Book Title: Thousand Cranes

Author: Yasunari Kawabata

Every time I read one of Kawabata’s books I feel like everything is slowing down and is becoming peaceful. He has a way of slowing time … Every sentence is like a poem. His books are full of music and most importantly of meaning. He’s like a painter. I can see, I can feel the drama behind his characters. It touches the right chords and sends the right vibes.

Thousand Cranes is yet another book that follows the dramatic life of one family, of one character. Kikuji lives too much in the past. The influence of his childhood is strong as everything he does has anchors in the past. And it seems he can’t escape it. I had the feeling that he lives in a way his father’s life. Kurimoto, one of his father’s women, is following him and tries to control his future. She plans to marry him with the girl with the thousand-crane kerchief.

And one saw a thousand cranes, small and white, start up in flight around her.

But Kikuji is lost and gets involved with one of his father’s mistresses. But in the end she can’t bear the situation anymore (maybe his absence, maybe her guilt).

Her suffering pierced him through. Although he was the cause of the suffering, he had the illusion that in the softness his own suffering was lightened.

Her daughter, Fumiko, is sensitive but strong as she tries to always do the right thing. Kikuji and Fumiko get very close together. In the beginning it was more companionship, sharing the same experience and people and love. But then it went too far …

The end is ambiguous. Did they stay together? Did Fumiko manage to get over her prejudice and stay alive? Or did she follow her mother into another world that frees them from suffering and guilt? That can only Kawabata know …

She had become absolute, beyond comparison. She had become decision and fate.