Snow and Kawabata

So for the first time in my life, and hopefully not the last, I have seen the power and beauty of falling snow. There is nothing so pure in nature as small, seemingly weightless flakes of frozen water. I cannot explain it. Rain is drab and painful but snow is hopeful and full of promises.

The only hindrance to enjoying a wonderfully snowy day is the realization that you have no food in your house and would have to leave the comfort of your warm room and blanket covered perch by the window in order to successfully survive another day. Food and the overall existence of your corporeal body has never seemed so overrated.

"If only Ray's pizza delivered to Japan," I say to myself as i layer on more and more garments for my trek to the grocery. The decision to bring an umbrella to a snow storm is a baffling one indeed. On the one hand, the umbrella brings much protection from the floating wetness that is snow. But on the other hand, snow rarely falls straight down to the ground and has a tendency to defy physics just to boggle the mind. The umbrella would be of little use if the wind changed and would force my meagerly gloved hand out of the body warmed pocket of the jet black, soon to be speckled white, navy pea coat.

My first experience with the falling ash of the heavens was magical in its own way. I find it difficult and quite painfully drab to describe anything with the word "magical" but i feel that in this case, it fits. Maybe "movie stage" perfect is also a sufficient descriptor. The image of these shining insubstantial clumps of H2O still mesmerize me. Feelings of somber loneliness and ultimate happiness are not usually experienced at the same time, but my first snow will be remembered as a moment of high emotional conflict and oxymoronic nonsense.
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So it seems fitting that with the New Year and my recent experience of snow in Japan, that i should read one of the great contemporary novels from a Japanese author in the 20th century, Kawabata. The book, Snow Country won the Nobel prize for literature and is regarded as one of the greatest Japanese novels. I must say, that even though this book is highly praised and beautifully written, I found it to be extremely difficult to follow. I am not sure if it is the way that Japanese literature is translated into English but every time I attempt to read a Japanese author i find myself lost in the writing. The topics and even the timeline jump from paragraph to paragraph because chapters are not organized as a western book. As i said, this book is beautifully written and as such, is able to capture several emotions, often conflicting, in the same moment. Kawabata's haiku-esque style and written cadence is entrancing and engaging but often aloof.

The story is about a married man who goes off to an onsen or hot spring a few times every year and meets a woman who entertains the guests at the hot spring inn as if she were a geisha. Eventually, the woman falls in love with the man but the overarching question through the whole book is: "Why?" or "What is the point of all this?"

You can argue with me about this coming observation if you want, but I contend that the man does not love this girl whom he comes to visit often, he is just so bored with his life in Tokyo that he has nothing better to do but to come to this little village, to a young girl that loves him but that he will never have.

It is hard to say what the overall point of the story is. Is it to show that love is futile and fickle, like the relationship with the silly, insane girl? Is it to say that unlike the ever changing landscape of the snow country, somethings remain the same over the years, including the same old-same old of business and pleasure? Or perhaps, as I think, that emotions are impossible to decipher without explanation. I believe this is the case because even though it is fairly clear that the two characters care for each other, due to the circumstances of their meetings, they never share their emotions or feelings and thus the book ends with no end or resolution.