Slow beginning. A tour de force from pg. 50 onwards. The cloudy haze of Shingo's battle with his failing memory, aging body, and demented mind overrides the readers cognition, reducing our inner buzz to an oscillating tuned note that revealingly pierces layered family dynamics built on suppressed emotion. A masterclass in realistic tension. Kawabata has indeed done it again.

"She gave his chin a gentle shove upward as she took the tie in her hands. Shingo closed his eyes.
Yasuko did somehow seem to be producing a knot.
Perhaps because of the pressure at the base of his skull, he felt a little giddy, and a golden mist of snow flowed past his closed eyelids. A mist of snow from an avalanche, gold in the evening light. He thought he could hear the roar.
Startled, he opened his eyes. Might he be having a hemorrhage? Kikuko was holding her breath, and her eyes were on Yasuko's hands.
It was an avalanche he had seen in the mountain home of his boyhood."