Book Review

After being published in nine different segments, “Yukiguni 雪国” made its appearance in bookstores all over Japan as a single piece in 1947. Ten years later, it was translated to English by Edward G. Seidensticker, its title becoming “Snow Country”; a literal translation of its original one. In 1957, this wonderful work of art led Yasunari Kawabata, its author, to being nominated and consequently becoming, the first Japanese novelist to win the Nobel Prize for Literature. The story that unfolds throughout this book is one of a relationship between a geisha and a dilettante from Tokyo.

For me, this story forms a slightly unbalanced mix of good and bad elements. On one side of the scale there is the imagery and culture integrated into the book; and on the other, there is a mass of subliminal messages and lack of explicitness. First of all, I'll state some of the facts that bothered me most. Throughout the book, there seems to be parts that are missing or pieces that don't connect or follow the flow of the story. At first I assumed that this strange delivery was the consequence of a faulty translation; after some research, I found that it could also be the result of the very segmented past of this piece. Since it was published progressively in nine parts, it may just be lacking in fluency because of the time span between each ones creation; or maybe the author was in a different emotional state when he wrote the separate segments of the story, which could cause the slight discontinuity and jump from one mood to another that is present at many times in “Snow Country”. This fault may be the cause of certain elements of the story that, regardless of the creative style of the author, seem to lack explicit explanations and thus, leave me a very confused reader. Nevertheless, I enjoyed the two following elements of this novel to a great extent : the Japanese culture and the very image rich vocabulary.

This first element interested me because this novel being written originally in Japanese, did not present the objects and scenery as if they were being presented to a foreigner, but took for granted that you knew what they were. At the beginning of the book I had a few rough moments trying to comprehend, but as the story wore on I lost the incertitude I had and just let my mind bathe in this unknown world, universe, climate and culture. The second element I appreciated, was the language that was used and the genre that resembled slightly the Haiku. The similarity that recalled the Haiku form was that of the fusing of opposite or incongruous terms, the fusing of the senses.Here are a few examples: a roaring silence, the round softness of running water...

This last example demonstrates wonderfully the mastery with which Yasunari Kawabata unites multiple senses so simply.

Over all, it was a good book; but I would not recommend it to anyone who is easily confused.