Yasunari Kawabata Analysis

Besides approximately two hundred short stories and fictional vignettes (or short, short stories), Yasunari Kawabata wrote both “serious” novels, which earned for him a Nobel Prize, and “popular” novels, which gained for him financial security. The latter, considered by some critics as vulgarizations, are not included in editions of his complete works. His serious works include juvenile fiction, travel accounts, journalism, letters, reviews, translations, editions, plays, and lectures.

Known throughout the world as the only writer from his country to have received the Nobel Prize in Literature, Yasunari Kawabata was also awarded every major Japanese literary honor, including membership in the Japanese Academy of Arts (1954). In 1972, he was posthumously awarded the First Class Order of the Rising Sun. In his work, Kawabata combines universal themes with literary techniques and conventions typical of Japanese culture. His eminence as a writer of fiction is based on this characteristic of fusing contrary, although not antithetical, elements. He draws upon the East and the West as well as the traditional and the modern, juxtaposes mimetic precision with symbolic evocation, joins the erotic and the spiritual, and fluctuates between dream and reality. In like manner, he cultivated and perfected both long and short genres of fiction and in a sense brought them into conjunction, since many of his long works can be broken down into short, independent elements. His themes embrace both the mundane and the esoteric, his narrative style ranges from the graphic to the lyrical, and his highly original plots and situations touch upon fundamental moral and aesthetic issues of modern life.

In world literature, Japan has the oldest tradition of the novel; there is, however, no significant qualitative distinction between the Japanese “novel” and the Japanese “short story.” As a result, Yasunari Kawabata (kah-wah-bah-tah) may be said to have been a writer of short stories as well as novels, but the distinction is Western, arbitrary, and based merely on length. Some of the collections of Kawabata’s works that may be designated as collections of short stories are Jjka (1938), Shiroi mangetsu (1948), Maihime (1951), Bungei tokuhon Kawabata Yasunari (1962), Kgen (1969), Tenohira no shsetsu (1969), Shui yueh (1971), Tenj no ko (1975), and Honehiroi (1975). His first nonfiction work was the autobiographical Jrokusai no nikki (1925; diary of a sixteen-year-old).

Kawabata is also well known as a literary critic. His essays have been published in Bungakuteki jijoden (1934), Rakka ryusui (1966), Bi no sonzai to hakken/The Existence and Discovery of Beauty (1969; bilingual), Utsukushii nihon no watakushi/Japan, the Beautiful, and Myself (1969; bilingual), Isso ikka (1973), and Nihon no bi no kokoro (1973). He also translated into modern Japanese a selection of ancient Japanese stories as Ocho monogatari sh (1956-1958), and he translated the fables of Aesop as Isoppu (1968). His collected works have been published as Kawabata Yasunari zensh (1948-1969).

Yasunari Kawabata has long been recognized as one of Japan’s major novelists, short-story writers, and critics. In 1968 he became the first Japanese author to be awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature, after he had received every major Japanese literary award, including the Bungei Konwa Kai Prize (1937) and the Geijutsuin-sho Prize (1952). He also received the Goethe Medal of Frankfurt, Germany (1959), and the Ordre des Arts et Lettres (1960) and Prix du Meilleur Livre Étranger (1961) of France. In 1954, he was elected to the Japanese Academy of Arts.

Early in his career, Kawabata was instrumental in founding the avant-garde neosensualist movement of the 1920’s and experimented with cubism, Dadaism, Surrealism, and Futurism. He was also influenced by the stream-of-consciousness techniques of James Joyce and the “automatic writing” of the Surrealists. Later, he abandoned these experiments and reverted to more traditional Japanese forms, developing a style that was unique and difficult to translate. His works are sensitive, delicate, and often difficult for readers without a full understanding of Japanese thought and culture; he is recognized internationally as one of Japan’s, and the world’s, greatest twentieth century authors.

What is ironic about the difficulty English-speaking audiences had in understanding the work of Yasunari Kawabata, an avid student of English and American writers?

Consider the validity of Kawabata’s explanation of the “incompleteness” of his stories.

Does Kawabata’s notion of love bear any resemblance to that of Dante?

What does Shimamura learn in the snow country?

Has Kawabata’s ability to explore Japanese traditions influenced Western as well as Japanese readers?