Hooray! You have added the first book to your bookshelf. Check it out now!
[−]
  • Search Digit-count Valid ISBN Invalid ISBN Valid Barcode Invalid Barcode
Blog this item

House of the Sleeping Beauties and Other Stories

By Yasunari Kawabata, Edward Seidensticker (Translator)

(8)

| Paperback | 9784770029751

Like House of the Sleeping Beauties and Other Stories?
Join aNobii to see if your friends read it, and discover similar books!

Sign up for free

Book Description

From Japan's first Nobel laureate for literature, three superb stories explore the interplay between erotic fantasy and reality in a loner's mind. Kawabata's fiction is noted for combining a traditional Japanese aesthetic with modernist, often surreal trends: his richly lyrical prose is imbued with Continue

From Japan's first Nobel laureate for literature, three superb stories explore the interplay between erotic fantasy and reality in a loner's mind. Kawabata's fiction is noted for combining a traditional Japanese aesthetic with modernist, often surreal trends: his richly lyrical prose is imbued with a sense of loneliness and alienation. In these three tales, underlying the erotic fantasy is the protagonists' lack of connection with other people, and their memories of past loves in an empty sterile life. The title story, "House of the Sleeping Beauties," is about a man who visits a brothel where elderly men can spend a chaste but lecherous night with a drugged, unconscious virgin. As he admires the girl's beauty, he recalls his past womanizing, and reflects on the relentless course of old age. In "One Arm," a young girl removes her right arm and gives it to the narrator to take home for the night, a surreal seduction follows as he speaks to it, tries to allay its fears, caresses it and even replaces his own right arm with it. "Of Birds and Beasts" is about a man who lives alone, with a housemaid, preferring the company of the birds and dogs he keeps to human beings. But rather than living animals, these are beautiful objects which, although they give him pleasure, he treats with casual cruelty, in much the same way as he treated his previous lover, a dancer. Beautiful yet chilling, poetic yet subtly disturbing, these stories make compelling reading.

Critics

  • In 'House of the Sleeping Beauties and Other Stories', Dreams and Reality Seduce and Intertwine

    Yasunari Kawabata spoils his readers. So far, everything I have read by him has been, well, great. From his novels like Snow Country and Beauty and Sadness to his shorter works like Palm-of-the-Hand Stories to finally House of the Sleeping Beauties a ... (read full critics)

    popmatters published on Wed, 1 Sep 2010

1 Review

Login or Sign Up to write a review

  • This first novella ( the house of the sleeping beauties), is very good view of loneliness and how far people can go to have company. This is the first book I read by this author and Im willing to read more of his work

    Is this helpful?

    Hanan said on Apr 11, 2012 | Add your feedback

Book Details

  • Rating:
    (8)
    • 5 stars
    • 4 stars
    • 3 stars
    • 2 stars
    • 1 star
  • English Books
  • Paperback 160 Pages
  • Edition: 2
  • ISBN-10: 4770029756
  • ISBN-13: 9784770029751
  • Publisher: Kodansha International
  • Pub date: Feb 01, 2004
  • Dimensions: 1226 mm x 839 mm x 65 mm Just how big is that?
  • Also available as: Hardcover and Others
Improve data of this book

Groups with this in collection

Prices Change currency & sellers

ISBN Edition List Sale Seller
9784770029751 Paperback $16.00 $10.93 bn.com
$16.00 $10.38 The Book Depository
Other editions →
Added to Shelf Added to Wish List

Inline Translation Mode

Left click to navigate, right click to translate.

inline translation guide

or close

Inline translation is not ready for this page yet.

Inline translation mode.

Share this page with your friends.

The viewport has not loaded.