Snow Country - Yasunari Kawabata (4🌟)

Snow Country is a short novel, first published in 1956. It is considered a classic of Japanese literature. Not only it depicts traditions and social conventions of the Japan of the 1950s but immerses the reader in a gentle flow of emotions, subtle yet intense.

Shimamura is amarried man from Tokyo in a relationship with a young geisha, Komako, who is desperate in love with him. Both characters cannot be more different and their relationship is odd at best. He is from the city. She is from a small town. He is much older than her and has a family. She lives an isolated, lonely live as a geisha. One thing they have in common though is they are both looking for something to fill a hole in their lives. And their relationship isn't doing that but they keep trying in their own odd ways.

Opinion: this is the kind of novel that grows in your heart when you have the time to process and reflect on the meanings of metaphors and symbols embedded in the narrative. The story is filled with beautiful descriptions of the landscapes and surroundings, setting up brilliantly the mood between the couple's encounters.  There are some codes (to me) left here and there which the author uses to convey emotions, decisions or memories.  I took note of a few but I'm sure I missed many. For example: 

* moths by the window screens, death and stuck, until they fall to the floor.

* the milky way at night showing the way to the characters (?), 

fire, which destroys or ends lives, and 

* Chijimi (traditional clothes), which Shimamura compares to his relationship with Komako. If well kept Chijimis are ment to last for decades. However Shimamura's attitude towards the geisha is only comparable to the discarding of clothes.
* fire, which destroys and ends loves.

In addition to the above codes, the dialogues between the couple told much more than the words said. Distance and indifference from Shimamura, and love, desperation and loneliness from Komako. Won't say more but you have to read it.

My edition is a Modern Classics by Penguin Books. Published in 2011 and with 121 pages.