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3.56 AVERAGE
3.56 AVERAGE
relaxing
sad
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
An attachment-adverse young bachelor must negotiate the attentions of his late father's mistresses, bastard daughters, and female friends, who turn up in a series of never ending tea ceremonies frought with inappropriate sexual tension and very appropriate guilt. Emotionally repressed and yet still deeply unsettling. Tragedy is inevitable and therefore not surprising when it finally occurs. In seeming sympathy with the plot, this book literally fell apart as I read it. It got messy on more then one level.
Well-written, I guess, the way Camus and Hemingway and Fitzgerald are all well-written. Just as disheartening too. I mean, I know that it's filled with subtle symbolic nuance- as an allegory of post-war Japan's struggle to both maintain meaningful traditions and yet break with a complicated, destructive past, well it's kind of brilliant. But as a non-allegorical story about a guy who goes along confronting various conflicts etc, it totally fails. When I felt anything for anyone these characters (most of all the protagonist) it was mostly a kind of cringing half-revulsion, half-pity. The number of times I found myself shaking my head and saying out loud, "Jesus, don't do that!"... Invariably the character did it anyway, despite my urging the contrary.
Well-written, I guess, the way Camus and Hemingway and Fitzgerald are all well-written. Just as disheartening too. I mean, I know that it's filled with subtle symbolic nuance- as an allegory of post-war Japan's struggle to both maintain meaningful traditions and yet break with a complicated, destructive past, well it's kind of brilliant. But as a non-allegorical story about a guy who goes along confronting various conflicts etc, it totally fails. When I felt anything for anyone these characters (most of all the protagonist) it was mostly a kind of cringing half-revulsion, half-pity. The number of times I found myself shaking my head and saying out loud, "Jesus, don't do that!"... Invariably the character did it anyway, despite my urging the contrary.
The story of a young bachelor who, in the wake of his father's death, gets entangled with his father's mistress and her daughter—set against the backdrop of the formality and tradition of tea ceremonies.
There are so many undercurrents running through the conversations between the characters of this book: the new and the old, the occident and the orient, the relationship between mothers and daughters and fathers and sons. It is definitely a book that you will have to read more than once in order to parse out various interpretations. I love the way Kawabata transposes bodies and vessels—and the relationships between them—onto one another, so that history is carried forth from the past to the present, and into the future. Over it all, a sense of anxiety hangs over the three main characters as they try to navigate the strange connections that have formed between them, ending in a moment of quiet terror as those bonds (and bodies and vessels) are shattered.
There are so many undercurrents running through the conversations between the characters of this book: the new and the old, the occident and the orient, the relationship between mothers and daughters and fathers and sons. It is definitely a book that you will have to read more than once in order to parse out various interpretations. I love the way Kawabata transposes bodies and vessels—and the relationships between them—onto one another, so that history is carried forth from the past to the present, and into the future. Over it all, a sense of anxiety hangs over the three main characters as they try to navigate the strange connections that have formed between them, ending in a moment of quiet terror as those bonds (and bodies and vessels) are shattered.
dark
mysterious
reflective
medium-paced
Slow and strange start but pacing picked up, existential summer!
sad
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
how relationships continue through generations. Dead father and his mistresses continue to impact and entangle his son
Simplicity of the story very engaging.
But its depth is through the association with teaism. Many examples to be drawn that I couldn’t ascertain. But the simple elegance of the tea ceremony is reflected in the clarity of the novella
Appreciated the symbolism and, as usual, the poetical rhythm Japanese prose has.
Parents living through their children, unescapable destiny of reliving the same mistakes. Sin living through objects, only breaking them breaks the line of endless projection.
It’s a short book, but every page has the weight of a hundred ones.
In the end, it’s always what isn’t said that says the most.
Parents living through their children, unescapable destiny of reliving the same mistakes. Sin living through objects, only breaking them breaks the line of endless projection.
It’s a short book, but every page has the weight of a hundred ones.
In the end, it’s always what isn’t said that says the most.
mysterious
reflective
tense
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
reflective
medium-paced