Yasunari Kawabata won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1968, and was the first Japanese winner of the award. I read his short story “The Dancing Girl of Izu” and enjoyed it a lot, so I picked up this book. At a high level, this book is about wasted love. The main character, a married man named Shimamura, visits a hot-springs town and meets a local geisha, Komako. It is established early on that city geisha have real influence, but hot-springs geisha struggle to survive and often border being prostitutes. Thus, it’s common for these geisha to find a man to fall in love with them, so they can get out.

Komako genuinely falls in love with Shimamura; however, Shimamura distances himself from his emotions. Kawabata’s fame comes from his amazing ability to use implicit imagery to portray the characters. Komako is often depicted as the color that contrats against the overwhelmingly large, blank, white snow. Since much of the story is not expressed directly, the book is a bit difficult to read, but it is still a great short novel to read in a sitting or two.