A Life

Thousand Cranes by Yasunari Kawabata
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Title: Thousand Cranes
Author: Yasunari Kawabata
Publisher: Penguin Books
Pages: 112 pages
Published: 2011

Thousand Cranes follows the story of Kikuji, a young man whose father had a complicated love story with a wife, a son, and two mistress. During a tea ceremony hosted by Chikako, one of Kikuji's father's mistress, he meets Mrs. Ota, another mistress of his father. Along with Mrs. Ota, he also meets Fumiko, Mrs. Ota's daughter, and Miss Inamura, the girl with thousand cranes pattern kerchief and with whom Chikako tries to miai (match-making) Kikuji with.

The complication of the story arises with the fact that Chikako holds grunge over Kikuji's father, because she was dumped by him, and Kikuji's love over Mrs. Ota.

I quite like the story. It looks really simple, but actually "Thousand Cranes" has many layers and symbolism in it. While it can looks like a soap-opera, this novel is more complex than that. Obviously, since it was one of Kawabata's novel that gave him the Nobel award.

A fine read, but it was too fast for me. I wish the story goes longer than 112 pages.

This book is for the following reading challenges:
- 2013 What An Animal Reading Challenge
- 2013 Monthly Key Words Reading Challenge