Japonais : 山の音 (yama no oto)
Chinois : 山之音 (shan zhi yin)
Français : Le Grondement de la montagne
Anglais : The Sound of the Mountain

Fait amusant, tous les caractères chinois sont dans le premier ton. Le roman m'a rappelé La mort d'Ivan Ilitch.

Shingo is a, self-described, office worker in his sixties. He loves the picturesque, is also committed to the welfare of his family. In other words, a very ordinary man who one might argue has been made sentimental with age.

Kawabata however tells a beautiful story through this ordinary character, and through his family. Of a paterfamilias who looks out for his children and grandchildren, who finds beauty in puppies, trees, birds, flowers and people.

An observation I made in the book is the contrast between twos. Shingo mostly compares what he finds beautiful and pure with that he finds 'homely'. His beautiful sister-in-law to his homely wife, his beautiful daugher-in-law to his homely daughter and so on. And thus he tends to ignore the people he finds homely for those he finds beautiful and this affects the relationships he has with his family members.

Kawabata narrates of love, beauty, poetry, marriage, old age, loss and redemption and healing in a well paced beautiful tale.

Kawabata's writing is part poetry, flowing beautifully from one character to the next. His evocation of nature and relationships and change reveals a portrait of post-war Japan in the most personal and vivid sense.

DNF. Could not get into this book at all, not sure if it was the writing or I just wasn't in the right mood.

This is a very pretty book in terms of prose but it is not happy. The characters feel full of ennui, none more so than Shingo, who is faced with the end of his life and an honest evaluation of his actions and decisions over the course of it. It is a painful honest evaluation when he is confronted with the realization that he wasn't a very good father and now feels as if his deficiencies have carried over to his children and doomed them to poor lives and poor relationships.
The Sound of the Mountain is very poetic and the short, simple sentences fit well in style to the introspective character of Shingo as he evaluates his life and comes to terms with it's end.

A rather beautifully written novel that makes use of natural imagery from the perspective of an aging grandfather witnessing his family dynamics develop. Between the affair of his son and divorce of his daughter, he weighs his responsibility as a parent of now adults. This, coupled with his no longer affectionate marriage, frequent death of friends, and physical deteoriation, gives insight to a elderly view. All this occurs with a backdrop of coping with war in Japan. Where this novel lacks is coming from a slightly particular experience that is not entirely entertaining.

This book is one of the finest, most elegant books I have ever read. While the plot seems still at times, the novel itself is a window into the human experience. The prose is refined, thanks, in part, to the translator Edward Seidensticker. When reading, we do not feel the constraints in time throughout this novel. There is no mention of the date, or the passage of time, except for when past events in the book are cited as "last autumn," for example. I am sad that I've finished this book, but now I can dive deeper into the treasure that is Japanese literature.