A review by bijou3owl
Palm-of-the-hand Stories by Yasunari Kawabata

reflective sad slow-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? It's complicated
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

3.0

- uneven, but I knew that going in. It's the dude's entire body of short story work in one collection 
- a LOT of them were Weirdly Horny. Did not enjoy those much
- But also really poignant. Lots of stories that made me think of things like two paragraphs in that I had to pause and reflect on before finishing, even though the story itself was often only 2.5 pages long 
- liked the war and post-war stories a lot better. There was a decided tonal shift that jived with me
- pretty sure a lot was lost with the translations. One translator was clearly better than the other, but both had a stilted quality