The Sound of the Mountain

"This is a book where the father does live with the family. I just love Kawabata. To me this is a beautiful book about middle age and old age. The thing I like so much about it is that each member of the family is going through a particular change or journey or revelation at the same time, and yet they’re not aware of each others’ struggles. They’re only glimpsingly aware and yet they live together in this home. It’s a beautiful evocation of how the family contains these separate missions. Yes, but less beautifully so. He’s accepting coming to the end of his life, and he’s accepting what’s left of life with its losses. I don’t think he’s the author, no. Kawabata has written a number of other wonderful books too, and they are all quite different. Within a fairly patriarchal time in Japanese culture, I think he has an appreciation and a gentleness in his understanding of women. Nobody makes a big deal about it. And the father’s affection for the daughter-in-law is really a kind of selfless love. There’s another wonderful book of Kawabata’s worth mentioning too, Palm – of – the – Hand Stories . They’re very, very short stories and quite lovely."