Reception
Edward G. Seidensticker, noted scholar of Japanese literature whose English translation of the novel was published in 1957, described the work as "perhaps Kawabata's masterpiece." "According to him, the novel reminds of haiku, both for its many delicate contrapuntal touches and its use of brief scenes to tell a larger story.
As Shimamura (the protagonist) begins to understand his place in the universe, the idea of mono no aware is also quite apparent.
Snow Country is one of the three novels cited by the Nobel Committee in awarding Yasunari Kawabata the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1968, the other two works being The Old Capital and Thousand Cranes.
Another Japanese novel, also titled Snow Country, but spelled in katakana as opposed to the original kanji (both books are Japanese), references this work. In the homage to the original, a Japanese student undertakes translating a book from English into Japanese for summer homework. The student does not realize that he is in fact translating a translation of the original work.
Read more about this topic: Snow Country
Famous quotes containing the word reception:
“To the United States the Third World often takes the form of a black woman who has been made pregnant in a moment of passion and who shows up one day in the reception room on the forty-ninth floor threatening to make a scene. The lawyers pay the woman off; sometimes uniformed guards accompany her to the elevators.”
—Lewis H. Lapham (b. 1935)
“I gave a speech in Omaha. After the speech I went to a reception elsewhere in town. A sweet old lady came up to me, put her gloved hand in mine, and said, “I hear you spoke here tonight.” “Oh, it was nothing,” I replied modestly. “Yes,” the little old lady nodded, “that’s what I heard.””
—Gerald R. Ford (b. 1913)
“He’s leaving Germany by special request of the Nazi government. First he sends a dispatch about Danzig and how 10,000 German tourists are pouring into the city every day with butterfly nets in their hands and submachine guns in their knapsacks. They warn him right then. What does he do next? Goes to a reception at von Ribbentropf’s and keeps yelling for gefilte fish!”
—Billy Wilder (b. 1906)