Frumoasele adormite
1961 • 144 pages

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Average rating3

15

I wonder if Marquez read this and decided to do a version of his own... I have no idea why I decided to read Kawabata again. I really didn't need yet another soulless ramble from an old man facing his aging, impotency, and fear of death by fetishizing infantilized women put at his disposal like objects. I really could have gone without hearing him describing how the drugged, unconscious, naked young woman on the bed smelled milky like an infant and reminded him of that time he bit another woman so hard her nipples were bleeding. Oh, the adventures of youth...And it goes on in a similar tone for another 100 pages. Oh yes, but his musings on mortality are so life-changing...Not.

I know it's fiction and that 1960's Japan is a parallel universe, but I just don't care. Even setting aside the ‘sleeping beauties' theme, the book doesn't stand out, I can't see what's so relatable or beautiful about it.

February 27, 2020Report this review