The Sound of the Mountain: first impressions of Kawabata

1/ After Kokoro, I read 3 other books, without blogging about them: Sarashina Nikki or As I Crossed a Bridge of Dreams by a lady known as Takasue’s daughter (translated by Ivan Morris), Stiff Upper Lip, Jeeves by P. G. Wodehouse, and The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes by Arthur Conan Doyle (a reread, but this time in English). 
I’m now returning to Japanese literature with The Sound of the Mountain by Yasunari Kawabata, translated by Edward G. Seidensticker. Kawabata writes in short, sparse sentences. The prose is not as bare as Soseki’s in Kokoro in terms of descriptions but there is an intensity to Soseki’s writing that isn’t here—Kawabata’s style is more quiet and restrained. 
The novel is about an old man named Ogata Shingo (name in Japanese order), as he looks back on his life and examines his relationships with his family members. Shingo has lived for a long time with his wife Yasuko but never truly loves her, and only married her because of the death of his love, who was her more beautiful sister that he cannot forget. Shingo cannot communicate with either of his children, and both of them fail in their marriages—the daughter Fusako leaves her husband and returns home with 2 children, and the son Shuichi has an affair, leaving his wife Kikuko at home. 
As Shingo experiences lapses of memory, has disturbing dreams about dead people while feeling distant from his living family members, and keeps hearing the sound of the mountain, which he takes to be an omen of his impending death, the only person who can bring some joy to his life is his daughter-in-law Kikuko. However, Shingo doesn’t talk to her about Shuichi’s affairs. 

2/ Look at the section named “The Cherry in the Winter”: 

“On New Year’s Day the occidental way of reckoning ages became official. Shingo was therefore sixty-one. Yasuko sixty-two.” 

This is expanded on later, as the old people watch Satoko, Fusako’s daughter. 

“Yasuko listened. ‘It gives you a strange feeling, doesn’t it? She should be five this year, and all of a sudden she’s three. It doesn’t make all that much difference for me, shifting from sixty-four to sixty-two.’ 
‘But there’s something you haven’t thought of. My birthday comes before yours, and for a while then we’ll be the same age. From my birthday to yours.’ 
Yasuko seemed aware of the fact for the first time. 
‘Quite a discovery. Once in a lifetime.’ 
‘Maybe so’, muttered Yasuko. ‘But it doesn’t do much good to start being the same age this late in life.’” 

Is that not an interesting passage? When my grandma passed away, she was 81 in the Western way of reckoning ages, and 83 in the Eastern way. 
A sudden shift from one system to another is quite something else. 

3/ It is tempting to compare The Sound of the Mountain and Wild Strawberries, because of the similar themes of old age, life and death, family relationships, and failures. However, Shingo is portrayed more sympathetically—he is a good man, ineffectual and distant perhaps, but not as cold and egoistic as Isak Borg. Kawabata’s novel is also understated, and gentler. 
For example, in this passage in “Water in the Morning”, Shingo starts suggesting to his wife that Shuichi and Kikuko live away from them, because he thinks that perhaps Shuichi would be less likely to leave Kikuko at home alone to go to his mistress. 

“‘I’m thinking of having them live away from us,’ he said in a low voice. 
‘Away from us?’ 
‘Don’t you think that would be better?’ 
‘Maybe. If Fusako is going to stay on.’ 
‘I’ll leave, Mother, if it’s a question of living away from you.’ Fusako got out of bed. ‘I’ll move out. Isn’t that the thing to do?’ 
‘It has nothing to do with you,’ Shingo half snarled at her. 
‘It does have something to do with me. A great deal, in fact. When Aihara said that you made me what I am by not liking me, I almost choked. I’ve never been so hurt in my life.’ 
‘Control yourself, control yourself. Here you are in your thirties.’ 
‘I can’t control myself because I have no place to control myself in.’ 
Fusako brought together her night kimono over her rich breasts. 
Shingo got up wearily. ‘Let’s go to bed, Granny.’” 

(Aihara is Fusako’s husband). 
The conversation ends. In Wild Strawberries, there are several conversations, between Isak Borg and his daughter-in-law, or between her and her husband, in which they are brutally honest to each other and the speaker just coldly dissects the listener’s weaknesses and cruelties—Bergman doesn’t hold back in his examination of people’s egotism and hypocrisy, and their troubled relationships. In The Sound of the Mountain, Kawabata takes a different approach—for once, Fusako speaks of her hurt feelings but the conversation doesn’t go any further, she doesn’t speak more, and Shingo neither clears the misunderstanding nor reassures her of his fatherly love. 
In a quiet way, Kawabata gives us a glimpse of the father-daughter relationship from Fusako’s point of view. Earlier, we have seen that she leaves her husband for some relatives’ house, instead of going home to her parents. Now we can see it more clearly. 
As Shingo and his daughter cannot communicate, the problem is never resolved. 

4/ Did you notice the phrase “her rich breasts”, which looked rather out of place in the passage above? I can’t help noticing that breasts are mentioned lots of times throughout the book—there’s a fixation on breasts, mostly Fusako’s and Eiko’s. I can barely visualise Eiko, who is Shingo’s secretary and Shuichi’s friend, and knows the mistress. In Shingo’s mind, she’s mostly associated with small breasts. 

5/ In the section “The Voice in the Night”, Shingo is waken up by Shuichi’s voice calling “Kikuko-o-oh” in the night. 

“Shuichi seemed to be calling out in heart-broken love and in sorrow. It was the voice of one for whom there is nothing else. The groaning was like a child calling out for its mother in a moment of pain and sorrow, or of mortal fear. And it seemed to come from depths of guilt. Shuichi was calling out to Kikuko, seeking to endear himself to her, with a heart that lay cruelly naked. Perhaps, his drunkenness his excuse, he called out in a voice that begged for affection, thinking he could not be heard. And it was as if he were doing reverence to her.” 

Does it not sound like Marlon Brando as Stanley Kowalski, crying “Stellaaa!” in A Streetcar Named Desire?