The Sound of the Mountain

Rating:
Summary: This too, shall pass
Review: "The Sound of the Mountain" ("Yama no Oto") should have been a script for an Yasujiro Ozu film. All of the elements are here, with the kindly aged father Shingo who cannot gain his children's respect or love, ready to be portrayed by Chishu Ryu, and the lovely and loving daughter-in-law Kikuko, far more understanding than his real children, designed exactly for Setsuko Hara. The family who has left its rural home to uproot to Tokyo, following the jobs, losing their heart in the process. It really is too perfect.

Instead, the story is guided by the gentle hand of Yasunari Kawabata, who gives us the Japanese family, still disheveled by the end of the war and not quite certain what their roles are and dealing with their loss of identity. Confucian ideals, such as respect for the elder parents, have been swept aside in the post-Occupation reality. Shingo's son Shuichi has come back from the war an indifferent, cold-hearted man, flaunting his affairs with neither spite nor pleasure. Shingo's wife, Yasuko, is an ugly reminder of her sister, whom Shingo loved in is youth yet died. Their daughter Fusako is a burden, returning home with ugly children, her husband a waste and their marriage broken. The only pleasure in his life is the daughter-in-law Kikuko, whom his son wounds daily with his lack of caring.

In the Kawabata style, there is neither complaint nor surface rage at life's inconstant fortunes, but rather an acceptance and perseverance. Life is about moving forward, even at the advanced age of Shingo and Yasuko, who take their burdens as they come. Shingo is the main character, and so this is a book of old age, of looking back at life's mistakes and longing for fading pleasures. "The Sound of the Mountain" is a brilliant, cherishable book, one that captivated and moved me.

Interestingly enough, "The Sound of the Mountain" was eventually made into a movie, and while Ozu didn't get to direct, Setsuko Hara did get the part of Kikuko. Someone else must have had the same idea.

Rating:
Summary: This too, shall pass
Review: "The Sound of the Mountain" ("Yama no Oto") should have been a script for an Yasujiro Ozu film. All of the elements are here, with the kindly aged father Shingo who cannot gain his children's respect or love, ready to be portrayed by Chishu Ryu, and the lovely and loving daughter-in-law Kikuko, far more understanding than his real children, designed exactly for Setsuko Hara. The family who has left its rural home to uproot to Tokyo, following the jobs, losing their heart in the process. It really is too perfect.

Instead, the story is guided by the gentle hand of Yasunari Kawabata, who gives us the Japanese family, still disheveled by the end of the war and not quite certain what their roles are and dealing with their loss of identity. Confucian ideals, such as respect for the elder parents, have been swept aside in the post-Occupation reality. Shingo's son Shuichi has come back from the war an indifferent, cold-hearted man, flaunting his affairs with neither spite nor pleasure. Shingo's wife, Yasuko, is an ugly reminder of her sister, whom Shingo loved in is youth yet died. Their daughter Fusako is a burden, returning home with ugly children, her husband a waste and their marriage broken. The only pleasure in his life is the daughter-in-law Kikuko, whom his son wounds daily with his lack of caring.

In the Kawabata style, there is neither complaint nor surface rage at life's inconstant fortunes, but rather an acceptance and perseverance. Life is about moving forward, even at the advanced age of Shingo and Yasuko, who take their burdens as they come. Shingo is the main character, and so this is a book of old age, of looking back at life's mistakes and longing for fading pleasures. "The Sound of the Mountain" is a brilliant, cherishable book, one that captivated and moved me.

Interestingly enough, "The Sound of the Mountain" was eventually made into a movie, and while Ozu didn't get to direct, Setsuko Hara did get the part of Kikuko. Someone else must have had the same idea.

Rating:
Summary: One of the Finest Books Ever Written
Review: I love Japanese literature. Unlike American writers - who overdo both their descriptions and their passions - Japanese writers, especially Kawabata, demonstrate taste. Like the beautiful, small cherry blossom, Kawabata's book is exquisite in its understatement. Only in Japanese literature could you have a father-in-law be completely in love with his daughter-in-law and not have the entire thing reduced to some graphic affair. This story is quietly profound. American readers who are in for action or blatant romance will not enjoy it, but if you are a reader who likes a book that makes you recognize your own silent yearnings - then this is the book for you. But I warn you, you will need to read it at least twice to really get it. Since the underlying theme of this novel is the dwindling of life, I recommend reading this novel in the fall or when you are feeling your own body failing.

Rating:
Summary: Good Book But Not So Good Idea !!!
Review: I¡¦m interested in ¡§The Sound Of Mountain¡¨ since I saw ¡§Awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1968¡¨ on the cover of the book.
The main character of the book is Ogata Shingo. He can heard the sound of mountain which is a hint of unknown occurrence, and a premonition of death. It made me feel mystery, thus, had the curiosity to read the whole book. However, ¡§the sound of mountain¡¨ is not the main theme of the book. Instead, I felt the relationship of Shingo¡¦s family member and the life of the old man, i.e. Shingo, is the theme of the story.
Actually, I¡¦m quite disappointed with the book. This is because I want to know how ¡§the sound of mountain¡¨ to tell Shingo the unfortunate future. However, ¡§the sound of mountain¡¨ seldom appear in the story. As an alternative, I can see the book use many words to describe the family life of Shingo. So I felt quite boring at the beginning of the book.
As I mentioned before, the relationship of the characters are the theme of the story, this made people to think some questions. What¡¦s the correlation between father and daughter? What¡¦s the relationship between husband and wife? What¡¦s the affiliation between father and daughter-in-law? Do you have any idea? In the book, I found that Shingo don¡¦t like her second wife so much as he miss his first wife, who was his second wife¡¦s sister. Also, he don¡¦t like his own children since they always bring problems to him. However, he loves his daughter-in-law very much, he even want to fall in love with her. Although this is an interesting idea of a story, I don¡¦t like so much since I¡¦m a little bit traditional. If such relationship really happened, I think it¡¦s really horrible.
Besides, I think the story is not coherent enough. On the other hand, I think the book is good of describing the mystery sound of mountain.
To conclude, from my opinion, I think except of the idea of Shingo is not good, others are quite good. We can learn many words from the book.

So I¡¦d like to recommend it to you.

Rating:
Summary: That's the Sound of Life, That's the Sound of Death
Review: Kawabata Yasunari won the Nobel Prize in 1968 and this novel above all his others, in my opinion, gives readers a chance to find out why. This is a classic of world literature, a work of genius. It is a finely-written tale of family, a simple story about an older man who is fond of his daughter-in-law, though his relations with his own two grown children, son and divorced daughter, are ambiguous. The story line, as in other Kawabata novels, is simple----there are no great events, no dramatic conclusions or climaxes. Natural phenomena---birds, animals, plants, and weather---play a large role in setting the mood and are used as symbols throughout. Far from being a recurring theme, the "sound of the mountain" is heard only once, on page 10, yet it and many other signs presage changes in life that follow a pattern unseen by human eyes.

The most amazing thing about THE SOUND OF THE MOUNTAIN is its capacity to summarize or to encapsulate family life, the compexity of family relationships. The only other book I know that comes close is Christina Stead's "The Man Who Loved Children", but that is a most verbose book whose characters verbalize nearly every emotion, or else the author does it for them. Kawabata's novel, however, succeeds in portraying family life equally well, if not better, with an absolute minimum of brush strokes. The indecision, the steps not taken, the regrets, the lost loves who return in dreams---all the myriad small events from which marriages and families are constructed---flow in a way that is both typically Japanese and universal. Shingo, the old man, was particularly kind towards Kikuko, his daughter in law, who "was for him a window looking out of a gloomy house." "Kindness towards her was a beam lighting isolation. It was a way of pampering himself, of bringing a touch of mellowness into his life." There is nothing so definite (or crass) as an out-and-out love affair between the two. Rather, there are solutions that are no solutions, compromises that have to paper over the disappointments. Life goes on and Hollywood is for children. What a brilliant book !

Rating:
Summary: the perfect kawabata novel?
Review: kawabata's slow moving novel of family life blends dreams, rememberances and glancing interactions between the characters with a study of nature and the process of aging.

the subtle, furtive love between shingo and his neglected, much abused daughter-in-law kikuko forms the core of the novel. while nothing physical actually happens, a certain passage with a no mask is among kawabata's most erotic.

worth many re-readings, this poetic and beautiful book is among the best of kawabata's works translated to english.

Rating:
Summary: Sound of snoring
Review: Kawabata's writing style, no doubt made worse by poor translation, is slow and plodding. The descriptions of scenery and trivial movements is overdone and detract from the final story. There were many points throughout the book that I just couldn't figure out what was going on because the writing was so muddled and the primary thread was simply not continuous.

The book reads like a puzzle. The story is thin, and Kawabata attempts to weave every scene, every action into some over-arching theme (old ways good, but new ways may have good points too) that simply left me cold. However, there are many who like this kind of storytelling, so my experience should be taken with an appropriate amount of salt grains.

Not having read the book in its original language, I can't say whether the translation helped or hurt the book. The words and sentences were certainly poetic, but ultimately empty. The poetry simply couldn't carry the poor plot, if anything it hindered it all the more.

Rating:
Summary: couldn't put it down
Review: This is a great book! It pulls you into the story and doesn't let go. You can really feel what the main character Shingo is going through with all of his guilt and confusion and his helplessness at times. I really sided with him and felt for Kikuko. The dreams he has are particularly interesting.

Rating:
Summary: a required read
Review: This translated version of _The Sound of the Mountain_ makes me want to read the original text. During my read, I felt like I was missing the essence of Kawabata's words (obviously). A tale of an old man, Shingo, and his immediate family--wife, daughter-in-law, daughter and son--the novel captures the twists and turns of familial bonds. Shingo narrates this wonderful story, and we learn from his thoughts that age certainly carries with it a yearning for the past, an apathetic outlook for the future, yet, curiously, an appreciation for what is situated in the present. Kawabata's descriptions of Shingo's thoughts are existential in nature; the narrative is calculated, yet poetic--minimal, yet suffuse with meaning. I highly recommend.

Rating:
Summary: beautiful but can't get past the sexism
Review: This was the fourth Kawabata novel I have read, and I found it to be quite thought provoking. The main character's name is Ogata Shingo, and he is a man whose life is slowly falling apart. Ogata's life started off well, graduated from University married to a beautiful woman, but things started to go down hill after that. First his wife died, and he ended up marrying her younger sister whose looks did not compare to his dead wife's. However, the marriage lasted, and the second wife beget Ogata two children. It is these children, now grown, that cause Ogata all of his problems. The daughter leaves her husband and brings her children to live with her parentshe blames Ogata that she turned out the way she did because he did not show her enough affection. The on is the one who really hurts Ogata, because he the son cheats on his lovely young wife who Ogata holds great affecrtion for. Page after page of the book tells of Ogata's affections for his daughter in law, It is really quite touching. Ogata, besides having to deal with his children also is slowly growing senile, it really hurts the reader to see how his mind is decaying through out the pages of the book. Good Book read it please