11 June, 1899
A 1946 photo of Japanese novelist and short story writer Kawabata Yasunari (川端 康成, 11 June 1899–16 April 1972), the first Japanese writer to win the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1968, who was born on this day in 1899 in Zushi, Kanagawa Prefecture.
One of his most famous novels was "Snow Country" (雪国 Yukiguni), started in 1934 and first published in installments from 1935 through 1947. "Snow Country" is a stark tale of a love affair between a Tokyo dilettante and a provincial geisha, which takes place in a remote hot-spring town somewhere in the mountainous regions of northern Japan. It established Kawabata as one of Japan's foremost authors and became an instant classic, described by Edward G. Seidensticker as "perhaps Kawabata's masterpiece."
Some other well-known works by Kawabata include "The Dancing Girl of Izu" (伊豆の踊子 Izu no Odoriko), a 1926 story exploring the dawning eroticism of young love which features a melancholy student who, on a walking trip down Izu Peninsula, meets a young dancer, and returns to Tokyo in much improved spirits; "Thousand Cranes" (千羽鶴 Senbazuru, a 1949-52 story of ill-fated love centred on the tea ceremony); "The Sound of the Mountain" (山の音 Yama no Oto, 1949-54, set in the author’s hometown of Kamakura); "The House of the Sleeping Beauties" (眠れる美女 Nemureru Bijo, 1961); "The Old Capital" (古都 Koto, 1962), and "Beauty and Sadness" (美しさと哀しみと Utsukushisa to Kanashimi to, 1964).
The book that he himself considered his finest work, "The Master of Go" (1951), is in severe contrast to his other works. It is a semi-fictional recounting of a major Go match in 1938, on which Kawabata had actually reported for the Mainichi newspaper chain. It was the last game of the master Shūsai's career and he lost to his younger challenger, only to die a little over a year later. Although the novel is moving on the surface as a retelling of a climactic struggle, some readers consider it a symbolic parallel to the defeat of Japan in World War II.
Kawabata's 1968 Nobel Lecture was titled "Japan, The Beautiful and Myself" (美しい日本の私―その序説). https://youtu.be/dB1UgvvjxKw
Zen Buddhism was a key focal point of the speech; much was devoted to practitioners and the general practices of Zen Buddhism and how it differed from other types of Buddhism. He presented a severe picture of Zen Buddhism, where disciples can enter salvation only through their efforts, where they are isolated for several hours at a time, and how from this isolation there can come beauty. He noted that Zen practices focus on simplicity and it is this simplicity that proves to be the beauty. "The heart of the ink painting is in space, abbreviation, what is left undrawn." From painting he moved on to talk about ikebana and bonsai as art forms that emphasise the simplicity and the beauty that arises from the simplicity. "The Japanese garden, too, of course symbolises the vastness of nature."
In addition to the numerous mentions of Zen and nature, one point that was briefly mentioned in Kawabata’s lecture was that of suicide. Kawabata reminisced about other famous Japanese authors who committed suicide, in particular Ryūnosuke Akutagawa. He contradicted the custom of suicide as being a form of enlightenment, mentioning the priest Ikkyu, who also thought of suicide twice. He quoted Ikkyu, "Among those who give thoughts to things, is there one who does not think of suicide?"
Largely because of this, at the time of his death, there was much speculation about this quote being a clue to Kawabata's own suicide in 1972, two years after Mishima had himself committed suicide.
川端康成的好友Harue Koga (古賀 春江, Koga Harue, 1895 – 1933) 《古賀春江 : 前衛画家の歩み》 《Parallel Modernism Koga Harue and Avant-Garde Art in Modern Japan 》(2019 ) 0423
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