Snow Country

Kawabata Yasunari's Snow Country is one of my newfound favorites. I found it initially to be a smooth, fluid read with a strange softness that compelled me to read a little further. Kawabata's metaphoric parallels and soft-spoken , straightforward descriptions remind me of the pastels of a watercolor painting.

Though there is confusion in the character relationships, unlike Pedro Paramo where I struggled in frustration with the character connections, in Snow Country it is amusing and intriguingly compelling to mix and match and squish together relationships as concocted in my own mind. Whether two-by-two, "menage a trois", or individually considered, Kawabata allows the reader to intimately "peek" into their lives. His characters are complex, but brilliantly crafted so as not to be frustrating.

While looking at the text through the lens of gender comparison, it strikes me as very ruggedly manly; strange, considering the gentility with which Kawabata uses his words. Shimamura is incredibly the epitome of the classic, evolutionary male figure in regards to sexuality. Interesting also because he seems to lack the drive and ambition that most men, stereotypically, find so crucial to their very being. A psychological consideration of Shimamura propels me to wonder in curiosity what his backstory is, and why he is so repelled at intimate interconnectedness.

The relationship he does allow himself to experience with Komako is so purely true, even wrapped up in all it's hidden sensuality, secret sexuality, and flirty interaction. I love, love, love that it's not the same ole, sometimes all too commonplace, icky, sappy love story. Instead,  Kawabata captures the complexities, uncertainties, and awkwardness of the play between two lovers who bound aimlessly toward desire, but tiptoe gracefully on the precipice between avoiding and accepting the steep, point-of-no-return that is love. As I read the interactions between the two it is easy to see it unfolding right before my eyes because it seems just so real.

Let's Talk Stage

I have to confess, shameful as it is, that I did not read the entirety of Death and the King's Horseman. It may have been obvious by my lack of comments in class, or even more so by my complete failure at correctly answering the quiz today, to which I answered that they were all dead with the exception of Elesin. *facepalm* Yikes. 

The truth is that while I found it to be a fascinating story, my brain refuses to fully process stage plays. I worry too much about setting the stage: the costumes, the painted cardboard backdrops, stage props... I worry over what kind of accent to properly hear the characters speaking in; who I will cast as characters. Eventually I finish getting the stage set and the costumes designed and I bark orders to an actor to the right, similar to the way a director of a movie would. I begin reading. It's a conversation between two people and I'm okay for the most part, pausing slightly to make a few minor adjustments to setting and such. Once a third character chimes in though, forget it. I don't want to continually read each name before each section of dialogue, so I skip them. It is not a good thing to skip the names of the speakers because at some point it occurs to me that I have no clue who's saying what. Now I'm irritated. I begin again at the beginning in hopes that this time I get a little further along.

To be fair, while I repeat this same scenario with all plays, there are some that I don't get quite so hung up on. Perhaps it is the Shakespearean influence that I have trouble grasping. As an English major, it is sacrilegious and I'm probably going to literary hell for saying so, but I loathe reading Shakespeare. Granted, his tales are fascinating, with impressive psychological force, and huge, brilliant characters. Maybe I dislike that he is often regarded as the single-most important literary figure. ever. Maybe I hate that his works are put on a pedestal where other works are forced in comparison and never really allowed to measure up. Or, maybe it's nothing more than the shallow dislike of the painful reading and interpretation of "ye olde English". 

All I know is that my grade is thankful that Death and the King's Horseman is the only play for this term.