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A review by steveatwaywords
Palm-of-the-Hand Stories by Yasunari Kawabata
challenging
emotional
mysterious
reflective
relaxing
sad
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
Kawabata's novels are extended openings into reflection; here, his short short stories (those which may be held in the "palm of one's hand") are very nearly koans, moments--sometimes just scenes--which echo with significance for their characters. For the readers, that beautiful understanding may well come some time after.
This is not because Kawabata writes puzzles; these aren't riddles to be solved or unlocked. Instead, readers are invited to reflect upon the moments, allow them to settle and unfold into another way of comprehension. For this reason, though the book might be read quickly--most of these are only two or three pages in length--I would recommend the opposite. Read one and set the book aside for a while, then go to the next.
Not every story is as successful as another; not every story will speak to every reader; and many do not feel to Western readers like "stories" at all. Women gossip and position themselves while waiting for men at a train station; a helpful passerby is instead dumped into a river; a man considers the use of an umbrella; a mother waits at home for her missing son.
But these are moments in Kawabata's Japan, written plentifully in the 1920s and 1930s, and then more sparsely--and with a fair change of tone--in the 1940s into the early 1970s. Remarkable then, for me, was to trace the attitude and style of his writing across a 50-year lifetime of writing, across a history of far-reaching change.
I don't consider this collection to be anything as powerful or memorable as any of his novels, but if you are a lover of Kawabata's minimalism and understated devotion to humanity, this is a fascinating book.
This is not because Kawabata writes puzzles; these aren't riddles to be solved or unlocked. Instead, readers are invited to reflect upon the moments, allow them to settle and unfold into another way of comprehension. For this reason, though the book might be read quickly--most of these are only two or three pages in length--I would recommend the opposite. Read one and set the book aside for a while, then go to the next.
Not every story is as successful as another; not every story will speak to every reader; and many do not feel to Western readers like "stories" at all. Women gossip and position themselves while waiting for men at a train station; a helpful passerby is instead dumped into a river; a man considers the use of an umbrella; a mother waits at home for her missing son.
But these are moments in Kawabata's Japan, written plentifully in the 1920s and 1930s, and then more sparsely--and with a fair change of tone--in the 1940s into the early 1970s. Remarkable then, for me, was to trace the attitude and style of his writing across a 50-year lifetime of writing, across a history of far-reaching change.
I don't consider this collection to be anything as powerful or memorable as any of his novels, but if you are a lover of Kawabata's minimalism and understated devotion to humanity, this is a fascinating book.