Kawabata's The Lake Reviewed

The Lake

Kawabata-san is one of those elusive geniuses like Mishima-san.  To read his works is to enter into a world utterly strange and utterly unapproachable to the western mind.  There are things going on in the stories that would seem to have deep resonance, but often because the cultural referent is lacking, they seem merely odd--much like Asian Horror Movies.  And yet, for all of that, there is a beauty in the strangeness and a power in the writing that defies explanation.

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