My first Kawabata- I thought this might be more to my liking than his more descriptive writing. It's largely based on dialogue between a husband to be and his fiancee's mother and concerns her daughter, Inieko's, committal to a psychiatric clinic due to somagnosia, a form of body blindness. The characters debate whether Inieko's illness is actually a form of madness and whether she should have been committed in the first place. They rarely agree on things as they mull over the aetiology of her illness, showing how rarely humans connect and the solitary nature of each individual's journey. Perhaps this is illustrated by the recurring symbols of uniqueness such as a white rat, white herons on a burial mound and a lone white dandelion. There's an emphasis too on the unreliability and subjectivity of perceptions not just in Inieko but all of us, illustrated by the example of the conjecture regarding the sound of the bells and who's doing the ringing at the clinic as they interpret it from a nearby village. When the author makes general observations on humanity or the 'mad', they're generally pithy. I found it a very curious and oddly fascinating book and I'll be reading more Kawabata. ( )

Weird and cryptic with flashes of brilliance. ( )

Peculiar. Calm. Sadly, unfinished. ( )