Episode 83 – Snow Country

All right, everybody, welcome to Finding Japan. Don't even know what episode this is. What episode is? Terrence. I forgot to check that too. Uh but hey, we're here and this is the longest running Japan podcast in the world. We're gonna say it. We think, yeah. We were talking about that the other day, weren't we? We're um I was writing a a bio and I wanted to begin including some of these uh extra projects in there and I'm like

You know, all the greats, all the greats are gone. And so far this is the only one that's still here. Yeah, we had what, talk uh Tokyo Calling, Hero Flum Japan, uh the old Kobe Beef Show. Kobe beef show, yeah. Yeah. I you know, you could easily reclaim that title if you just push out a Kobe Beef Show episode.

That is true. I yeah, I've thought about it. Hmm. I have weird I have mixed feelings about it, but yeah. We'll need to get your back catalogue back in order though. I remember we went through and we tried to find all those episodes a while ago. Yeah, I'm gonna have to do some hunting. Occasionally people ask about it, so I should do some hunting first some back catalog and then figure out a cool way to kind of connect those, bridge those to like modern new episodes.

Still keep the old format but modernize it a little bit, just you know. Yeah. Absolutely. So this is episode eighty three. Certainly not the most prolific podcast, but probably the what we think is the longest running. So if if we're wrong We're more than happy to cede that title to someone more deserving. So let us know if you're listening and you realize we're not the longest running.

Yeah, but I realized man there are like successful podcasters out there and they'll say things like, been podcasting since twenty ten and I'm like, no no no no no no We were podcasting way back in the dark ages. Like that was the wild west of podcasting. Podcast Alley, the website that had like the top one hundred podcasts when there were only like a hundred podcasts. I remember that, yeah.

Oh man. I w I we're totally going off track from our main topic, but this is really cool'cause we haven't done a joint podcast in a long time. I was just going through uh My one password, right? Because I store all my passwords in there and there's a ton of stuff in there that's really old. So I'm like, oh, let's go through some of the stuff that's old.

I was going through accounts I created in two thousand four, two thousand five, and a lot of it was old podcasting technology sites that are no longer around. You remember Odeo? I was about to I couldn't come up with the name, but I knew yeah, I wanted to say that too. Yeah. Yeah. So I still had one of those accounts. I still had a whole bunch of old stuff and I had to go through and delete it. It was it was a trip down memory lane, man. It was amazing. Oh nice.

Ah, but we're not here to talk about productivity today. What are we here to talk about?

We're here to talk about what is probably my favorite book of all time. A piece of Japanese literature. One of the most famous Japanese books, it is Snow Country by Kawabata Yasunari. So so before we get into what this book is about, a little bit of history. So Terrence, we we've known each other for for gosh, an awful long time, more than more than ten years.

And I and I think you've told me about this book about once a year, uh, since I've known you. And it's funny because you're always like, Hey, have you read Snow Country yet? I'm reading it again, I'm reading it again And I think you've got a little bit of obsession with this book. Why don't you clue our listeners into uh

Y that your obsession with this book? Uh yeah. So back in uh maybe late high school, it might have been by college, I basically uh did Japan's Japan studies or Japanese studies, not just language, but Japanese culture and uh literature. Right. And I can't remember exactly when I first read it, but once you start learning about Japanese literature, Kawata is like the one of the most famous writers of

Japanese writers of all time. So his most famous book was Snow Country. So I think I read the I read it in English then. And, you know, I remember really liking it. And I just remember it was It was I don't know how to say it. It was like deeply familiar in a Japanese sense, but also very almost alien and uh just really struck a chord with me.

We'll talk we'll get into it later. It's it's it's not an exciting book. It's not you know, it's not action action packed, there's not a twist. It's n it's not a Tom Clancy novel. No. But it just really stuck with me. And I remember as I was learning to read in Japanese. I could speak Japanese for a while since I was a kid, but I couldn't really read Japanese. One of the books I wanted to read was Snow Country, because I had read it in English and enjoyed it.

and I remember finally getting a Japanese copy and slogging through it. It's not a thick book and it took me forever and it was so opaque and vague and I think I understood Maybe fifty percent of it. Um and s some of it I just kinda flew through. And then even though I read it

up to that point two times, once in English and once in Japanese, it just really stuck with me. So every year not every year, but every couple of years, three years, I'll just be like, you know what, I'm gonna read this again and I just start to slog through it again. And um I just really find the Japanese to be beautiful. I often forget plot points. I can't remember who was where, what was when. Right. Um, but I just the feeling of the words and the descriptions and just this feeling like

I love it when you read something and you go, this guy's a master. Maybe a lot of like English speakers might feel that way when they read something by Hemingway. You know, they talk about the facility with language. Like like it's a you know, it's painting painting the Sistine Chapel in words. Like it's I I mean, I'm not a writer, so you know, I I can just only be impressed by it, but it's just so impressive.

Um the way those yeah, the way those English language books are. A way a Hemingway book is, or a way um I really like um All the King's Men is one of my favorite books. Like just that I've never read that. Yeah, it's a great it's a great political novel. Uh it's a great book. But just the skill with with language.

Yeah. So so w what what always fascinated me about this this book, uh'cause it'cause it would come up in our conversations every couple of years. So that that that makes sense now that you were rereading it often, but you also own many copies of That's a um that's a good point. Uh yeah. So I I think if I include I have an English copy. Yeah. I have an English language copy that I think is back home in the States. Um I have an English language Kindle copy.

I have a Japanese language like just paper book copy. Um and then I have uh Japanese language Kindle copy and then I have one more Japanese paperbook copy because they recently come out came out with a series of classic Japanese novels, but the covers are all based on traditional Japanese tenugui, which are hand cloth. and they have these like beautiful traditional Japanese patterns and they put these patterns on the cover. Uh Japanese uh paperback books.

come with like a separate cover. The cover's not built in there is a built in cover, but there's an outside cover. The way American hardback books have that that jacket. That Yeah. So Japanese paperbacks come with a jacket. And so that jacket has these beautiful like uh handcloth patterns of maybe like uh stylized leaves or traditional Japanese patterns from the seventeen or eighteen hundreds.

or things like that. Do you still do you still have that cover? Um you should take a picture of and we'll pull it up on the P I'll cover and you can take a picture of yours or we'll put it on the phone. Well I've purposely kept it in good condition. Nice. Yeah. I have several books from this series because other books by other n uh authors are also in this series and also have these covers. So Yeah. I think I sent I even sent you a picture.

I took a picture a while back and sent it to you, but I can take another one and we'll po post it somewhere on it. The English version is is also very short, so if you are interested in this book and looking for a a quick read, um I'm looking at it now. My version is a hundred and seventy five pages in English and it's it's quite Um

Um so you can easily get through it in a in a weekend. Um take a take a read and then pop back in here and um pick up the episode from here because I think we're probably going to cover some things in our discussion of this book that uh may give away certain plot points. So just a a fair warning ahead of time. uh for those who are interested in the book and wanna take a a a read at it. But but anything else uh

you'd like to mention uh about the book before we we dive into the to the plot or or or perhaps maybe we can uh cover uh kawabata and and a little bit about him and and how this book came to be. I know you I know you've got some information on that as well. Yeah, let's talk a little bit about Kawabata. To be honest with you, I'm just kinda kind of summarize stuff from the Wikipedia. There's stuff written in Japanese. Um a lot of it's long and just kinda like

uh filled with minutiae and I just think the Wikipedia page is his Wikipedia page is really solid, the English language one,'cause he's quite a famous person. And there's just a few highlights from his life that might make it a little bit

make his work more understandable and a little bit interesting. And I might even talk a little bit not to get into the the weeds about it, but I might mention a couple of other books he's written just'cause I've read I've read some of his other stuff and it's kinda interesting. A lot of them have been made into movies and there's even a really good movie.

and a of a really of one of his really good novels. So I might talk about that a little bit just so people get a you know, a little bit bigger picture.

Sure, let's do that. I mean I I think probably the the biggest thing at least for for English uh speaking listeners would be is he's he actually won the Nobel P prize for for literature in the sixties, right? Yeah, that's a good start because he's the first Japanese to win the Nobel Prize for Literature, nineteen sixty eight. Yeah. And th and this is the the uh the book that earned him that prize if I'm not. It is one of them.

I think it's a it's a body of uh lifelong body of work that they look at, but they cite uh they cited Snow Country, A Thousand Cranes and uh Ancient Capital or Old Capital. Yeah. And so Kawata was born in eighteen ninety nine. Um, so you can kinda get an idea of when he lived. So basically he he would have lived through World War One and he would have lived through World War Two. And the interesting thing about Snow Country is that it was written kinda serially from nineteen thirty seven

up until like about forty five, I think was like he may have finished it before that, but I think that's when the last part of it was published. Mm-hmm. Um this was actually quite common practice in novels of the time, to kind of publish them serially. Uh so it was not published as a complete work initially. It was published in s in sections.'Cause I know the English uh portion of the book as well is divided into part one and part two. Is it similar in Japanese?

I think so, but I think he probably wrote it even in smaller bits than that. Yeah. But I'm looking at the Japanese copy and actually no, I don't see the I don't see the part one, part two split in the Japanese copy. Hm. So it may have been more in the little chapters that it may have been Broken into in the yeah, and the English version here really doesn't even have chapters. It's just uh part one and part two. And part one is very short. Part two picks up uh about I don't know forty Okay.

Yeah, so you know, so he was born in Osaka apparently and something happened to his family. I think everyone passed away or things happened and he basically was kinda orphaned. Um But he eventually moved to Tokyo and go to Tokyo Imperial University and, you know, just started becoming a writer and I think he did a lot of shorter

uh shorter works in in literary journals and things like that. What he's kind of famous for as far as like with his peers is that he's one of the uh founders or one of the people in the what the Japanese call the Shin Kank Shink Kankakuha, which means like new uh sometimes it's mistranslated as neo impressionism, but it's a little bit more like new sensations or new perceptions. And I don't know a lot about it. One of the areas that we can talk about later that

the beginning of the book, the opening of Snow Country, has a lot of short, sharp sentences. Mm. Um, and this is something that struck me as a little bit the reason why I talked about Hemingway earlier is that Hemingway is also famous for relatively short kind of um sharp sentences, s uh short, sharp sentence structure. And Kawabata uses that a lot too, especially in snow country. So that's kind of interesting. Um and then

Uh some of his other famous works are, for example, The Dancing Girl of Izu, uh which I've never read. Uh one I've read that I like is uh The Sound of the Mountain.

And this was a later work actually. It was written after Snow Country and a little bit towards the later end of his career. Um, I really enjoy it. It has a very cinematic feel. Although Snow Country feels very cinematic in a lot of ways too. Um The sound of the mountain is cinematic, not in the scenery sense the way snow country is, but more in a sense of like

Each chapter would end it with these emotional cliffhangers or almost like dun dun dun but they're just emotional beats. Like they're not kinda like a soap opera. What's up? It's kinda like a uh like a soap opera, right? You know, e every commercial break ends in a sort of What's she gonna say? Yeah. But n nothing crazy's going on. It's just a family drama, right? It's not but it's written s that structure's done so well. And there's a great movie by one of my favorite Japanese directors.

uh uh Narise Mikio, which who's a great director and if you have a chance Uh the sound of the mountain is actually clearly. quite a thick book for Kawabata. So if you're not up to that challenge, at least watch the movie. It's a great movie. Um and then Naruse is great. So I would recommend also When the Woman Ascends the Stairs, which is another classic movie by Naruse. I like one of the things I love doing is

I'll read the novel and then watch a lot of these were made into movies, so then I'll then watch the movies'cause a lot of the movies were directed by really famous directors, which is another obsession of mine is Japanese uh old school directors from the fifties and sixties. So

Hm. Yeah. Um So so so you mentioned the the the cinematicness of this book and I think that's probably best embodied by the by the opening line. And you know, I'm kind of a g a guy who who likes to eat the dinner before the dessert. So I I think I think it might be helpful to to kinda go over that opening line and then tie it back to his w his his writing style. Um

I i if if you like, I'll I'll go over the the English one and then you can talk about the the Japanese uh opening'cause'cause you had mentioned before it's probably one of the best known openings uh to a book in Japan, correct? Yes. So so the the English um

Translation of the opening line is actually quite bland. Um I I I think it does a disservice to the uh to to the the cinematic nature of of Kawabato's writing style. But but here's the here's the opening line and and I'll try to do it in my my best NPR voice. Uh the train the train came out of the long tunnel into the snow country. Dun dun dun. Alright, so what what do we got in Japanese for that opening line and and maybe walk us through why why it is so cinematic. Alright.

国境の長いトンネルを抜けると雪国である So that literally translates just to give it a literal translation so you can kinda see the order and how Japanese works and why that might be have a certain impression, is that Kokyo means like the border. So the uh

the long tunnel of the border, the train passed through and came into the snow country. Might be like a weird kind of almost Yoda way of translating it. But you can kinda get that feeling. So You're going through the long border the this long border tunnel and then you kind of Thank you.

Whew like I can it's some I've never seen any movie based on snow country. A couple of them exist. I have not heard the best reputations, but I might have to dig one up and find it and watch it. But I always imagine like I don't know, just like some camera in the the Pointed at a tunnel and it's dark and then as the train comes out kind of bursts into you know this.

like white landscape. A little bit before evening, not quite dark yet. And then maybe it gets dark later as we get to the actual beginning of the of the book. But I actually wanted to go further and go back to the English and read read the next two sentences. Because

It's this staccato, it's this rhythm that's amazing. So let me um let me read that first um one again and do the do the next two sentences as well. The train came out of a long tunnel into the snow country. The earth lay white under the night sky. The train pulled up at a signal stop.

国境の長いトンネルを抜けると雪国であった夜の底が白くなった信号所に汽車が止まった What what's really interesting about this and I I don't think you need to understand Japanese to get a sense of the rhythm in the writing and and a lot of Kawabata's writing too is a reference to to uh you know, many people will know the the haiku style, a seventeen syllable poetic style. Um, but what's really interesting um here is even if you don't understand Japanese, you can just hear the

rhythm of what is being said. Specifically because, you know, in Japanese uh uh grammar the the uh informal form past tense of a verb always ends in ta or da So i it can be very uh poetic in a sense. But but I think going a little bit deeper, that especially man, that second sentence is always what what um Nails me in terms of of of of poetic and cinematic view. T tell us what's going on here with with those first three lines.

Yeah, so as you pointed out, in Japanese each sentence will end with ta because of the way the verb structure works in Japanese. And that second sentence is just really cool because essentially like it Yoda translates into The bottom of the night was white. Or no, the bottom of the night became white. So basically the night just melted into the white snow. Mm-hmm. Um and I think uh is it Edward Sid Sidinger is the translator? Yep, Sid S Sidensticker. Seidensticker?

I think he does a great job. It's a b it's a it's a it has it's a it's a well known translation, has a great reputation. He does do a good job. uh capture the the cinematic nature of his writing. Yeah. And so I just think he does a great job, but It's not the same. There are some things in Japanese that just work towards this style. Like I guess for

it to be translated more directly into English based on the Japanese would make it maybe sound a little over dramatic or even a little bit ridiculous and and venture a little too much into Yoda land. So I think uh that's why you know, side in sticker made the I think the right choice to just bring it into English and, you know, make it literary for the English language.

So so um I don't think we've given anything away about the book yet. Um but yeah, you know, the opening line, the opening paragraph at least is quite quite famous and I think a good um summary of of of what we're going to expect uh in this book and with the writing. Um what what's the plot of this book? What happens? Um I think we should talk a little bit about that and this is probably

the time where if you're one of those people who really just I don't wanna know, I wanna read it first, please bow out now. But I I I hope we're probably not gonna give away a lot just by talking about the plot. So yeah, let let's go over that. We've got the m the main character, uh Shima Murah, who is a uh Uh what would you call him? Uh he's uh sort of a to Tokyo socialite. Yeah. Didn't they isn't so I saw somewhere something about dilettante? Dilatant. Maybe a dilettante.

Uh you know, I don't really know what that word means. Yeah, I don't know either. I have an idea of what it means, but I don't know if it's accurate. So Whatever we imagine that word to be, that's what he is. Even if we're even if we're wrong, I think what the average person thinks dilettant means. You're probably not too far off from what Shimamura probably is. So here's a guy who likes to go to his own sin trip.

You know, out into the snow country, uh, you know, probably has a salaryman job in in in Tokyo and is looking for some sort of uh solo vacation escapism on a frequent basis. I actually think he's probably um comes from a wealthy family. So he doesn't really really have to work. So he has this kind of like half-assed job. That's why he can um he apparently takes these trips.

maybe several times a year or m not necessarily the same location, I get the feeling. Um, that's why in the plot of the book, as he visits this uh this resort, this on sent this hot spring town Uh which is probably in real life based on a town uh that's located in Niigata. And the term snow country um is specific to this part of Japan because it's it's what they call the

This part of this is the north part so this is not Saiying, but this is the Japan seaside of the country. Right. And um historically and geographically and culturally, the Japan seaside of the country is less populated, uh darker the the weather, the climate. um a little more isolated. And so that's another thing about the tunnel line and entering this world that's so brilliant that you feel like you're s you're starting a movie. I I think of it like almost starting like a

I think like like like Fargo, Cohen Brothers Fargo or something when I think the opening scene of that is over the snowscape of Fargo. So that takes you into the world. It it's almost um meant to be a like a fantasy world. It's an escape.

Yeah. So Shima Shima Mura is like a he's a uh ballet critic, but he's never gone to see the ballet and I think he's also in the French literature or something. Mm-hmm. And he writes reviews or does some kind of Journalistic slash half academic kind of work and uh takes these trips several times a year, and the book kind of starts us off with his.

Him visiting the same town again to go see the same girl that he's established a relationship with. So it starts in the I guess what would be the present time of the book. And then Later, a little bit just a little into the book, it'll kind of flash back to maybe his very first visit when he visits the when he meets the kind of object of his affections or the person he has the affair with.

one of two women in this story, which is uh Komako, who is a geisha, uh, in this town. And uh the one thing to be careful with with Western audiences about geisha is that, um The geisha that you classically hear about like in Kyoto and in very famous uh tea houses Ninety nine percent of the time. these women are not prostitutes, just to make that clear. Um but geisha from in regional areas who are not as like the level of their level as geisha is not as high, it's not as prestigious.

There is a blurred line between the women who entertain at banquets by serving alcohol, uh, singing traditional songs, playing games with the customers, and also having sexual relationships with the customers at times. So I think that understanding that geisha doesn't equal prostitute.

But it can cross into that. There's another thing about Kawabata's kind of vague style of writing that it is such a great representative of the vague aspects of Japanese culture where Japanese aren't as caught up on uh creating clear lines between things, as we might be in in a more western

society or Western point of view. Right. So that's an interesting part of the book. And then so I mentioned Komako, but there's actually one more woman and why that's important is because right after the book describes entering the snow country It's a scene of Shimamura in the train sitting kinda kitty kitty corner or diagonally across from kind of behind and across from this woman who's

He can see her reflection in the window and knows that she has this sick man with her that she's taking care of and kind of think holding his head on her her lap and he's fantasizing and looking at her and thinking about her and that kind of starts uh his reentry into the back into this snow country and the case. It's a yeah, it's actually the first female character that's introduced in the book. Uh yet not the one that's primarily focused on until later.

Yeah. That's very interesting. So so we we have uh i i it's a Can we call it a love triangle maybe? I don't know. Not really,'cause I don't know if there's a relationship between Yoko and Komako, it's not clear. Um but it is about a a a man who's making these these visits. And as you as you mentioned in the book, it starts off with probably one of the m the the um middle visits and then it goes back and revisits the first time he had been there.

And then the latter half of the book is really focused on the last time he's there. Yeah, it comes kind of comes back to the present of the book. Yeah. Right. Okay, so that that's um interesting we I think we've sort of painted the plot arc here. Um the the book is about it really I would say musing and exploring uh the relationship of that type of nature. And as you mentioned, you know, these geisha are not typically p prostitutes, so it's not meant to be a you know a pretty woman type.

uh scenario going on here. Um However, it is interesting to note that the book does mention that Shimamura does have a family in Tokyo, including children. So this also I think sort of plays a part of the Japanese uh not clearly defining lines.

uh in terms of uh relationships or or fidelity or infidelity and and other than some oblique references to his family or his wife in in in Tokyo, uh it's really not talked about. So it really is, I think, kind of uh gives more weight to the sense of this is meant to be a

uh a fantasy or escape type story, uh, from my point of view. I think that that's kind of how it's looked. And I think a j a reader in in Japan would probably view it as the same way and take it as a given that, okay, you know, this is uh we're gonna go through Shimamura's uh, you know Yeah.

Yeah, I I it's A lot of these uh oblique references, uh vaguely hinted at things, even things that should be more direct when you're talking about a you know, an affair, uh, such as just plain sex, is very kind of there are there are no explicit scenes of Of Shimamura and Komako having sex. Right. We actually talked about that, right? It's very hard to nail down like even how many times they copulated during the during the book.

Yeah. Uh there are some very like erotic um uh depictions. Uh Shimamura early on after seeing uh Komako again like touches her hand and rubs it in this way that you know, that that very much uh alludes to uh digital f you know, uh stimulation of a woman's, you know, more private parts, but he's touching her hand and saying he he talks about m I miss this I miss the feeling of this or I miss how you feel and it's Yeah, it's it's it's subtle but quite

quite dirty and quite erotic and quite and interesting and it I remember it throwing me off a little bit because I what I had wondered was like am I just being a modern dirty person and reading this totally wrong and there's actually a more like, you know, lovely and innocent poeticness to this and I was like up on a few readings I'm like He's talking about what he's talking about. I think what's interesting is uh as a um in a reader of purely the English translation, I have not read the

the Japanese translation though. Side note that is a maybe a life goal of mine. uh to try to do that at some at some point. But I think in in in reading the the English version of this book it it's very difficult, uh, even in English and perhaps more so because of the vague nature of Japanese language in general and then you're losing probably losing a little bit through translation and the uh side and sticker. Great translation, I I I believe. Uh it still rem keeps its uh poetic nature, but

But it's even harder to know when you're reading it in English, right? You're you're reading through two layers as opposed to just reading the Japanese and maybe accepting what's unsaid. Here you're wondering well what is unsaid it's kind of clear. And that certainly i is apparent in the dialogue as well.

Yeah, there are some parts of the dialogue. I was uh I was telling you the other day that When the English dialogue seemed weird, I'd and I'd go back and reference the Japanese and the Japanese would be words that don't translate into English. Like Yoroshku Onegai Shimas, which means like you know, like I I trust that you will treat me well in like in it in our ongoing relationship or in this situation or the next time I see you.

It's a classically Japanese term and then you can kind of sense but I wasn't sure like like this is a pretty old book and Side and Sticker's um translation is not you know, it's it's it's not that new. It's it was done not that long after the book itself was published. Um or maybe a few you know, maybe quite a few years, but

It's closer to the translation than it is to our time now. So I was almost wondering sometimes if some of it was just like this is just some dude you know, over fifty years ago translating something and the way we make fun of like old timey, you know, TV shows or radio shows like, eh, hello there, sir, chap you know, like some of the dialogue or the translation style might be a little bit old fashioned.

So it might be some of that, but I do think some of it is the yeah just things that are just not very well translated and have to be indirectly translated and attached to uh equivalents that

We can find in in English language or in a m you know in an English speaking culture. Yeah, I I completely agree. I um Wanted to talk maybe about one more topic before we um start getting into the spoilers. Um you had you had mentioned the the cinematic nature of this and one thing I had pointed out on our uh uh prep for this is the the amount of time and attention that the author spends describing the environment uh around uh Shimamura in in these particular areas.

With specific re reference to insects. Um I found that fascinating because, you know, obviously in the in the mountains there's um many different types of animals, squirrels, deer. Um I I assume that. Um You know, there's a lot you could potentially talk about, birds, for example. Um but the book focuses primarily on insects and I found that interesting. There was one passage uh in particular, um and I believe it's uh referring to his

the last uh visit, uh, where his wife mentions to him that he should be careful because it's moth season and the moths are out. And from that point forward I kind of noticed a lot of imagery on on insects and and sort of life and death. My my view on that, and I'm curious to get your view as well, is that uh insects uh represent such a short lifespan. So, you know, it's very easy for humans to to r notice and and reflect on the life cycle.

uh of things uh growing and dying. There's a I think there's a reference to a moth laying eggs on the lacquer of like a hanger or something like that. Um there's a reference to dragonflies feeling like they're trying to escape the forest. Uh there's a reference to uh I think it was a honeybee or a bee uh fighting its laf s last death in a you know, a four mat room which seemed weird, you know, this big world and this bees trying to survive and he watched.

Um, what what was your take on that? Did did you get anything related to that or do you think that's just part of the cinematic nature of his writing and the um the way he was trying to paint the picture? No, I th I think it's a I think it is part of the way he's trending. Speaking of that, a a spider just ran across my desk. Nice.

Which I uh disposed of. Sorry, I'm not a Buddhist. I tend to let spiders go'cause I have this like feeling that they're kind of the good bugs and they'll get rid of the bad bugs. So I tend to I tend to be a little more he was he was crawling at my arm, man. He was he's like, I'm gonna get ya. Don't talk bad about my kind. Anyway, so he's Life and death. All right. We've just had a death. All right, continue. Sorry. You're just trying to prove po impermanence.

But unless you unless you believe in reincarnation, you know.

Uh not really, but uh there is a Japanese term monono a aware. What what is it? It is the uh ephemera, it is the impermanence of things. So I think you're right that bugs are in compared to bugs, we live you know, we live as long as gods. We're like gods compared to bugs, you know, in lifespan.

So we can kind of see them in their cycles. And the other thing about bugs is that As humans, bugs are probably the things that we see the most dad than any you know, minus I'm not talking about people who work who are coroners or ER doctors or police officers who see death. But the average person probably sees

death more in the form of bugs than almost anything else. No, that's a good point. I didn't think about from that perspective. And so and I don't know if that's what Kawata was thinking about per se, but I just mean that is able to encapsulate that

the cycle, like you said, like bugs come around in a certain season and are gone by a certain season. Um there is a lot of like in Japanese literature and in movies and in just artistic depictions, there are a lot of things about bugs, especially like For example, semi cicadas.

and, you know, their their particular and peculiar uh lifespan and how they'll come out and sing very loudly and then towards the end you'll hear some of them at the end of the season like have this broken like singing'cause they're just dying and then they just fall off whatever screen door they were on and

Yeah, and then you find their little crusty body being eaten up by ants and then you know too the circle of life, you know, Lion King goes on. So the semi as well are are kind of a I don't know how to say this. too unbelievable or fantastic for a Japanese author to describe uh, you know, uh the the t the chirping of of uh cicadas as uh

to describe a l a background scene in Tokyo, for example, right? There wouldn't be anything really fantastic about that. But I think I think what Kawabara does here is a little different because it's focusing on the micro details of some very specific insects in certain scenarios. For no other purpose than I think to create that, you know, to or to flesh out the canvas, right? Because

I I I I don't know if I'm I'm trying to make a bigger connection here than there really is, but I w it is one thing that I found interesting and quite enjoyable about the writing, uh, because I felt like I was there. I felt like I was getting a a view of what was happening in the environment around him. think it's a Great observation. Um I had not

it had not struck me as much, but when I go to read this book again, I'm definitely gonna pay attention to that a lot more. Um, the thing I got from the Nature was a lot of the description of the nearby mountains and the I think there's a nearby town that is a is famous for looming, like uh or silk weaving or some industry, and he talks about that for a little bit. Um there are these descriptions of like

Just yeah, the surrounding the mountains and the trees and and the things in the distance. Um that I found really str sh striking. Um it's been a little while since I've last read the book, so I can't quite remember good examples and I didn't have a chance to really go through that'cause it just kind of weaved throughout the book. But Um those kind of things really struck me. Um

Yeah, the mountains were almost like timekeepers. Um you know, for both for the seasons and for the night, uh which I found interesting in terms of how it how they were described.

So I I think this is probably the part where we say, Okay, if you're really interested in the book, um, you should go read it, uh, because I wanna get into some of the more interesting questions about the book that uh having read it, um You know, people might be interested in in in what we think, but to do so we're we're gonna start giving away some some plot points. Uh any anything else you think is worth mentioning before we get into that?

Um I'm looking at some stuff right now, thinking about it. Before we get to the end because it's not quite tragic and I think as we just talked about impermanence, so death is going to come in as a theme. Uh just for people who don't know, um Kalbata died by apparent suicide in nineteen seventy two. Um, he apparently gassed himself, probably like in a similar way to Sylvia Plath. I don't I don't know how similar the actual mechanics of their deaths are, but I think hers was a gassing also.

So although some people say it may just have been an accident, he was trying to adjust some the I don't know not pipeline, but make an adjustment on the stove and May have accidentally killed himself. uh or may have killed himself uh intentionally because he learned that he had Parkinson's or that he was uh he had he had he might have had an illicit affair towards the end of his life and maybe something disturbing about that in relationship to his wife.

Uh may have drove him to suicide. Another thing is that he was a friend of uh Another very famous Japanese writer, Mishima Yukio, who very, very famously died in the nineteen seventy by um seppuku or Harakiri. I mean classic. he was the head of this kind of right wing kind of s paramilitary group and he had his second in charge essentially. He cut his own belly. The idea of Sepku is you cut your own belly with a shorter knife and then your second in charge are kinda like yeah.

your right hand man chops off your head. This guy Actually killed himself this way. He's another one of Japan's most famous um writers and maybe even a more interesting character as far as like the quirks of his life and his personality, then Kawabata is pretty interesting guy. But all of those things may have led Kawabata to uh

uh kill himself or at least, you know, just yeah, die before his natural na natural end. Um it's an interesting you know, it's an interesting thing at the end to at the end of his life and some of those things kind of seem like they may have had some roots and some uh germination in his in in in this work. Um so I just wanted to yeah let people know about that before we kind of get to the end. Um

Cool. Were there was there anything else you wanted to cover or some I wanna I wanna get into the I wanna get into the end, but um

I I I think I think we covered the the setting, who Kawabata was, uh what you can expect with this book. So if you're interested in reading it, go do it now. Uh we will wait. And then I'll I'll insert music like some elevator music in here.

And then uh all right, welcome back. Uh I hope you enjoyed the book. If you didn't, we're gonna spoil it now. Um So y I think some of the most interesting uh questions that we we came up on is uh what exactly happened at the end of this book and how do we interpret it?

Um I think we've got a couple of uh paragraphs to discuss here as well, but let let's talk about uh what happens i in the end. So sh Shimamura and Komako are sort of having this uh passionate dysfunctional uh relationship that Shimamura is slowly starting to realize how dysfunctional it may be. and how he may never be able to truly be happy, right?'Cause I think he kinda realizes that

though he likes Komako and there's something there, it's not something that's sustainable. And there's a many different passages associated with that. But there's a section towards the end of the book, maybe I don't know, maybe about four fifths in where he He gets reacquainted with with Yoko and he sees something else uh in Yoko.

Yeah. Um one of the things about uh Shimamura and Komako's uh dysfunctional relationship is that several times throughout the book, Komako stumbles into his room like blasted drunk. and seems to emotionally need more than Shimamura can give. And on one level it s should be and I think is smart enough to realize that, but but not mature enough to Truly like

face that reality and either do something about it by, you know, totally leaving him or maybe pressing her case more. So you just get these cycles of these like you mentioned like her her uh her her craziness, her manicness, her just sudden like passes out or runs off or something. And I think he does love her or he does care for her. He has feelings for her. But maybe at some point it's not said directly, but he might be getting a little tired of her craziness. And so he sees

Yeah, he reconnects with Yoko. I think it has to do with the visiting the grave of the uh the fiance who who Yoko was taken care of, who passed away and I think at some point in the in the spring, one of the springs that come up in the book, they go they all Yoko was already there visiting the grave and I think Komako and Shimamura show up too by accident and there's a little bit of a connection there. Um

And this was apparently Komako's fiance as well, right? Who Yoko gets offended when it's mentioned that he may have been Yeah, it's kinda weird there. But that's the connection between uh that the the C Young man is the connection between Yoko and Komako, and I think Shimamura is just like kind of there adjacent and then takes this like distant almost like very kinda selfish, but just very self um absorbed personal obs obsession or view towards the Occo. But

I don't think at any point really getting to truly know her or have any kind of true interaction with her. No, it doesn't seem so. And I you know, one of the themes that I had mentioned is, you know, is Yoko an apparition. Was she even real?

Um I think that's a little deep because there are some more concrete things that happen. But um yeah, it it almost seems like she's the The girl he can't have that he's not even sure he should pursue or if it would make sense, but there's certainly something enigmatic. uh about her that gets introduced uh upon their meeting again. And I and I think that goes back to the opening lines, uh, in the book in the first part where he

He meets her or he sees her on the train. And I even think uh in the English translation they use the word apparition, like he wasn't sure if she was real because he's looking at her reflection and she's kind of blending into the mountains as he's looking out. Mm-hmm. So but then but then there's the uh the fire, right?

It's the town theater that catches on fire. Which was also a silkworm spinning something, right? Like factory or storage, yeah. Like a giant um not granary, but one of those kind of Almost like a barn but not for a farm animals but for the yeah, the cocoons or the sil the sil So production. So the reader is is currently in this mode where they are watching Shimamura

Komako and Yoko try to resolve this tension, and the tension and tension is building and building, and it's more of the relationship and sexual tension. And then this fire break. And uh Shimamura and Komako are running towards the fire. And as they're running towards the fire, there's two things that are that are happening that are really interesting that I wanted to get your take on.

Uh the first is the dialogue between Shimamura and Komako, which is this dialogue about how we can help and no you can't come, which goes back and forth. for I don't know, like maybe four or five times where she runs off and he's like, Okay, no, I can't go, but I have to chase her. Um so that's one line of of of uh interesting dialogue. And then the second is all the references to the Milky Way.

which suddenly come in. The Milky Way hadn't been referenced in the prior in the book and then suddenly start to make an appearance. Wha what did you think of of those two things as as were leading up to the fire? Yeah, I think if I remember correctly, Shimamura and Komako were already like having one of their like

Like the relationship obviously is starting to unravel and needs to come to an end. I think they're both trying to figure out their own way of ending it. Right. And I think they were hanging out together and not hanging out, they were having they were together and having an argument or discussion about this.

when simultaneously in the town I think alarm bells are rung and like smoke is coming from up in the distance and it's and I think a a a third party character kinda yells that the theater or that building is on fire And then I think

Komako remembers that knows that Yoko is gonna be there for some reason, or maybe just thought because it's a a big uh you know, it's it's a small town and uh some play or something's going on at the theater that everyone wanna be there. So I think they both rush over there. And yeah, that interesting that interesting dynamic of, yeah, should I go to help or should I not? Um I think I wonder if some of it is like if Shimamura is so Not committed.

to the reality of his relationship, whatever it may be, with Komako, then she's like, Why are you coming along? You don't care anyway, or maybe you only want to come along because you have some interest in Yoko and it's not really about me or helping me. Right. I don't know what to make of it exactly, but it's this strange I think it connects to the end where We'll talk about this a little bit later, but but the way the book ends really points towards Shimamuda's uh impotence and his

Like his kind of his his uselessness and almost how he's detached from the reality of what's going on around him. Right. And i that I think that's um summarized really well in the scene where uh they're bringing the water pump. and in in um Kawabata describes the water pumps going by and Komako and Shimamura sort of just falling in line behind them and kinda going with the water pumps,'cause they really don't help or do anything. They're just caught up in following this event as it unfolds.

Interesting. So they get to the fire and they realize that there may have been somebody in there, right? Which uh it should be obvious by now. Um is is Yoko. And I think it's actually it's it's uh it's Komako who actually is able to go in there and get to Yoko. Right. And get comes, you know, get to her and and even though she's wearing this kimono and I think Yoko's also in a kimono and this is not the most, you know, like athletic or workable clothing. So she's in this and and

And I don't think Yoko is very a very big person. The average Japanese woman even today is usually not that big. But Komoko's also not very big either, but it's carrying Yoko and you can this sense of like it's taking everything for her to get her through and kind of bring her out of the fire or bring her out of the the ruins of the building. And it's interesting one of the In the notes I I uh

Pasted in a couple of the paragraphs, and there's an interesting uh paragraph where they talk a lot about her slight movement, uh, Yoko's slight movement, like she's unconscious, but she's slightly moving. And She you can tell that they they're not explicitly talking about her being dead yet, and I think even Shimamura, there's a line that says for some reason Shimamura did not see death in the still form. He felt rather that Yoko had undergone some shift.

Some metamorphosis. I I uh I I've had a connection here. Um just as we were talking, this is unplanned. I I think I found a reason why Kalabata puts so many references to insects. Mm. Because if you're thinking about that too. You know, Shima Mura did not see death in a still form, but he felt rather that She had undergone some shift, some metamorphosis. It's almost leading up to viewing perhaps Yoko's death as like an insect death.

Um, somebody that, you know, maybe you had a relationship with but not really and and does it really matter in the end to to Shimamura? Are are we meant to interpret that her death was much like the death of the bee in in the big empty room? Mm-hmm. I think so. I definitely think that Kawabata meant to put all those bug references and then not necessarily refer them direct refer back to them directly, but just leave you with that.

So that when you read this you re maybe there's the aftertaste of all the scenes with the bugs and especially the the bee in the big room and all that. Yeah. And then you can kinda get that feeling.'Cause I think this the sense is that Shimamuda is not even seeing not only is he not seeing death, he's not seeing her as a human being per se. He didn't know her. So it's just this thing where he had one kind of fantasy of her and she transforms into something else.

Yeah. I I think the the broad theme of of Kaabada's work here is the you know, unlike many books perhaps, but the you know, humanity cannot always be achieved, right? I if you're going to go into the mountains and have these affairs and have a a vision of of grandeur of perhaps or a fantasy of of having a deep, meaningful relationship with people, um, it may be that it's just as Shallow and not meaningful as the death of an insect in your room. Yeah, I think that's a good observation.

So let's look at this paragraph that is considered Probably the paragraph where Yoko does or does not die. I'm gonna read this. Sure. Uh the long geisha's skirts trailing behind her, she staggered through the pools of water and the charred bits of wood that lay scattered over the ground. She turned and struggled back with Yoko at her breast. Her face was strained and desperate, and beneath it Yoko's face hung vacantly, as at the moment of the soul's head.

Comaco struggled forward as if she bore her sacrifice or her punishment. Yeah. I think I think this pretty much definitively says that Yoko died, but I guess there could be some disagreement. I think for all intents and purposes that she did die. Uh I think what's more important and actually what's more signifying the death rather than the uh soul's flight or even the uh

Hanging vacantly. Uh yeah. Even more than that, I actually think it's the Komako struggled for t forward as if she bore her sacrifice or her punishment. Right. Like I actually think that's the sentence that really says Hey, you know, like this is kinda on you. You didn't kill her, of course, but you know there's a part of you that's either making a sacrifice or you're being You're being punished. For your behavior.

I don't know if it connects to the back to the fact that she may have been the that the uh deceased gu man may have been also her uh fiance and she didn't really face that or take you know take responsibility for that. I'm not sure, but there does seem to be some kind of pendants that come up And Komako really didn't have a lot of good things to say about Yokoh. There was something in the book that referenced like how she was crazy. Right. Y Komako would always refer to her as crazy.

Yeah. Um including at the end, right? I think uh Yes, yes. What is the phrase at the end? Like uh Kiga Chigawa, it's a very Japanese woman l style language, which is another thing that I wonder how translates, but let me just read this Japanese. Real quick. If I can find it right away. I'll I'll read the English uh. That's Komako referring to Yoko. So again this connects a lot to the fact that um The Japanese language has a lot of uh emphasis on the end of sentences.

And so things this is not a verbal conjugation as much as it's a I forgot what it's called in linguistics. It's those uh a lot of Asian languages have it. In other words they're it's emphasises or words at the end that don't specifically have meaning. but add a certain weight or an emphasis or uh a certain uh give you a certain feeling. この子は気が違うわ気が違うわ Is that

this kind of speaking would only be done basically by a woman. There are some like for example, the Kansai dialect, even men might say wa at the end of a sentence like this, but probably not quite like this. Right. Um But generally in in standard Japanese, this is considered a feminine or female way of speaking. Right. And essentially, she's emphasizing the state of Yoko being crazy. It's like saying like Yeah.

You know like she's crazy, I tell ya, she's crazy, I tell ya, you know, some weird things like that where it's this that means nothing, right? I tell ya means nothing. We got it. You already said what you had to say. But by adding that you're kind of putting a punctuation mark on the or uh an exclamation point on the on the feeling of what you're trying to say. And the other funny thing about it is that

Komucle herself sounds a little crazy saying this. Like it makes her cr sound crazy. Right. What a weird time to declare that. Right? Because cle I mean clearly it wasn't her fault that the uh You know, nothing to do with Yoko's state of mind had contributed in any way to the fire, or may maybe it did. We don't know. There's no there's no um reference to that. Um, but I th I think it just goes to the fragile and a tentative nature of the relationships that these three characters

I think Yoko's also in uh not Yoko, Komako is also in a state of shock and denial. True. I think that's part of this too. Yeah, people say crazy things when they're in shock, so Yeah. Which is funny. She's saying that someone's her denial is to say that this woman's crazy, which is something like you said that as you had mentioned, that has has kind of been her refrain throughout the book. So I think she's drawing that back.

At the same time, by doing that, she's showing that she's not in the most stable state, which is quite interesting. And in fact, Yoko probably being dead is the least craziest person of the three. Right. She's passed away. So uh Which is interesting.

So let's let's wrap it up here. I wanna move to the last paragraph'cause we were trying to figure out what happened to Shimamura as well. Um I wanted to uh cover this in English and Japanese because maybe maybe we can unpack this here. Uh so the very last paragraph of the book brings back some of the references to the Milky Way.

Yeah. And let's just mention that Shimamura has kind of been at a distance and like kinda coming up, like you know, he's been following Komako the whole time, but Komako went in and actually brought Yoko out and Shimamura has kinda just been observing this. So this is as Komako is coming back with Yoko and Shimamura It states he tried to move forward, that half mad voice, but he was pushed aside by the men who had come up to take Yoko from her.

As he caught his footing, his head fell back, and the Milky Way flowed down inside him with a roar. That's a oh wait m what that's some fantastic imagery to end a book with. It is a great ending. I um you know, it actually took me a while to really realize what a great ending this book had. I'd always so focused I was always so focused on the on the um the beginning.

then in recent readings I've been, this ending is amazing. It's great. And i in in in a lot of ways it's a mirror image of of the the opening, right? So the opening is the train coming out and the snow country landscape unfolding in front of the reader and assumingly Shima Murasan as well. And then at the end it's it's the opposite, right? It's it's it's that wideness then flowing back into Shima.

What so so what's the the Japanese um writing for that? So the Japanese goes そういう声が物狂わしい駒子に島村は近づこうとして陽子を駒子から抱き取ろうとする男たちに押されてよろめいた 踏みこたえて目が上げた途端サーッと音を立てて天の川が島村の中へ流れ落ちるようであった So not a... Direct translation, right?'Cause I thought I heard there. Uh yeah, pretty much. The size the roar because Japan Japanese has a lot of um is it on like onomonopaic type words? Mm-hmm. So アマノガワは日本語で流れ落ちるようであった

That's a great one. I don't know if it's so much flowed down inside him with the roar inside him, but that's that's an interesting choice that Side and Sticker made. Maybe it's the... Yeah, I'm getting a different impression now after listening to the Japanese version of it. I would think a little bit like it more roared over him. Right. It was over through him. The it was overwhelming. Uh suddenly suddenly his surroundings became overwhelming.

Um and and perhaps perhaps Kawabada had in his mind sort of that ending already and then h thus had to put in uh the prior references to the Milky Way as they're running down to the fire. that could kind of make sense of why does the Milky Way suddenly make an appearance in the narrative. Um but it is it is interesting. Um I do definitely want to read this book in Japanese. I think I I may get a few different impressions.

But uh I I think I think this was an absolutely enjoyable book. If if you were to summarize this for someone who hasn't read it yet, what what would you tell them? I feel like it's It's almost like a to me like a collage of images. It has such a It's so visual. Like I every time I read this book, I just almost feel like I'm make I'm making a movie in my head, even though. you know, the plot is not it doesn't really have that much of a plot, but the visual elements are so

so vivid and they combine with the emotional chords that are very strong but vague at the same time. Um For me the experience of reading it is it's a great this doesn't really explain anything about the book more than it more than it does the way it makes me feel and that is that It slows everything down for me. Mm-hmm. And I just try to stay in the moment of the book. Sometimes when I'm reading it,'cause it can be a hard read'cause of the vagueness.

I try to f I can feel myself kinda and sometimes because of the Japanese language and some of the kanji that I might not know or some of the turn of phrases or words I just don't understand that well, I can sometimes feel myself rushing through it and then I realize I need to slow down and just like Really enjoy each moment of it.

and, you know, have it wash over me and at the same time it's gonna just wash away'cause the book like the theme of the book, the ephemeral ephemeral and the mono no ada aware, the w like the theme, the book is kinda like that and so it's a weird book that It seems like it leaves a heavy imprint on me. At the same time I almost feel like I forget everything about it at the same time. Which is probably what makes it so uh rereadable.

Yeah, I th uh I I I tend to agree. I was maybe s s saying it a little differently. I uh this is definitely a book that you read for the journey, not for the destination. because of the ephemeral nature of the the narrative. You know, in the end the book is basically saying these things are Going to go away. And that that is maybe the nature of

you know, illicit human relationships. Um but at the same time the journey's great. The description of the ending is amazing. Yeah. Um like it's such a kick at like it's such a It's such a strange thing to have a book that's because there's not that much of a plot, that that each part of it is so you can get into it and and draw so much from each part and description, you know, like

like you've mentioned already several times, a theme about the insects and the dead bee in the room and the m the the larva growing on the lacquerware and all those things that are so Each of them are so vivid and yet when you get to the end you're also like

this movie really ended really well. Like like like you know, the the I don't know, the you know, the the heroes defeated the giant monster. There's no heroes and there are no giant monsters, but that finality of it or that although it's fleeting, it's also very I don't know, I just think it's a master stroke and how do you end something like this? Yeah. I've read other books, you know, later literary books and some of them have wonderful qualities that this doesn't have.

But this ending for me is pretty hard to be. I think this is a book where uh it's a book you could enjoy many times reading both in English and Japanese, but would probably make a terrible movie. Apparently, yeah. Which is weird because I think it's so cinematic, but I think that may be within the confines of it being in my head and being in literature and not actually not actually a movie. It it might make uh for good uh you know, planet earth type.

c cinematics uh or or cultural cinematics, but not yeah, I get what you're saying. The the cinematics wouldn't support a a narrative arc that I think could support a feature film. Um Or or it could perhaps, but I don't think a lot of people would would view it positively uh in that light. Uh I wonder who could do it. That's the thing. And it would it would have to be an art film. Mm. It would have to be an art arthouse film. It wouldn't be some sort of major motion picture.

It would be interesting to I might have to do some research and maybe like find like what is purported to be the best version or the most watchable version and kind of check it out and that would be a fun follow-up. Along with our follow-up, you know, that we might do in a month or two. Yeah. Because like I mentioned earlier, The Sound of the Mountain is made into a movie. And that's a pretty good movie. The book is better and it's

It's not Naruse's best movie, and the book is pretty better, but it's a pretty good movie. But and that one I can see it. uh being more suited to being a movie. Well this book, yeah. I would love to see it done. I would love to see some kind of Some great director now take it, but mm-hmm. I also wouldn't be surprised if it's a bit of a train wreck. It might ruin it actually.

Yeah. I wouldn't ruin the book for me. I I I I you know, I I would just wonder like how some of these images and themes could be portrayed.

All right. So do you wanna close us out here? Well actually I kinda wanna Oh I mean. Go ahead. Mm-hmm. Well, you know, this is something that, like you said, I'm I mention all the time and you know, it's it's it's uh arguably my favorite book ever. Um So, you know, you heard a lot about it from me, so you know, I e and it sounds like overall you had a positive impression. Um I did. My my only criticism of the book was

wholly due to myself, um, which is that the I I was conscious of the fact I was reading an English translation of a Japanese book. So I was micro uh analyzing the language perhaps more than I should have and it initially required me to spend more time reading and rereading various patches. But towards the middle of the book it it sort of y you know how sometimes when you read a book you o you almost have to get used to the author's writing style?

And then as you get used to the writing style, you begin to understand what they're getting at when they use certain expressions or certain grammar structures. I found the same thing with this book. So initially I, you know, I turned to Linda and I said, Oh, this book's hard to read. But it's she's like, is it in Japanese? I'm like, no, it's in English.

Um, but it then I realize it's because of the way the sentences were structured and once I wrapped my head around that I I was I was okay and I wholly enjoyed it. So that was my only uh Not I won't even say criticism, but experience. So if you're one of those people that uh just has difficulty transitioning to different types of writing styles,

You know, stick with it. I I think you'll you'll really enjoy it and it's it's as we mentioned, it's definitely worth the uh uh the price of admission and the journeys. it it is fortunately short, so it's worth like you're not going to feel like you're you know

uh you're you're you're you're taking up all your time trying to get through it. You can get you can pace yourself pretty slowly and you'll still even at the worst at the end of the month you'll get to the end. Like it's not this is not gonna be, you know, a four month journey if you slogging through a

Brilliant but eight hundred page book. So that's the wonderful thing about it. Even if it does feel a little difficult to you know, get your you know, get the trading wheels off and really find your balance. Just yeah, I think it's a it's

This falls under my category of some of my favorite things in the world, where I jokingly criticize them as boring. It's it's it's it's boring in the best way. I mean it's not boring at all. This is, you know, I'm j I'm joking, but it's a point that Yeah, it it rewards that slow down and just Just pace yourself and just you know take each step at a time. Before you know it you're not counting your steps and you're like

you put your head out of the book and you look around and you're like, Whoa, like you just feel like, you know, you you came out of another world and everyone else around you is just living in the regular world. N not to sound like, you know, like it's not enlightenment or anything. It's just that it's a great feeling that I think a great piece of work can give you. Yeah. I completely agree.

So if you have any feedback or comments on the book, um, send us a message. We'd like to know what you think. I think it's been a while since someone's actually left a comment on the blog. There was a period of time where the The Finding Japan website was selling Cialis or Viagra or something like that. Hey man,'cause we care about people then. We want them to have good

Got good uh you know, that good sex life. I should can't be slacking. I should probably explain that. So we were using we still are. We were using WordPress and you know, there's a lot of vulnerabilities to WordPress and if you don't keep it up to date You know, someone will get in there with the comments and, you know, write a script in there and, you know, sooner or later you know

You're you're you're uh hawking Cialis to people when you don't even know it. I I don't think it affected people actually visiting our site, but they may have gotten a Chrome browser warning saying, Hey guys, something's up with finding Japan. Uh but that's all been fixed. Uh everything is good and uh you can go there and leave comments, uh questions. But we'd love to hear what you think as well after after reading the book. Uh

'Cause again I think we we've talked about it many times. I don't know anybody else who's read this book and I'm going to begin uh recommending it to some of my friends. I may even donate my copy to either the library or uh give it to some friends who I know might enjoy it. Oh nice. Yeah, I'd love to hear from uh W the first timers, um, people who are like into literature but not necessarily like literature specialists and have read it before.

And also love to hear from someone maybe yeah, if you have a degree in it wouldn't be English literature, but it could be if you read a translated version. But if you have a degree in literature or or this is your thing, we'd love to hear from you too. Like and how it can compare to certain trends in other you know, other great novels and other cultures and

Or whatever background you can give.'Cause yeah, I like this book, but I'm I'm by no means an expert in it. It's just like it's something that I read and kinda vaguely forget,'cause I forget everything, and then read again and think is wonderful and then forget and then then read again and it's like I'll put it in my calendar to read again in another three years.

Yeah. This has been great though. Like this is something I've wanted to talk about for a while. So Yeah, this is this episode's been on the books for what? Eight or nine years maybe? Something like that. Yeah, a little bit. I don't know if we yeah, we ta yeah, we did mention a few times. All right, well I think that's it. Anything else? Uh not for now. Um hopefully would like to be back sooner than later, but you know, no promises, just uh just a hope and uh This podcast is ephemeral.

It comes and it goes. It comes and goes like cycles. And yet somehow it is the longest running I'm gonna keep saying that. Japan podcast in the world. Oh yeah. And partially because of your help. So thanks a lot for keeping it going and uh Helping us out of the thing. Thank you for being the you're you know you're the granddaddy. You're the the father of it all. It's awesome. Standing on the shoulders of giants.

Alright my friend. Uh well y so you're in Japan, I'm in the US, we should point that out. Late late night for you, early morning for me. I hope you're doing well and I hope the listeners enjoyed and we'll catch you the next time. All right. Peace out.