we’re circle no one can break
leave me now - return tonight
the tide will show you the way
forget my name go astray
killer whale trapped in a bay
(the ocean miles away)

I’m a whisper in water (my love)
(Bachelorette, Bjork)

L’immagine sulla tela riproduce la bellezza (al di la’ di ogni possibile categoria estetica), ma col scendere della sabbia nella clessidra (odiando quella mano che la rigira) l’immagine si intristisce e, nell’immemorabile, resta la bellezza.
Unum, verum, bonum et pulchrum.

Il treno correva in mezzo a un paesaggio di boschi anonimi: la fitta foschia fuori dai finestrini dava una sensazione di calore intimo. Sopra la foschia un vago chiarore illuminava le nuvole opache. La luce sembrava emanare dalla terra. Poi, il cielo si era schiarito e i raggi del sole arrivavano fino al pavimento della carrozza. Quando il treno costeggio’ una pineta, si vide il terreno ricoperto di aghi finissimi. Le foglie di bambu’ erano ingiallite. Contro le rocce di un promontorio nero scrisciavano le onde luccicanti. (5)

Di quando in quando, doveva fermarsi perche’ le lacrime le annebbiavano gli occhi. Via via che andava avanti col lavor, Otoko si accorgeva che il ritratto della madre prendeva le sue stesse sembianze. (52)

Grazie, - disse Keiko arrossendo nel collo sottile e flessuoso. - Terro’ con me le sue parole gentili per tutta la vita. Ma quanto durera’ questa bellezza che lei loda? E’ un pensiero triste per una donna. (63)

In un certo senso, sia Oki sia la sua creatura erano ormai completamente svaniti dalla vita di Otoko, benche’ fosse rimasto immutato l’amore per lui.
Scorse veloce il tempo. Per un uomo, tuttavia, lo scorrere del tempo non consiste forse in un’unica corrente, ma in correnti numerose e varie. Proprio come un fiume, il tempo scorre veloce in un senso e in altro senso piu’ lento; ci sono anche dei punti dove il flusso e’ completamente fermo. Nel cielo il tempo scorre con una velocita’ uguale per tutti, mentre in questo mondo esso scorre in ciascuno di noi a un ritmo diverso. Non c’e’ uomo che riesca a scansare il tempo, il quale tuttavia scorre diversamente per ognuno.
…
Era inevitabile che il tempo fluisse per due persone in modo diverso, indipendentemente dall’intensita’ del loro amore reciproco. (134-5)

Otoko aveva seguito lo scorrere del tempo portando Oki dentro di se’. E il ricordo di Oki si era venuto via via tingendo dell’amore di Otoko per se stessa, trasformandosi in tutt’altra cosa. (139)


( )

又一部男人的意淫大作 ( )

Impulsado por la nostalgia, Oki Toshio decide viajar a Kyoto para oír sonar las campanas del templo en el Año Nuevo. Pero, además, quiere ver a Otoko, su antigua amante. ahora pintora. Todavía hermosa, Otoko vive con su protegida Keiko, una joven amoral, sensual y apasionada, de apenas veinte anos. Keiko desencadenará este cruel drama de amor, venganza y destrucción.

A book that starts off strong, combining a wistful remembrance of the past with clean, simple writing. I loved the references to Japanese history and art, e.g. the painter Nakamura Tsune, and the viewpoint of a lover from the past from years later. “Events of over twenty years ago were more alive to him than those of yesterday,” he writes, and “The Otoko of his memories was the most passionate woman he had ever known. And did not the vividness even now of those memories mean that she was not separated from him?” Indeed.

Where the book fell short for me was in its dated, masculine view of women and the sexual dynamic. Kawabata was over 60 when he began writing this, and it shows. While it may be true to the period and the characters, it took away from my enjoyment.

For starters, the protagonist is a pretty icky guy. He’s a writer who’s married and has an adult son of his own, and in the opening chapter is travelling down to Kyoto to hear the New Year’s Eve bells with his lover from 24 years prior. Now a middle-aged man, he was 30 when he had an affair with a young girl of 15 and got her pregnant. The baby died, possibly because it was in a poor hospital, she attempted suicide, and with her mother was forced to move away. He then wrote a book about it, with his wife enduring the humiliation of having to type it out for him, and then everyone knew that the young girl was the main character, which humiliated her too.

So, there’s that as the basis, and yet Kawabata writes, “It was the tragic love story of a very young girl and a man himself still young but with a wife and child: only the beauty of it had been heightened, to the point that it was unmarred by any moral questioning.” Hmm.

In the present she’s now an artist, and living with a female student who’s also her lover. Unbidden by her, the student vows revenge for her, and sets about seducing both the writer and his son. It’s interesting as a concept, but how the story is told from there loses its clean precision and occasionally gets repetitive. Worse yet, it also seems to be a morality tale of sorts.

How I wish it had contained more explorations like this passage:
“As time passed, the memory of their embrace was gradually becoming purified within Otoko, changing from physical to spiritual. She herself was not now pure; nor was Oki, in all likelihood. Yet their long-ago embrace, as she now saw it, seemed pure. That memory – herself and not herself, unreal and yet real – was a sacred vision sublimated from the memory of their mutual embrace.”

Instead, Kawabata seems preoccupied with women’s boobies. For example, I chuckled over his comments on nipples, and how those of one character “still retained their rich color” because she had never nursed a baby, while those of another “had no ugly little wrinkles or granular texture, and was just the right modest size to suckle on lovingly.” Meanwhile one of the women has an odd complex about one of her two breasts, which is mentioned several times. There’s this: “Any man would be tempted by the thought of woman deriving a different level of pleasure from her two breasts, and would want to try to equalize them.” Good grief. “Probably the difference had been created by someone inexperienced with women.”

The various bits of sex play sprinkled in are all pretty subdued and I assume they were daring in their time, but they seem more dated than erotic, and it’s unfortunate that the lesbian character has to also be so unhinged. Every so often we get old-fashioned statements like this, about an artist: “A nude painted by a woman never turns out very well,” or her mother advising her “Otoko, the best medicine for a woman is getting married.” Again, these are true to the characters and to the time period, but I also got the impression they were Kawabata’s views. When you think about the arc of the story and the morality aspect (women – ya gotta be careful with ‘em, especially those lesbian women, amirite?), it became less a window into the past and an enjoyment of a talented, cultural writer, and more of a turn-off, unfortunately. ( )

Un libro que te mantiene al filo de la silla mientras lo lees e imaginas el dolor de cada una de las personas involucradas. ( )