Snow Country: Book Review

The first novel I read in May was Snow Country by Yasunari Kawabata, a Japanese novel that was first released in 1937 in a magazine and translated to English in 1956. That is surprising because Japanese novels weren’t often translated to English back then. Recently, we have seen many Japanese novels being translated and have gotten many iconic Japanese books and I can’t wait to see what other books are translated in the near future.

Snow County Summary

Snow Country is about a love affair between a man from Tokyo and a geisha that takes place in the town of Yuzawa. The writing is beautiful and the novel is very poetic and I love the scenery that Kawabata vividly describes and uses as devices to tell the story. With less than 200 pages, you can read this classic Japanese novel in a couple of days and see why it is beloved by critics and fans alike.

There is a lot of symbolism in the novel and Kawabata does a great job of capturing the beauty of the setting in the novel. You can imagine the scenery with the vivid descriptions by Kawabata. But the words used also represent what the characters are going through or saying. We often see the setting reflect how Shimamura is behaving towards Komako.

This novel was first written between 1935 to 1937 and we can see the difference in the time period in the novel. Kawabata does revisit the novel and work on the last two sections. The final version of the novel was released in 1948, We now know this era as the Japanese militarism era which was from 1873-1945. Many of the technology used in the novel showcases the modernization of Japan and how life has changed with the development of new technology.

When reading this novel, you might become somber and downcast. These are themes in the novel that show up a lot and set the tone of the novel early. From the setting to the characters, Kawabata’s novel showcases beauty being wasted. The geisha are the obvious representation of wasted beauty as well as the town of Yuzawa that is seemingly empty for the most part.

The apt descriptions by Kawabata make this a classic novel worth reading. Kawabata in fact visited the Yuzawa onsen and worked on the novel there. That is why the description of the setting feels vivid because he was experiencing it when writing his story. The room that he stayed at Yuzawa has been preserved as a museum.

Snow Country may be a short read but there is a lot to unpack in this novel. And in 1968, Kawabata was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature. The novel reminds many people of a haiku with how Kawabata uses short sentences that have a lot to say. Find out for yourself why this novel is considered Kawabata’s masterpiece!

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