Snow Country

A deceptively short (120-page) book that is immensely powerful and poignant. Kawabata is able to convey significant emotion and depth via the choice of his words and the images they convey. What is not said—the reader has to fill in the gaps—is almost as powerful as the explicit messaging. "Snow Country" is both a specific place, evocatively described by Kawabata, but also a state of mind. It exists outside the "normal" rules of time, where typical (Japanese) convention is suspended. If there is a key theme in Snow Country, then it is the beauty and sadness of transience, how everything in the world feels fleeting, whether it is the seasons, snow, beauty, youth, or the relationship between the two protagonists, which the reader senses is doomed from the outset. The isolation, coldness and purity of the snow conveyed by Kawabata serves as a mirror into which the characters can look. The tragedy lies in the fact that precisely because they cannot fully appreciate or articulate beauty, they misunderstand it. Kawabata also alludes to the clash between the modern (trains, lights, mechanisation) and the old. Change is inevitable, even if the characters fail fully to appreciate it. A novel to be reread with new perspectives likely on each pass.

By Yasunari Kawabata