Customer Reviews

First Snow on Fuji

5 star:		(5)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This volume should be in every library. Elegant and subtle language weave each tale that are delicately, and often painfully, human. The conclusions, abrupt and ambiguous, are haunting and thought provoking. This is a collection of stories that moves you and speaks to you long after you've finished.

This book, without a doubt, was the most elegant I have ever read. The langage is so beautiful that one reads it the same way one might poetry. Though the language alone could have made the book worthwhile, the stories are also haunting, like a painting that slowly reveals its secrets and hidden meanings. My favorite was the first story, "This Country That Country," but all of them are extraordinary.

Having read and loved all of Kawabata's long stories and none of his short ones, I approached this book with considerable trepidation. There are some authors like Camus who are equally good in both forms and some others (to remain nameless) who I find are good in one style, but not the other.

However, 'First Snow on Fuji' turned out to be from the classic Kawabata mold. I liked Silence, but I liked the 'boat-women' better (I have always been drawn to the story of the battle of Danno Ura, since I heard it originally from Carl Sagan's Cosmos at the age of ten) and 'Seamless stupas' and the Row of trees. The themes are surprisingly modern (this country, that country), given from Kawabata's unique insight into human consciousness. Definitely a book for the aficionado.

A few words transport you into a hidden world of the heart. This fine translation of Kawabata's prose makes each of these short stories resonate like Haiku long after you close the pages of the book.

This is a fine collection of short stories by Kawabata. These are longer than his "Palm of the Hand" stories but still display to the full his incredible talent to suggest a whole large-scale novel with the barest minimum of words and phrases. The deep suggestiveness and resonance typical of Kawabata is present in these brief works, though somewhat more flat-footed than elsewhere--one wonders if this is an effect of translation or whether Kawabata was a just a wee bit off his game here.

This collection also includes a rarity, a drama by Kawabata, which comes across as incredibly flat, wooden, and dull. It seems that drama was not a medium suited to him, although perhaps the play works well when actually performed--many a Kabuki play looks lame on paper but comes alive on the stage. But as it stands it seems an awkward ending to an otherwise fine collection of stories. This is not Kawabata at his best, but quite good still.

"First Snow on Fuji" is a mixed bag. I enjoy Kawabata's succinct prose. One story, 'Silence', is tremendous, and worth the price of the book by itself. It's about a writer who, b/c of a stroke, can no longer speak or write, and his daughter; and the main point of the story is whether or not the writer, Akifusa, should try to communicate through his daughter or not. It's a grand statement on the human power of communication. The other stories, though interesting, are not as good - and for that I give it a mediocre rating.

Yasunari Kawabata is the first Japanese writer to be awarded the Noble Prize for Literature. First Snow on Fuji is a collection of short stories written in a minimalist fashion, where each word and turn of phrase carries a depth and profoundness. It feels as if each word is uniquely suited to the telling of that particular tale. The stories cover a vast array of life's events, love, desire, loss and discovery. It is not that the inner hearts of the characters are revealed to the reader, but that the reader is allowed to observe while the characters inner hearts are revealed to themselves.
Michael Emmerich translates the writing of Kawabata with a perfect blend of both elegance and simplicity. This is a classic Japanese collection of short stories by an author with the delicate touch of perfection.

This was the 8th Yasunari Kawabata book that I have read. Kawabata finished writing this book back in the year 1959. It was during a time in his life in which he spent more time touring Japan and the worls than actually writing, so the reader must keep in mind that he wrote these beautiful stories while he was basiacally on the run from place to place. The stories in the book are all pretty sad. The first "This Country, That Country" deals with a young housewife named Takako who is having an affair behind her husband's back the thing is she is not having the affair with the man she wants to be having the affair with. The reader sees Takako torment when she talks to her secret love or even just thanks of him. She seems to know more about him than his wife. Oh, did I mention that she is the neighbor of her secret love?
That is just an example of the stories that Kawabata weaves here. They are short and can be read in a short reading, but Kawabata's short stories have more meaning than some authors' 700 page novels. I really liked the stories "Nature" and "Silence" myself, and the story "Yumiura" is one of the saddess pieces of literature that I have ever read. A good book, but if you are new to Kawabata read _Thousand Cranes_ or beauty and Sadness instead.