cover of episode 7 - End Without End: Kawabata's The Sound of the Mountain

7 - End Without End: Kawabata's The Sound of the Mountain

2016/8/16
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Books of Some Substance

Shownotes Transcript

The mountain grumbles, Shingo mumbles. But it is hard to hear him over the sound of the dishes.

On this full length episode we discuss Yasunari Kawabata’s The Sound of the Mountain and try to come to terms with the dying patriarch’s aimless drift towards the end. Is it apathetic existentialism? Good old-fashion failure? The culture of post-war Japan? Personal defeatism? Idiocy? Anger? Or an odd replication of nature’s non-action?

As always, read the novel and give us a listen.

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Yasunari Kawabata (1899-1972) is a Japanese novelist who won the Nobel Prize in 1968. His most famous novels are Snow CountryThousand Cranes, and The Sound of the Mountain. His work is often poetic, lyrical, and melancholic.