YASUNARI KAWABATA

SNOW COUNTRY

Now, if anyone, anyone can find me a copy of this book, and i mean a beat up worn out book - I will plant a million kisses on your feet. Well, maybe not your feet, how about your ankles...or the top of your head? I have been on a hunt for this novel at used book stores and i cannot find it. I do not have anything  against its latest print (edition)that you can get through amazon books or chapters - granted they are very pretty, and spanking brand new -but this book has to have been passed from hand to hand....taken on many journeys, sitting on someone else's bookcase, just to fall right into my lap. Read this book and you will know exactly what I mean.

review of "snow country"

biography of Kawabata

brief description of other works

Snow country is a beautifully written novel, but apparently does not compare to the non-translated
Japanese version. Nevertheless, I still found the translated version haunting, poetic, seductive, and bittersweet. ( a common "feeling" i get from Kawabata's other novels and short stories).

quotes:

"he wondered whether the flowing landscape was not perhaps symbolic of the passage of time."

"...an affair of the moment, no more. Nothing beautiful about it. You know that - it couldn't last"

"Outside it was growing dark, and the lights had been turned on in the train, transforming the window into a mirror. The mirror had been clouded over with steam until he drew that line across it"

"she bit savagely at her arm, as though angered by its refusal to serve her"

"So it was everyday Komako must have wanted to crawl away and hide at the thought of where it was leading. But that indefinable air of loneliness only made her the more seductive.....a woman by herself can always get by"

"Just beyond the far breeze he heard faintly the tinkling of a bell. He put his ear to the kettle and listened. Far away, where the bell tinkled on, he suddenly saw Komako's feet, tripping in time with the bell. He drew back. The time had come to leave."

"It was such a beautiful voice that it struck one as sad"

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