down
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
a little more
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.

 

:D

 

KAWABATA COUNTRY:

"As death approaches, memory erodes," writes Kawabata in one of the graceful and often unsettling stories contained in this new collection. These few words reveal the themes that pervade these diverse tales, but can only begin to suggest their range and subtlety.

Kawabata (1899-1972), the first Japanese writer to receive the Nobel Prize, in 1968, has long been known in the United States and Europe for such novels as The Sound of the Mountain, Snow Country and others that often hark back to the traditions of classical Japanese literature. He employs devices from those long poetic traditions in order to create in modern prose his remarkable effects: juxtapositions of image upon image to open up the depths of feeling lurking behind placid surface reality. These stories, most of them composed when he was a young writer, serve as a reminder that he was then fascinated by the work of the European imagists and symbolists, who often used similar techniques in order to move from fact to suggestion.

Many of the 20-odd stories that make up this collection are only a few pages in length. A number of them are justly famous in Japan, but only one, "The Dancing Girl of Izu," has received wide circulation in translation, in a slightly shortened version by the great Edward Seidensticker, first published in the 1960s and available in a variety of editions over the years. "The Dancing Girl," like many other stories included here, contain strong autobiographical elements, but these are used not for their own sake, as possible self-revelations, but as a means to suggest the difficulties of penetrating toward any kind of ultimate truth.

This conviction, so important to an understanding of Kawabata's basic artistic stance, is most clearly revealed in the second story, "Diary of My Sixteenth Year." The story contains three layers: the narrative itself, an afterword appended in 1925, and a second afterword attached still later. The material presented in the tale itself, Kawabata tells his readers in the first afterword, is taken from his teenage diary and concerns his attempts to care for his dying grandfather, by then his only close relative. The old man grows weaker as the story progresses. Kawabata tells us in the second afterword that he was to die some eight days later.

It is easy to see why he was regarded as such a precocious writer, for the description of the old man, from his incoherent mumblings to his seemingly constant need to urinate, is gripping to read, particularly when experienced through the consciousness of the young boy, who is forced to help the situation along as best he can. According to the first afterword, in his published version Kawabata added only an occasional parenthesis to the original text, in order to identify persons and places and, occasionally, to augment his memories of his own responses. In the second afterword, however, he acknowledges that "since I wrote that first Afterword as fiction, there are some parts that differ from the truth." He proceeds to make further corrections and suggestions, then makes the following statement, which goes to the core of his ambitions in this short but remarkable work:

"I cannot simply imagine that something has 'vanished' or 'been lost' in the past just because I do not recall it. This work was not meant to resolve the puzzle of forgetfulness and memory. Neither was it intended to answer the questions of time and life. But it is certain that it offers a clue, some piece of evidence."

In resolutely seeking for such clues, Kawabata removes "Diary" from that genre of nihilistic literary game so much practiced in the West in the postwar years. For Kawabata, the fact that we cannot know is perhaps more an occasion for chagrin, for humility. "Bad as my memory is," he writes, "I have no firm belief in memory. There are times when I feel that forgetfulness is a blessing."

Other stories in the first part of this collection circle around the sense of loss that Kawabata felt as a youngster over the many deaths in his family, and how this radical loneliness marked his very conceptions of reality. No wonder, as he records in one of these stories, he was referred to as "The Master of Funerals."

The book's second section contains a number of brief stories that reveal Kawabata's ability to put a moment of poetic vision into a page or two of striking prose. These sketches, often referred to as haiku-like, reveal his penchant for the excitements of literary experimentation. Many are purely lyrical. Some reveal an acute sense of the social conditions found in interwar Japan, such as "The Money Road," which describes some remarkable events that took place after the great earthquake of 1923 virtually destroyed Tokyo, or "The Sea," which describes with understated poignancy the plight of Korean laborers in the Japanese countryside.

Given the difficulties of Kawabata's subtle and difficult language, the translator, J. Martin Holman, has generally struck an excellent balance between accuracy and the need to create a certain level of evocative possibility. Holman is to be congratulated for making available in English a number of striking works by this now-classic Japanese author. He chose well from among the various possibilities available to him.

 

Bliss did you forget your medication today???? What kinda of post is that?

 

:eek: :U

 

:lol: :lol: :lol: :flag

That was great!

 

i didn't read bliss's post but those girls are movin!

 

:yesnod: :yesnod: :yesnod: :yesnod:

 

Those are definately not as bad as the Original Hoochie Mama gif's so try again
:lol:

 

You guys/girls crack me up :lol: :cheers: :cheers:

 

Hey I like the original Hoochie mama cause the new one is a little to strip club like.

this is a family forum after all

 

uhh those arent strippers.. they be aliens yo! . . . watch out or else DUKE NUKEM will blow they're Butts UP!

i need a life.. dam you PLAYSTATION!!!

 

OHHHH, BOY :rolleyes: