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Title: The Dancing Girl of Izu and Other Stories by Yasunari Kawabata, J. Martin Holman ISBN: 1-887178-94-5 Publisher: Counterpoint Press Pub. Date: September, 2002 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $13.50 |
Average Customer Rating: 4.67 (6 reviews)
Rating: 5
Summary: Innocence and love, age and death, riddles with no meaning
Comment: "The Dancing Girl of Izu and Other Stories" is an odd collection of sorts, mixing an elegant, straight-forward short story together with some autobiography and a fluttering of palm-of-the-hand tales. Each element contributes a unique flavor, and a different facet of Kawabata's style.
J. Martin Holman proves himself again a master translator of Kawabata, retaining the flow and most importantly the feeling of the originals, far more than other translators I have read. The only flaw I found was that he splits the book into two sections, which I personally found a bit jarring. I think it more naturally flows into three distinct chapters.
"The Dancing Girl of Izu" is as fine a short story as you are likely to read anywhere. Every necessary element is contained, with no superfluous decoration. It is heartbreaking in its subtlety, and masterful in its craft. Everything important is unsaid. Kawabata can manipulate emotions so deeply using so little, leaving the reader with an aching emptiness as great as that of the narrator. Beautiful, and fully worth the cost of the collection alone.
"Diary of my Sixteenth Year," "Oil," "The Master of Funerals" and "Gathering Ashes" are four short autobiographical sketches of Kawabata's relationship with his only relative, a blind grandfather who would figure into several tales. Not factual per se, but true impressions. They present an intimate portrait of youth trying to understand the aged, of responsibility and resentment of responsibility, and of the numbness of death. The stories are presented as recovered diary accounts Kawabata wrote when he was 16, and they may be so. I believe the feelings, and that is enough.
The third section contains the 18 remaining unpublished palm-of-the-hand stories, Kawabata's personal trademark and contribution to literature. A page or three at the most, each story functions like a Zen koan, a story or riddle with no obvious meaning used as a contemplation tool by meditating monks to clear their minds and make them go hmmm...as they try to decipher. Koans have been called "extremely brief vignettes enabling the individual to hold entire universes of thought in mind all at once," and I think this sums it up nicely. Do not attempt to decipher these palm-of-the-hand stories, but instead read them and feel them and go hmm...
Rating: 4
Summary: brief glimpses
Comment: I recently read this collection of short (with the emphasis on "short") stories. This set of stories are very autobiographical; especially in the first part. The title story is a tale of young love. The message that came through to me was the innocence of the attraction of the two main characters. After that came a touching diary that told of the relationship of a teenage boy and the elderly, invalid grandfather who raised him. It reminded me of my relationship with my own grandfather. The other sketches were worth reading as well and most were only two or three short pages in length. There is certainly a poetic style in Kawabata's works. This particular collection is a good introduction to the writer.
Rating: 5
Summary: Kawabata at his best
Comment: Although Kawabata is most often associated with his better than good Palm-of-the-hand stories, I don't view them as my favorate Kawabata work. The Dancing Girl of Izu (mandatory reading for Japanese Junior High School Students) is a sort of coming of age story that made me step back and reflect. The semi-autobiographical work is tender, heart warming, and a keen glimpse into Japanese life. If you have read and enjoyed earlier works of this author I would strongly suggest this collection to you. If you have yet to discover Kawabata, I say there's no better place to start!
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Title: First Snow on Fuji by Yasunari Kawabata, Michael Emmerich ISBN: 1582431051 Publisher: Counterpoint Press Pub. Date: 10 November, 2000 List Price(USD): $14.00 |
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Title: Palm-of-the-Hand Stories by Yasunari Kawabata, Lane Dunlop, J. Martin Holman ISBN: 0865474125 Publisher: North Point Press Pub. Date: 16 May, 1990 List Price(USD): $14.00 |
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Title: Snow Country by Edward G. Seidensticker, Yasunari Kawabata ISBN: 0679761047 Publisher: Vintage Pub. Date: 30 January, 1996 List Price(USD): $12.00 |
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Title: House of the Sleeping Beauties and Other Stories by Yasunari Kawabata, Edward Seidensticker, Shaw ISBN: 0870114263 Publisher: Kodansha International Pub. Date: February, 1994 List Price(USD): $12.00 |
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Title: Thousand Cranes by Yasunari Kawabata ISBN: 0679762655 Publisher: Vintage Pub. Date: 26 November, 1996 List Price(USD): $11.00 |
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