April has passed and the begonia flowers have bloomed.
Yasunari Kawabata wrote in "Flowers Don't Sleep", "I woke up at four o'clock in the morning and found that the begonia flowers were not sleeping", and he said to himself: "If a flower is beautiful, then I sometimes involuntarily say to myself: To live." ”
A few words of shallowness have given countless lonely people the strength to live.
But the man who wrote such gentle words left us 50 years ago, when the begonia flowers bloomed in April.
Image credit/Unsplash
There is such a sentence in Yasunari Kawabata's famous work "Ancient Capital": "Maybe luck is short-lived, but loneliness is long-lasting", which is the background of Kawabata literature and the footnote of his life.
Born in Osaka in 1899, Yasunari Kawabata was the son of a doctor who opened a private clinic and his mother was from the Kuroda family. Kawabata is the eldest son in the family, and he also has an older sister named Yoshiko.
It seems that the beginning of a good life, but unexpectedly encountered a straight-forward fate:
Kawabata lost his father at the age of two and his mother at the age of three, and was raised by his grandparents. He had just started elementary school when his grandmother died. Three years later, my sister died. His sister and grandmother died, and at the age of 16, his only closest relative, his blind grandfather, left him.
Kawabata grew up in an environment where relatives died one after another, ordinary people attending funerals, always busy, but for funeral arrangements, Kawabata is "familiar with it", and even calls himself "a celebrity attending a funeral", which reveals his endless loneliness.
Kawabata Yasunari (1899-1972)
He loved four women named Chiyo, and all of them ended up in vain.
As an adult, he became close friends with Yukio Mishima, but in his later years he could only watch him leave.
It is such a "lonely man in the whole universe", but it has left the most beautiful words in the world, touched the judges of the Nobel Prize in Literature, and also fascinated a generation of Chinese writers.
Yasunari Kawabata and Yukio Mishima
In 1968, Yasunari Kawabata became the first Japanese writer to win the Nobel Prize in Literature with three masterpieces representing the pinnacle of Japanese aesthetics, "Snow Country", "Ancient Capital" and "Thousand Cranes".
The Nobel Prize jury gave him the following words: With extraordinary acumen and superb novel skills, he expressed the essence of the Japanese psyche.
"Yasunari Kawabata is a symbol of infinite softness, and in his pen, life can appear in death", Yu Hua recalls reading "The Dancing Girl of Izu" for the first time when he was 20 years old, just like the memories of the first opening of love.
After Feng Tang finished reading "A Thousand Cranes", he wrote down with great tenderness——
"After reading in the morning, the sky suddenly fell, the clouds flew and rained, the words beat on the paper, and my hands pressed on it, but I still couldn't press it. The vulgar golden yuan words came to mind: "Ask the world, what is love, and teach life and death to be promised?" ”
Liang Wendao said: Yasunari Kawabata used a novel to define a thousand-year-old capital.
Yasunari Kawabata's influence in the world literary scene may be beyond our imagination.
García Márquez, also winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature, was influenced by Yasunari Kawabata's Sleeping Beauty, and in the book Memoirs of a Bitter Prostitute, Márquez's "response" to Kawabata can be seen.
Yukio Mishima, Junichi Watanabe, Wong Kobo, and Wong Kar-wai are also loyal fans of Kawabata.
Kawabata's description of the "scar" is not a forceful accusation, but a warm narrative:
You can even get a nice color on your fingertips.
INTERVIEWER Snow Country
When I have you, whether it's buying a tie at a department store or picking up a fish in the kitchen, I feel happy.
- "The Dancing Girl of Izu"
Therefore, when the sense of impermanence of life becomes heavier and the lonelier people's hearts are, the more we need Kawabata's words.
Coinciding with the 50th anniversary of Yasunari Kawabata's death, Sanlian will send you a special commemorative edition of the 50th anniversary "Yasunari Kawabata Anthology" for free.
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Special offer 388 yuan original price of 756 yuan
Special offer: April 24 - April 30
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01 Douban 9.2, one-time collection
All the most beautiful works of the "Nobel Prize Master"!
Someone once said that the beauty of Japan is in Maeda Shinzo's camera, in Miyazaki's animation, and even in Yasunari Kawabata's novel.
Some readers also left a message saying: Reading Yasunari Kawabata, your sensory image is magnified tenfold.
This set of "Yasunari Kawabata Collection" includes all the masterpieces of Yasunari Kawabata:
"Snow Country", "Ancient Capital", "Thousand Cranes", "Sleeping Beauty", "Vine Flower and Strawberry", "Izu's Dancer", "Mountain Tone", "Flower Round Dance", "Station in the Shower"
If you open a book, you can feel Kawabata's infinite literary charm.
"The Dancing Girl of Izu"
The masterpiece of fame takes you back to the beauty of life
After the first loss of love, During his trip to Izu, Yasunari Kawabata met a dancer named Chiyo, who had the same name as his first love. In the days of traveling together, the two had feelings for each other, but eventually lost their news.
The delicate Kawabata wrote this short but bright love into the work "The Dancing Girl of Izu".
"The dancer saw me standing still, immediately gave up her cushion, turned it over, and pushed it to my side."
I sat close to the dancer, and in a panic took a cigarette from her sleeve, and the dancer pushed the ash dish in front of me in front of the accompanying woman. I still had no words. ”
Just a few silent movements, the throbbing shyness of youth, the gentleness of the inner surge, jumped on the paper.
Stills from "The Dancing Girl of Izu"
A suddenly ran out of the dim baths first... She is the dancer. White naked, slender legs, standing there like a small sycamore... She spotted us, ran naked into the sun, tiptoed up, and straightened up. She's still a child. I was even more cheerful and excited, and giggled again. The brain was as clear as if it had been washed away. There was always a smile on his face. ”
Kawabata's writing has a grainy texture like a movie picture, and his gaze when narrating shortens the distance between our minds to reach things, resulting in an immersive and aesthetic sensory experience.
After reading Kawabata's work, you will be surprised that your sensory image has been magnified tenfold, you can see the lines of insects and leaves, and you can hear the traces of the wind.
When you are no longer a numb adult, you can feel the cuteness of the world.
"The Dancing Girl of Izu" also contains many of Kawabata's famous works, including the very famous autobiographical essay "Celebrities Attending Funerals"
《Snow Country》
A textbook of Japanese aesthetics, reading the beauty of mourning
The story begins with a train bound for snow. Dance art researcher Shimamura travels three times to the snow-capped Northern Mountain Village to get entangled in love with the local geisha komako and the maiden leaf of Pingshui.
Two women with diametrically opposed personalities thought that men could rescue them. But Shimamura has returned to reality time and time again, choosing neither the leaf he loves nor the colt that he loves.
Stills from Snow Country
The snow falling in the snow country seems to be doomed to the futility of love:
"When Shimamura stood firm and looked up, the Milky Way seemed to clatter and poured down on his heart."
In "Snow Country", the beauty of the nothingness, the beauty of cleanliness, and the beauty of sorrow of life are depicted to the extreme. That secret and faint sense of fatalism also vividly embodies the sentimental flavor of Japanese material mourning literature, which makes people feel intoxicated when reading.
"Ancient Capital"
With a novel, this thousand-year-old capital is defined
From its birth, "Ancient Capital" has been hailed as the peak of Japanese beauty. It has been put on the screen 4 times. Liang Wendao fondly recommended it in "One Thousand and One Nights", and today, it is a must-read guide for people to punch in Kyoto.
The clichéd plot of "long-lost sisters" can be relied upon by Yasunari Kawabata to win awards.
Two twin sisters who have been separated for more than 20 years, they meet by chance, miss each other, but they cannot recognize each other because of the disparity in identity. The sisters' faint sorrow has become timeless and moving because it has been woven into the beauty of kyoto's four seasons.
"Alas, the red weeping cherry blossoms of the Heian Shrine are competing to spit out the flowers, but my heart is so lonely," Kawabata Yasunari used a novel to define the thousand-year-old capital.
Stills from "Ancient Capital"
"A Thousand Cranes" and "Mountain Tone" are the pinnacle of Japanese aesthetic literature.
It tells two love stories that violate morality, but the meticulous portrayal of human nature is deeply rooted in the marrow.
In the words of the reader: the beauty of "Mountain Sound" cannot be described in words, and putting all the rhymes of words and sentences together is more intoxicating than appreciating a painting!
"Sleeping Beauty": Yasunari Kawabata's amazing masterpiece, Márquez pays tribute to "Memoirs of a Bitter Prostitute", and Yukio Mishima loves it.
The novel tells the helplessness of aging and death in old age, the inferiority of old ugliness, and the nostalgia for youth.
The whole story is subtle and powerful, gentle and graceful, profound but not abrupt, directly attacking the weaknesses of human nature, and generous and warm tolerance.
The last three books, "Station in the Shower", "Vine Flowers and Strawberries", and "The Round Dance of Flowers", are a collection of "palm novels" by Yasunari Kawabata: a total of 137 short stories.
Short is one or two pages, long is about ten pages. Each exquisite story tells endless love and sorrow.
02 Classic translations, collection binding
The healing system of the anxiety era is "dim sum book"
The commemorative edition of the anthology was selected for all the translations of Ye Weiqu and Tang Yuemei, which were widely praised by scholars, and were personally approved and authorized by the Kawabata remnants.
Both graduated from the Department of Japanese Literature of Peking University, engaged in translation, and are known as "the most beautiful scholars and couples". Ye Lao, who worked at the People's Literature Publishing House, is recognized as a translator of Japanese literature and is known as the "first person to study Chinese Japanese literature".
Ye Weiqu and Tang Yuemei
The Kawabata golden sentences we see on the Internet, including the short passages selected for the Chinese textbook and the selected translations, are all from Ye Lao's hand. Although Mr. Ye Weiqu passed away in 2010, his translation has been recognized and appreciated by more and more readers after the baptism of time.
What impressed me the most was its heart-to-heart dim sum design.
The outer seal with the kimono pattern as the background color, wrapped around the waist and high outer seal, conceals the inner flower color, and hides the Japanese aesthetic that shifts from intense beauty to simple beauty.
When you read it, it's like leading people to the four seasons of Kyoto, and it's a beautiful treat from the outside in.
Paper books that are only slightly larger than mobile phones can be taken away in bags and pockets, and when taking the subway, traveling, traveling, you can easily read through a classic on the way.
Placed on the pillow, when the emotion comes like a flood of beasts, pick it up and soothe the lonely soul.
The pure and elegant bookcase design is given to friends around you, and it is extremely romantic. Collecting at home is a double nourishment of the visual and the spiritual.
Place your order now and have an ultra-luxurious triple exclusive giveaway:
With the book, you will receive a hand-painted Kawabata Literature Walking Map and a cute sticker of Wakako, which can be pasted on notebooks and other living utensils to make life colorful and cute.
You can also get an exclusive officially authorized book collection ticket. The measuring "book" is exquisitely hand-drawn, cut in nine square grids, and each sheet can be torn off individually. Border bronzing process, quiet and beautiful atmosphere.
Fang Fei in April, during the reading season, why not have a literary roaming with Yasunari Kawabata and realize life?
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Special offer 388 yuan original price of 756 yuan
Special offer: April 24 - April 30
Yasunari Kawabata's anthology, we can always look through, triple reading knowledge annual card, how can we use it?
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In retrospect, by opening or renewing the "Triple Reading knowledge annual pass", you can not only enjoy the rights and interests of the annual membership, participate in the co-study activities and get the punch card reward, but also get the "Kawabata Yasunari Anthology" [9 volumes of library, free book box]!
Author: Chen Lizhi
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