| The Sound of the Mountain Contributor(s): Kawabata, Yasunari (Author) |
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ISBN: 0679762647 ISBN-13: 9780679762645 Publisher: Vintage OUR PRICE: $15.26 Product Type: Paperback - Other Formats Published: May 1996 Annotation: By day Ogata Shingo is troubled by small failures of memory. At night he hears a distant rumble from the nearby mountain, a sound he associates with death. In between are the relationships that were once the foundation of Shingo's life: with his disappointing wife, his philandering son, and his daughter-in-law Kikuko, who instills in him both pity and uneasy stirrings of sexual desire. Out of this translucent web of attachments - and the tiny shifts of loyalty and affection that threaten to sever it irreparably - Kawabata creates a novel that is at once serenely observed and enormously affecting. |
| Additional Information |
| BISAC Categories: - Fiction | Literary - Literary Criticism | Asian - General - Fiction | Asian American |
| Dewey: FIC |
| LCCN: 2014498719 |
| Lexile Measure: 670 |
| Series: Vintage International |
| Physical Information: 0.65" H x 5.26" W x 8.06" (0.48 lbs) 288 pages |
| Themes: - Cultural Region - Asian |
| Descriptions, Reviews, Etc. |
| Publisher Description: Nobel Prize winner Yasunari Kawabata's The Sound of the Mountain is a beautiful rendering of the predicament of old age -- the gradual, reluctant narrowing of a human life, along with the sudden upsurges of passion that illuminate its closing. By day Ogata Shingo, an elderly Tokyo businessman, is troubled by small failures of memory. At night he associates the distant rumble he hears from the nearby mountain with the sounds of death. In between are the complex relationships that were once the foundations of Shingo's life: his trying wife; his philandering son; and his beautiful daughter-in-law, who inspires in him both pity and the stirrings of desire. Out of this translucent web of attachments, Kawabata has crafted a novel that is a powerful, serenely observed meditation on the relentless march of time. |