is a novel by Japanese writer

Yasunari Kawabata was a Japanese novelist and short story writer whose spare, lyrical, subtly shaded prose works won him the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1968, the first Japanese author to receive the award. His works have enjoyed broad international appeal a ...

, serialized between 1949 and 1954, and first published as a standalone book in 1954 by

Chikuma Shobō is a Japanese book publisher headquartered in , Taitō, Tokyo. Founded in 1940 by Furuta Akira (1906–1973) in cooperation with the writer and critic Yoshimi Usui, it first published the intellectual monthly ''Tembo'' (Views) in 1946. In 1953 ...

Tokyo Tokyo (; ja, 東京, , ), officially the Tokyo Metropolis ( ja, 東京都, label=none, ), is the capital and List of cities in Japan, largest city of Japan. Formerly known as Edo, its metropolitan area () is the most populous in the world, ...

Plot

Shingo Ogata, a 62-year-old businessman living in Kamakura and working in

, is close to retirement. He is experiencing temporary lapses of memory, recalling strange and disturbing dreams upon waking, and hearing sounds, including the titular noise which awakens him from his sleep, "like wind, far away, but with a depth like a rumbling of the earth." Shingo takes the sound to be an omen of his impending death. At the same time, he is repeatedly confronted with the passing away of friends and former fellow students. Shingo observes and questions his relations with the other family members. He married his wife Yasuko after the untimely death of her older sister, whose beauty Shingo adored, considering both Yasuko and their daughter Fusako to be rather unattractive. Shingo has both fatherly and subtle erotic feelings for his daughter-in-law Kikuko, who calmly endures his son Shūichi's affair with another woman. When Fusako leaves her husband and returns to the family home with her two little children, Shingo starts to perceive the marital difficulties of his son and daughter as the result of not fulfilling his role as a father. In addition, Fusako blames him for marrying her to a man she did not want, and for preferring Kikuko over her. Shingo's secretary Eiko helps him to find Shūichi's mistress Kinuko, a war widow, and learns of his son's mean and abusive behaviour towards her. Not only is Shūichi reluctant to his father's request to end the affair and treat his wife Kikuko with more respect, he even borrows money from his mistress to pay for Kikuko's abortion. Shingo is devastated, speculating if Shūichi's and Kikuko's unborn child might have been the reincarnation of Yasuko's older sister. Shūichi eventually leaves Kinuko when she expects a child, which she claims to be from another man and wants to keep. In the newspaper, Shingo and his family read about the suicide attempt of Fusako's husband, whom Fusako is about to divorce.

Characters

* Shingo Ogata * Yasuko, Shingo's wife * Shūichi, Shingo's son * Kikuko, Shūichi's wife * Fusako, Shingo's daughter * Eiko Tanazaki, Shingo's secretary * Kinuko, Shūichi's mistress (shortened to Kinu in the English translation with the author's permission, to avoid confusion with Kikuko) * Mrs Ikeda, Kinuko's flatmate * Satoko, Fusako's elder daughter * Kuniko, Fusako's younger daughter * Mr Tatsumu, Mr Aida, Mr Toriyama, Mr Suzumoto, Mr Mizuta, Mr Itakura, Mr Kitamoto, old friends of Shingo, mostly deceased * Aihara, Fusako's husband * Grandfather Amamiya, a neighbour * Natsuko Iwamura, Shingo's second secretary * Teru, a dog

Themes

The protagonist Shingo constantly reflects on his ageing, which manifests itself in his loss of memory, eyesight and even his male potency, wondering why he was not aroused during an erotic dream. He is also repeatedly confronted with mortality through the passing of friends and former fellow students, or the death of a young woman who committed shinjū with Fusako's husband. Human life and death correspond with the entire cycle of seasons (the proceedings start in autumn and end in autumn of the following year). Another theme Kawabata observes is the effect of the war on his protagonists. Shūichi's mistress Kinuko repeatedly refers to the war, which took her husband and prevented her of becoming a mother, and her flatmate Ikeda explains Shūichi's mean behaviour and attitude towards women with his wartime experiences.

Style

''The Sound of the Mountain'' completely takes the point of view of its protagonist, emphasising on his interior reactions rather than on exterior events, and disregards any thoughts of the subordinate characters. Like much of his work, it is written in short, spare prose akin to poetry, which its English-language translator

Edward Seidensticker Edward George Seidensticker (February 11, 1921 – August 26, 2007) was an American noted post-World War II scholar, historian, and preeminent translator of classical and contemporary Japanese literature. His English translation of the epic '' Th ...

likened to a

haiku is a type of short form poetry originally from Japan. Traditional Japanese haiku consist of three phrases that contain a ''kireji'', or "cutting word", 17 '' on'' (phonetic units similar to syllables) in a 5, 7, 5 pattern, and a ''kigo'', or s ...

in the introduction to his translation of Kawabata's novel ''

Snow Country is a novel by the Japanese author Yasunari Kawabata. The novel is considered a classic work of Japanese literature and was among the three novels the Nobel Committee cited in 1968, when Kawabata was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature. Writ ...

''.

Reception and legacy

Kawabata received the 1954

Noma Literary Prize The Noma Literary Prize (''Noma Bungei Shō'') was established in 1941 by the Noma Service Association (''Noma Hōkō Kai'') in accordance with the last wishes of Seiji Noma (1878–1938), founder and first president of the Kodansha publishing c ...

for ''The Sound of the Mountain''. For the first U.S. edition (1970), Seidensticker won the

National Book Award The National Book Awards are a set of annual U.S. literary awards. At the final National Book Awards Ceremony every November, the National Book Foundation presents the National Book Awards and two lifetime achievement awards to authors. The Nat ...

in the category Translation. ''The Sound of the Mountain'' is included in the Norwegian

Bokklubben World Library Bokklubben World Library ( no, Verdensbiblioteket) is a series of classical books, mostly novels, published by the since 2002. It is based on a list of the hundred best books, as proposed by one hundred writers from fifty-four countries, compiled ...

's list of the 100 greatest works of world literature, which was established in 2002.

Adaptations

Kawabata's novel was adapted into a film as ''

Sound of the Mountain is a 1954 Japanese drama film directed by Mikio Naruse. It is based on the novel ''The Sound of the Mountain'' by Nobel Prize winner Yasunari Kawabata. Plot Shingo, an aging businessman, sees the marriage of his son Shuichi and his daughter-i ...

'' in 1954, directed by

Mikio Naruse was a Japanese filmmaker who directed 89 films spanning the period 1930 to 1967. Naruse is known for imbuing his films with a bleak and pessimistic outlook. He made primarily shomin-geki ("common people drama") films with female protagonists, ...

and starring

Setsuko Hara Setsuko (written: or in hiragana) is a feminine Japanese given name. Notable people with the name include: *, later of Japan *, actress *, Japanese volleyball player *, Japanese actress and model *Setsuko Klossowska de Rola (born 1942), Japane ...

Sō Yamamura was a Japanese actor and film director. He was also known by the name Satoshi Yamamura, while his actual birth name is Koga Hirosada. Yamamura graduated from University of Tokyo. In 1942, Yamamura and Isao Yamagata formed the ''Bunkaza Theatre ...

and

Ken Uehara was a Japanese film actor. He appeared in more than 200 films between 1935 and 1990. He starred in '' Entotsu no mieru basho'', which was entered in the 3rd Berlin International Film Festival. His son is the singer and actor Yūzō Kayama. Sel ...

. It was also adapted for Japanese television in 1963 and 1984.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Sound of the Mountain, The 1954 novels Japanese-language novels Japanese novels adapted into films Novels by Yasunari Kawabata Novels first published in serial form Novels set in Japan Alfred A. Knopf books