Beauty and Sadness (Masterplots II: World Fiction Series)
At a glance:
- Author: Yasunari Kawabata
- First Published: 1965
- Type of Work: Psychological realism
- Time of Work: 1961
- Setting: The cities of Kyoto and Kamakura, Japan
- Principal Characters: Toshio Oki, Fumiko, Taichiro, Otoko Ueno, Keiko Sakami
- Genres: Long fiction, Psychological fiction
- Subjects: 1960’s, Homosexuality or homosexuals, Jealousy, envy, or resentment, Novelists, Lesbianism or lesbians, Adultery, Accidents, Revenge, Painting or painters, Japan or Japanese people, Miscarriage
- Locales: Kyoto, Japan
The Novel
The action of Yasunari Kawabata’s Beauty and Sadness develops out of an affair that Toshio Oki had twenty-four years earlier with a fifteen-year-old girl named Otoko Ueno. The book begins with Oki’s decision to travel from his home in Kamakura, outside Tokyo, to Kyoto in order to surprise his former mistress, now a distinguished painter, with a request. Oki invites Otoko to listen to the tolling of Kyoto’s temple bells at midnight on New Year’s Eve. On the surface, Oki’s motives are superficial and sentimental. He finds himself intrigued by a...
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See Also:
Yasunari Kawabata (Cyclopedia of World Authors)Yasunari Kawabata (Short Fiction)Yasunari Kawabata (Long Fiction)Yasunari Kawabata (Dictionary of World Biography)
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