Using Susanne Langer's assumptions about art, Harrington seeks to show through examining Thousand Cranes Kawabata's ability to bring a new awareness to the reader about human nature. Harrington argues that we are drawn into the main character, Kikuji, and that while the Western reader may be uncertain about aspects of modern Japanese culture, the "quality of feeling" developed by Kawabata make us aware of his significant contribution to the literary world.

A brief account of Kawabata's writings by a noted critic. Hyman comments that Kawabata's distinctly Japanese writings expose themes which are universal.

Attempts to discern the reasons behind Kawabata's suicide, based on his personal situation and the means by which he adjusted to life situations. This is often compared to Mishima's conceptions of life.

An examination of the factors which led Kawabata to commit suicide. The first part of the article establishes the typology of suicides in Japan, based on Durkheim's types of suicide. The second and third part deal with Kawabata, examining the pull between modernity and tradition within Kawabata's personality and the primary causes for his suicide.

A good, general encyclopedia piece which introduces the life and works of Kawabata. Analyzes Kawabata's work along a chronological framework. Also provides a bibliography listing many of Kawabata's translated works, and Japanese articles concerning his life and work.

This article examines the work of the "literary stars" of Japan, including a discussion of Kawabata. The jubilation which Japan felt over the acknowledgment of Kawabata by the Swedish Academy was also met with some perplexity, and Iwamoto touches on why Kawabata may have been chosen for the award.

As the title of this article implies, the central topic is the nature of time, especially how it is handled by the opposing players. While the authors admit that the dualistic division of time between an introspective, private time as measured in the East with the objective, public time of the West is simplistic, they argue that this division can nonetheless explain the cultural basis from which this novel draws its concerns. Incorporated into this is how Kawabata handles time, through the book's chronological structure, style, and tone.

Janeira's description of Kawabata falls within his chapter entitled "Western Influence on Contemporary Japanese Writers." In this regard, Janeira tries to portray the extent to which Kawabata relied on Western techniques as well as traditional Japanese themes, but generally provides a brief description of Kawabata's work.

Talks about his life and work, as well as listing some of the awards he has received. It is likely that some of this article was written from a biographical sketch provided by Kawabata, since that is common practice for this publication.

As the title indicates, this article focuses on Snow Country and attempts to show how Kawabata creates a fresh work with deeper, universal meaning out of a subject matter often used in Japanese literature. In order to do this, Kawamoto compares the novel to Nagai Kafu's A Strange Tale from East of the River, a novel, while well crafted, adhered to the tradition of the genre concerning geishas.

Kawasaki draws a comparison between Kawabata's The Sound of the Mountain and Tanizaki's The Makioka Sisters, specifically relating the role of the house and family between pre and post war Japan. Interestingly, Kawasaki ties the house to the individual body of Shingo, the protagonist in The Sound of the Mountain, since the body is the house of a spirit."(249) Thus, problems and troubles of the house dwell in the person of Shingo. Further, Kawasaki ties the disintegration of Shingo's family to the changing structures of post war families in Japan.

This is a thorough look at the writings of Kawabata, directly tied to the author's life. Of particular note is Keene's attempt to portray Kawabata's own attitudes about his work.

This Donald Keene anthology includes a brief essay written by him in April 1972 about the death of Kawabata Yasunari. It discusses Kawabata as an individual, and how impressions of his aloofness and detachment were an inaccurate reflection of his generosity, warmth, and love of beauty.

This is a long essay on Kawabata's House of the Sleeping Beauties which not only comments about the themes of this story but also provides a substantial outline. Kimball states that while this story is a contradiction of youth and age, beauty and ugliness, the central idea running down the spine of this story is the inevitability it provokes, that in the end death awaits. Thus, while Eguchi, the main character, strives for life and the womb while holding the drugged girls' breasts, in the end comes to realize the "brittleness of existence, the subtlety of self-deceit."(108)

Knapp uses the novels The Master of Go and The Sound of the Mountain to show how Kawabata and in extension, the Japanese view life and death. The main characters from these novels represent the in continuity and impermanence of life as well as the accepted and natural progression of death, a central theme to Buddhism which serves as a basis for much of Kawabata's writings.

A general reference work which presents brief "synopses of major works". This four page article gives a brief background on Kawabata, then provides some commentary on his later writings, including House of the Sleeping Beauties, The Old Capital, One Arm, and his short story "Long Hair".

Ostensibly a review of K's Palm-of-the-Hand Stories, this begins as a discussion on miniaturization and ends as a discussion on Eastern culture.

A thorough, sixteen page introduction to the life and works of Kawabata. Especially valuable is the lengthy bibliography which contains a listing of translations, including his palm of the hand stories, and a nice listing of critical evaluations of this work.

Liman shows how Snow Country is a separation between the self and the world, as embodied in Shimamura. Shimamura relies heavily on sensory information, often bypassing rational activity, which blurs the perceptual framework of the novel. This fine line between Shimamura's dreamlike state and reality is an attempt "to negate the dualistic split in modern art between great abstraction and great realism."(285) It is this ambiguity which makes Kawabata intriguing and lyrical.

Lippit focuses on the male narrators of Kawabata's works, especially Shimamura in Snow Country. She argues that his narrators are dilettantes in the tradition of the Japanese sukimono, a man of senses. These heroes are torn between a detachment towards life, recognizing its waste and futility, and a sensual desire to be part of the world through appreciating its beauty.

An interesting look at how modernism in Japan during the 1920s shaped and eroded the concept of the I-Novel. In terms of Kawabata, Lippit shows Kawabata's early thoughts about writing and gives a detailed analysis of The Crimson Gang. A continuum for following Kawabata's modernist influences into his later writing is the Richard Torrance article from Studies in Modern Japanese Literature.

This article discusses the landscape and background which served as the setting for Snow Country. The author comments on the changes in the land since the book was written, and what direct experience Kawabata had in the Niigata prefecture.

Examines Japanese art and describes it as a mixture of serenity and beauty with a dark, somber disparity.  Specifically focuses on The Master of Go by examining the characters.  It compares the approach of Western readers to the Japanese novel and draws Mishima's Spring Snow into the discussion.

Major, David C. and John S. Major. "Yasunari Kawabata: Snow Country." In 100 One-Night Reads, 134-137. New York: Ballantine, 2001.

If you have found this bibliography, this brief overview is not really for you. Still, it is a refreshingly simple analysis from someone that approached the book as a reader rather than a scholar or critic.

Malatesta, Hiroko Morita. "The Way of Modern Japanese Fiction: The Concept of Geido' and the Novels of Tanizaki Jun'ichiro and Kawabata Yasunari." Ph.D. diss., University of California, Los Angeles, 1980.

Malatesta looks at the concept of Geido, the way of art, and how Kawabata's works expressed this concept. Specifically, she argues that Geido is tied to Mahayana Buddhism and through rich imagery and cultivated sense of loss Kawabata successfully embraces and develops the beauty of art.

A brief discussion from a publisher of the journal Literature East & West about the impressions these three figures have had on college students in Hawai'i and New York as well as their literary contribution to the world.

Mathy argues that while Kawabata does contain many elements which are peculiar to his homeland, his literary style goes beyond national boundaries by exploring human nature. She specifically counters against the claims that Kawabata represents a true nihilism in his writings.

Matsuoka looks at the final passage from Snow Country and also Higuchi Ichiyo's short story Otsugomori to examine how the stream of consciousness techniques used in English may correspond to this text and assist in translation. In the case of Kawabata, however, the author finds that while this technique may be helpful in finding corresponding meanings, it will be difficult to give equivalent meanings due to the tension created in the form and content of Kawabata's writing.

Maynard, Senko K. "On Rhetorical Ricochet: Expressivity of Nominalization and da in Japanese Discourse." Discourse Studies 1,1 (February 1999): 57-81.

This study uses examples from Snow Country to examine "the expressivity of language as it focuses on the aesthetic and emotive meanings realized by grammatical structure. For those interested in Kawabata, it is a useful reminder about the difficulties and differences that arise from translation.

Metevelis, Peter. "Translating Kawabata's Thenar Stories." Japan Quarterly 41, 2 (Apr-Jun 1994): 181-190.

Discussion of translating Kawabata's Palm of the Hand stories. Describes the qualities of his stories and the inherent humor which is often lost in translation. Further discusses the differing approaches to translation, specifically literal or interpretive.

Miyoshi examines the style of Kawabata's writing and how it progressed and changed over the span of his life. This is accomplished by focusing primarily on two of Kawabata's novels, Snow Country and The Sound of the Mountain.

*not seen*

This dissertation looks at Kawabata through the lens of literary modernism. Rather than simply a reflection of traditional literary methods, Kawabata also relied on Occidental literary themes and concerns. Mizenko also examines Kawabata's changing literary expressions during his life, from his interest in perception as indicated by his use of mirrors to his final works which express "emptiness", with and introspective self

Mizenko, Matthew. "Bambo Voice Peach Blossom: Speech, Silence and Subjective Experience." Monumenta Nipponica 54,3 (1999): 305-331

This article includes a translation and discussion about one of Kawabata's final stories, "Bambo Voice Peach Blossom." Mizenko looks at how religion has shaped Kawabata's writing, particularly in terms of enlightenment. This story deals with an aging protagonist's experience of a natural event, and Mizenko provides an interesting analysis of the text. He also discusses the Nobel lectures of Kawabata and Oe.

Moore, Patrick J. "The Edge of Darkness: A Study of Thousand Cranes by Kawabata Yasunari." Journal of Evolutionary Psychology 8, 3-4 (1987): 201-210.

Through analyzing the text of Thousand Cranes, Moore argues that the reader can gain a better understanding of Kawabata's life and his inability to overcome his inner conflicts. Moore draws comparisons between characters in this novel and family members from Kawabata's life, and also looks at the symbolism and meaning behind different aesthetic features found throughout the plot.

This article takes a Freudian psychoanalytic approach to the dream sequences found in Kawabata's novel. The focus, however, is on a dream often overlooked as nonsensical, the dream in which Shingo sees the face of an American male, covered in the whiskers of all the nationalities which make up that nation. Mori argues that this dream not only represents Shingo's personal problems involving a latent desire for his daughter-in-law, but also correspond to social concerns.

This study examines how the main characters from four modern Japanese novelists define their self as they strive toward some type of fulfillment. Morishige founds her arguments in a humanistic psychology, where healthy individuals are considered those who work toward self-actualization. Her examination of Kawabata is based on the characters from Snow Country and Thousand Cranes, where reality is substituted with aesthetic values.

Morrison, Clinton. "Analysis of a Japanese Text: Yasunari Kawabata's Yowaki Utsuwa ("A Fragile Cup")." Rackham Literary Studies 7 (1976): 61-73.

This article uses textual analysis to discuss elements of language and narration in Japanese. It does provide an English translation of A Fragile Cup, but Morrison is more interested in language structure, rather than analyzing this story.

Nakano, Mei. "Through the Eye Awakened: A Study of the Plot in Yasunari Kawabata's Snow Country." M.A. Thesis, California State University, Hayward, 1974.

Nakano critiques contemporary Occidental critics who comment on the "scant regard for story and plot" by identifying and examining the plot of Snow Country. The plot of this story centers on the continuity and development of the main character's thought rather than specific actions. This novel was chosen as the most representative of Kawabata's work, and the English translation was generally relied upon in order to focus the study on plot rather than problems of transliteration.

*not seen*

Provides the presentation address as well as an abbreviated version of the acceptance speech for the Nobel Prize. Also includes Seidensticker's translation of Snow Country, an account of Kawabata's life and works, and world reaction to the 1968 prize.

To examine this novel, Noguchi begins his article by asking "Why cannot Shimamura love Komako?" (41) To explain the reason, he explores other Kawabata novels and essays to conclude that love represents an attempt to capture lost childhood through woman. This is due to Kawabata's own situation as an orphan and why expressions of love in his novels must remain Platonic.

This article looks at how the novel is tied together by thematic elements, particularly the effect of sound. These themes are tied together through dreams and periodic episodes with a creative imagery to give the reader a total picture of the main character Shingo, with the disappointment he feels when reflecting on his life and family.

This review provides a brief background of Kawabata's life, an overview of the novel, and a critique of the translation. Ochner comments that this novel has no true villain, but that the tension in this novel derives from inner conflict due to duty and sentiment. This work is described as strongly Japanese, both in the emotional feel of the work as well as the emphasis on the natural setting in Kyoto. The critique of Holman's translation finds his overall work fairly accurate, but points out examples of omissions, misunderstandings of idioms, errors of fact, etc.

Ochner, Nobuko Miyama. "Two Snow Countries: Transforming Kawabata's Novel into Film." Translations/Transformations: Gender and Culture in Film and Literature East and West 7 (1993): 45-52.

This is a comparison of the 1957 Toho film directed by Toyoda Shiro to the novel. Ochner clearly shows how the medium as well as the culture of post-war Japan shaped the film and made it different. In essence, the film transforms the novel from being Shimamura's story and makes it Komako's story.

Odin, Steve. "Blossom Scents take up the Ringing: Synaesthesia in Japanese and Western Aesthetics." Soundings 61,2 (1986): 256-281.

Kawabata is briefly used to illustrate the principle of synaethesia, or intersensory experience. Other examples used are the tea ceremony, Chanoyu, and haiku, specifically Basho.

Oe, Kenzaburo. "Japan, the Dubious, and Myself." In Japan in Traditional and Postmodern Perspectives, ed. Charles Wei-Hsun Fu and Steven Heine, 313-325. Albany, NY: State University Press, 1995.

A paper presented at the New York Public Library in 1993 by the only other Japanese (so far) to win the Nobel Prize in Literature. While this essay is more of a critique aimed at the idea of Japanese tradition and the representation of Japan to the world and itself, it still provides some interesting interpretations of Kawabata's speech, specifically questioning its ambiguity.

This is a collection of essays from Japanese texts concerning this novel. As Oi explains, "I have tried to introduce some of the best interpretations of Snow Country to the foreign reader who is at a loss to explain its beauty and wants to hear the opinions of the native reader."(49) These are only selections of the texts written about the novel, with sections omitted at the editors discretion.