó thì s? liên t??ng t? ??ng l?i cái k? ?c ?y ??i m? s?ng d?y.
Dòng th?i gian v? cu?c ??i c?a nh?n v?t chính ???c s?p x?p kh?ng theo th? t?, gi?ng nh? l?u ?ài k? ?c v?y, khi g?p s? v?t, s? vi?c nào ?ó thì s? liên t??ng t? ??ng l?i cái k? ?c ?y ??i m? s?ng d?y.
May 3, 2016
1. Nói chung kh?ng thích b?ng nh?ng cu?n c?a Kawabata mình ?? ??c.
2. Kawabata kh?ng vi?t cu?n này n?m 2054. Nh? Nam có m?t sai l?m ng? ng?n ? trang 2.
3. Có cách nào nói bookaholic ??ng ?óng tên trang web lên bìa sách n?a kh?ng? Bookaholic kh?ng liên quan gì t?i cu?n sách này h?t. Cái c?ng add sách lên goodreads c?ng kh?ng ?? l?n t?i m?c ph?i ?? l?i d?u ?n ??u. Các b?n khác có add sách c?ng nên ch?n bìa nguyên m?u giùm nhen!
2. Kawabata kh?ng vi?t cu?n này n?m 2054. Nh? Nam có m?t sai l?m ng? ng?n ? trang 2.
3. Có cách nào nói bookaholic ??ng ?óng tên trang web lên bìa sách n?a kh?ng? Bookaholic kh?ng liên quan gì t?i cu?n sách này h?t. Cái c?ng add sách lên goodreads c?ng kh?ng ?? l?n t?i m?c ph?i ?? l?i d?u ?n ??u. Các b?n khác có add sách c?ng nên ch?n bìa nguyên m?u giùm nhen!
January 26, 2020
A strange, strange book. Visceral. Affecting. Dark. Brooding. This was my first Kawabata book, and I always thought I would start with ‘Snow Country’. Somehow, I picked this up by chance while browsing through my favorite bookstore. A slim novel, you are taken deep into the mind of a stalker with a series of intersecting characters who make their way in and out of his life. Humans. And our minds.
August 5, 2020
Of interest is the way voyeuristic episodes, sexual interactions, and perverse fantasies are narrated beautifully and with nostalgia as if they were the most natural thing in the world. This book is a disturbing yet poetically rendered short novel about the fantasies of a dirty old man and the twisted lives of those around him, all symbolized by the stagnant lake that fails to move forward.
November 27, 2018
????. ?? ???? ??? ???? ??????? ???? ??????. ?? ???? ?????? ?? ????? ?? ??????? ???? ???? ?????? ???????. ???????? ??? ????? ???????? ????? ?????? ?????? ???? ???? ???? ?????. ???? ??????? ?? ???? ????? ??? ????.. ????. ??????.
April 16, 2023
The Lake is a deceptively simple story about obsession. The narrative is darker for Kawabata's standards and has a subtle surrealism to it (similar to his House of Sleeping Beauties). It takes us through the prominent female obsessions of a man and seems almost always on the verge of tipping over into darker territory. I think that the reminder of the Lake, and the memories that it triggers, is a device used to illustrate the main character's conscience and allows him to remain well-intentioned through the novel. Like other great novels of obsession, Kawabata's poetic rendering makes it very easy to forget that you are actually reading unsettling material.
July 15, 2024
Οι λ?μνε? ε?ναι ?ρεμε? και επικ?νδυνε?. Βαθι?? ανεξερε?νητ?? και ανεξ?γητε?. Κ?πω? ?τσι ε?ναι και οι ?νθρωποι. Η λ?μνη ε?ναι ?να ιδεατ? ? ?να στοιχε?ο τη? φ?ση? αφο? ?χει να κ?νει με νερ?. ?να πολ? μινιμαλιστικ?, Απ?ριττο και βαθ? συν?μα μικρ? βιβλιαρ?κι για την εσωτερικ? μοναξι? εν?? ανθρ?που ? και μια? λ?μνη? ποιο? ξ?ρει;
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