Post by etm solmerano on Nov 16, 2009 6:15:47 GMT -5
The Grasshopper and the Bell Cricket
By Yasunari Kawabata
Yasunari Kawabata (1899-1972) was a Nobel-Prize-winning novelist, playwright, and short story writer best known for his uniquely poetic and lyrical writing style that resembles the traditions of old Japan. Born in Osaka, Japan, Kawabata endured a very troubling childhood when he was orphaned as a result of deaths of many family members. However, he showed intelligence and talent that enabled him to graduate from Tokyo Imperial University with a degree in literature in 1924. Kawabata's strong interest in writing surfaced well before his graduation when he published the noteworthy effort, Tales to Hold in the Palm of Your Hand (1922). Greater acclaim and recognition would come with his first novel, The Izu Dancer (1925, trans. 1964). During this early period, Kawabata confounded the literary journal Bungei Jidai, an extension of the Neo-Sensualist movement that he led. The group gained international attention because of its literary experimentation with cubism, futurism, and surrealism, all in an effort to better capture and convey human feeling in a literary context. While noted for his multi-dimensional literary style in such works as Red Group of Asakusa (1930) and The House of the Sleeping Beauties and Other Stories (1933, trans. 1969), Kawabata also became known for pursuing themes of loneliness and death, which many experts consider to be a result of his traumatic childhood. In addition, the author often evoked nostalgia and romanticism in his writings, giving his works surreal, poetic, and dreary qualities that many readers find difficult to follow. However, as Kawabata's broad writing style matured and broadened to reflect Japanese poetic traditions, he produced arguably his greatest works-Snow Country (1937, trans. 1957), The Sound of the Mountain (1952, trans. 1970), and Thousand Cranes (1952, trans. 1959). His international reputation and influence as a profoundly original and moving literary voice earned him the Nobel Prize in 1968. Later in life, in assessing the purpose of his works, Kawabata said he sought to express the beauty behind death and to bring greater harmony to the relationship between humanity, nature, and emptiness. In 1972, two years after the dramatic suicide of his friend, famed Japanese writer Yukio Mishima, Kawabata took his own life.
Walking along the tile-roofed wall of the university, I turned aside and approached the upper school. Behind the white board fence of the school playground, from a dusky clump of bushes under the black cherry trees, an insect's voice could be heard. Walking more slowly and listening to that voice, and furthermore reluctant to part with it, I turned right so as not to leave the playground behind. When I turned to the left, the fence gave way to another embankment planted with orange trees. At the corner, I exclaimed with surprise. My eyes gleaming at what they saw up ahead, I hurried forward with short steps.
At the base of the embankment was a bobbing cluster of beautiful varicolored lanterns, such as one might see at a festival in a remote country village. Without going any farther, I knew that it was a group of children on an insect chase among the bushes of the embankment. There were about twenty lanterns. Not only were there crimson, pink, indigo, green, purple, and yellow lanterns, but one lantern glowed with five colors at once. There were even some little red store-bought lanterns. However, most of the lanterns were beautiful square ones the children had made themselves with love and care. The bobbing lanterns, the coming together of children on this lonely slope - surely it was a scene from a fairy tale?
One of the neighborhood children had heard an insect sing on this slope one night. Buying a red lantern, he had come back the next night to find the insect. The night after that, there was another child. This new child could not buy a lantern. Cutting out the back and front of a small carton and papering it, he placed a candle on the bottom and fastened a string to the top. The number of children grew to five, and then to seven. They learned how to color the paper that they stretched over the windows of the cutout cartons, and to draw pictures on it. Then these wise child-artists, cutting out round, three-cornered, and lozenge leaf shapes in the cartons, coloring each little window a different color, with circles and diamonds, red and green, made a single and whole decorative pattern. The child with the red lantern discarded it as a tasteless object that could be bought at a store. The child who had made his own lantern threw it away because the design was too simple. The pattern of light that one had had in hand the night before was unsatisfying the morning after. Each day, with cardboard, paper, brush, scissors, penknife, and flue, the children made new lanterns out of their hearts and minds. Look at my lantern! Be the most unusually beautiful! And each night, they had gone out on their insect hunts. These were the twenty children and their beautiful lanterns that I now saw before me.
Wide-eyed, I loitered near them. Not only did the square lanterns have old-fashioned patterns and flower shapes, but the names of the children who had made them were cut out in square letters of the syllabary. Different from the painted-over red lanterns, others (made of thick cutout cardboard) had their designs drawn upon the paper windows, so that the candle's light seemed to emanate from the form and color of the design itself. The lanterns brought out the shadows of the bushes like dark light. The children crouched eagerly on the slope wherever they heard an insect's voice.
"Does anyone want a grasshopper?" A boy, who had been peering into a bush about thirty feet away from the other children, suddenly straightened up and shouted.
"Yes! Give it to me!" Six or seven children came running up. Crowding behind the boy who had found the grasshopper, they peered into the bush. Brushing away their outstretched hands and spreading out his arms, the boy stood as if guarding the bush where the insect was. Waving the lantern in his right hand, he called again to the other children.
"Does anyone want a grasshopper? A grasshopper!"
"I do! I do!" Four or five more children came running up. It seemed you could not catch a more precious insect than a grasshopper. The boy called out a third time.
"Doesn't anyone want a grasshopper?"
Two or three more children came over.
"Yes. I want it."
It was a girl, who just now had come up behind the boy who had discovered the insect. Lightly turning his body, the boy gracefully bent forward. Shifting the lantern to his left hand, he reached his right hand into the bush.
"It's a grasshopper."
"Yes. I'd like to have it."
The boy quickly stood up. As if to say "Here!" he thrust out his fist that held the insect at the girl. She, slipping her left wrist under the string of her lantern, enclosed the boy's fist with both hands. The boy quietly opened his fist. The insect was transferred to between the girl's thumb and index finger.
"Oh! It's not a grasshopper. It's a bell cricket." The girl's eyes shone as she looked at the small brown insect.
"It's a bell cricket! It's a bell cricket!" The children echoed in an envious chorus.
"It's a bell cricket. It's a bell cricket."
Glancing with her bright intelligent eyes at the boy who had given her the cricket, the girl opened the little insect cage hanging at her side and released the cricket in it.
"It's a bell cricket."
"Oh, it's a bell cricket," the boy who had captured it muttered. Holding up the insect cage close to his eyes, he looked inside it. By the light of his beautiful many-colored lantern, also held up at eye level, he glanced at the girl's face.
Oh, I thought. I felt slightly jealous of the boy, and sheepish. How silly of me not to have understood his actions until now! Then I caught my breath in surprise. Look! It was something on the girl's breast, which neither the boy, who had given her the cricket, nor she who had accepted it, nor the children who were looking at them noticed.
In the faint greenish light that fell on the girl's breast, wasn't the name "Fujio" clearly discernable? The boy's lantern, which he held up alongside the girl's insect cage, inscribed his name, cut out in the green-papered aperture, onto her white cotton kimono. The girl's lantern, which dangled loosely from her wrist, did not project its pattern so clearly, but still one could make out, in a trembling patch of red on the boy's waist, the name "Kiyoko." This chance interplay of red and green - if it was chance or play - neither Fujio nor Kiyoko knew about.
Even if they remembered forever that Fujio had given her the cricket and that Kiyoko had accepted it, not even in dreams would Fujio ever know that his name had been written in green on Kiyoko's breast or that Kiyoko's name had been inscribed in red on his waist, nor would Kiyoko ever know that Fujio's name had been inscribed in green on her breast or that her own name had been written in red on Fujio's waist.
Fujio! Even when you have become a young man, laugh with pleasure at a girl's delight when, told that it's a grasshopper, she is given a bell cricket; laugh with affection at a girl's chagrin when, told that it's a bell cricket, she is given a grasshopper.
Even if you have the wit to look by yourself in a bush away from the other children, there are not many bell crickets in the world. Probably you will find a girl like a grasshopper whom you think is a bell cricket.
Finally, to your clouded, wounded heart, even a true bell cricket will seem like a grasshopper. Should that day come, when it seems to you that the world is only full of grasshoppers, I will think it a pity that you have no way to remember tonight's play of light, when you’re name was written in green by your beautiful lantern on a girl's breast.
By Yasunari Kawabata
Yasunari Kawabata (1899-1972) was a Nobel-Prize-winning novelist, playwright, and short story writer best known for his uniquely poetic and lyrical writing style that resembles the traditions of old Japan. Born in Osaka, Japan, Kawabata endured a very troubling childhood when he was orphaned as a result of deaths of many family members. However, he showed intelligence and talent that enabled him to graduate from Tokyo Imperial University with a degree in literature in 1924. Kawabata's strong interest in writing surfaced well before his graduation when he published the noteworthy effort, Tales to Hold in the Palm of Your Hand (1922). Greater acclaim and recognition would come with his first novel, The Izu Dancer (1925, trans. 1964). During this early period, Kawabata confounded the literary journal Bungei Jidai, an extension of the Neo-Sensualist movement that he led. The group gained international attention because of its literary experimentation with cubism, futurism, and surrealism, all in an effort to better capture and convey human feeling in a literary context. While noted for his multi-dimensional literary style in such works as Red Group of Asakusa (1930) and The House of the Sleeping Beauties and Other Stories (1933, trans. 1969), Kawabata also became known for pursuing themes of loneliness and death, which many experts consider to be a result of his traumatic childhood. In addition, the author often evoked nostalgia and romanticism in his writings, giving his works surreal, poetic, and dreary qualities that many readers find difficult to follow. However, as Kawabata's broad writing style matured and broadened to reflect Japanese poetic traditions, he produced arguably his greatest works-Snow Country (1937, trans. 1957), The Sound of the Mountain (1952, trans. 1970), and Thousand Cranes (1952, trans. 1959). His international reputation and influence as a profoundly original and moving literary voice earned him the Nobel Prize in 1968. Later in life, in assessing the purpose of his works, Kawabata said he sought to express the beauty behind death and to bring greater harmony to the relationship between humanity, nature, and emptiness. In 1972, two years after the dramatic suicide of his friend, famed Japanese writer Yukio Mishima, Kawabata took his own life.
Walking along the tile-roofed wall of the university, I turned aside and approached the upper school. Behind the white board fence of the school playground, from a dusky clump of bushes under the black cherry trees, an insect's voice could be heard. Walking more slowly and listening to that voice, and furthermore reluctant to part with it, I turned right so as not to leave the playground behind. When I turned to the left, the fence gave way to another embankment planted with orange trees. At the corner, I exclaimed with surprise. My eyes gleaming at what they saw up ahead, I hurried forward with short steps.
At the base of the embankment was a bobbing cluster of beautiful varicolored lanterns, such as one might see at a festival in a remote country village. Without going any farther, I knew that it was a group of children on an insect chase among the bushes of the embankment. There were about twenty lanterns. Not only were there crimson, pink, indigo, green, purple, and yellow lanterns, but one lantern glowed with five colors at once. There were even some little red store-bought lanterns. However, most of the lanterns were beautiful square ones the children had made themselves with love and care. The bobbing lanterns, the coming together of children on this lonely slope - surely it was a scene from a fairy tale?
One of the neighborhood children had heard an insect sing on this slope one night. Buying a red lantern, he had come back the next night to find the insect. The night after that, there was another child. This new child could not buy a lantern. Cutting out the back and front of a small carton and papering it, he placed a candle on the bottom and fastened a string to the top. The number of children grew to five, and then to seven. They learned how to color the paper that they stretched over the windows of the cutout cartons, and to draw pictures on it. Then these wise child-artists, cutting out round, three-cornered, and lozenge leaf shapes in the cartons, coloring each little window a different color, with circles and diamonds, red and green, made a single and whole decorative pattern. The child with the red lantern discarded it as a tasteless object that could be bought at a store. The child who had made his own lantern threw it away because the design was too simple. The pattern of light that one had had in hand the night before was unsatisfying the morning after. Each day, with cardboard, paper, brush, scissors, penknife, and flue, the children made new lanterns out of their hearts and minds. Look at my lantern! Be the most unusually beautiful! And each night, they had gone out on their insect hunts. These were the twenty children and their beautiful lanterns that I now saw before me.
Wide-eyed, I loitered near them. Not only did the square lanterns have old-fashioned patterns and flower shapes, but the names of the children who had made them were cut out in square letters of the syllabary. Different from the painted-over red lanterns, others (made of thick cutout cardboard) had their designs drawn upon the paper windows, so that the candle's light seemed to emanate from the form and color of the design itself. The lanterns brought out the shadows of the bushes like dark light. The children crouched eagerly on the slope wherever they heard an insect's voice.
"Does anyone want a grasshopper?" A boy, who had been peering into a bush about thirty feet away from the other children, suddenly straightened up and shouted.
"Yes! Give it to me!" Six or seven children came running up. Crowding behind the boy who had found the grasshopper, they peered into the bush. Brushing away their outstretched hands and spreading out his arms, the boy stood as if guarding the bush where the insect was. Waving the lantern in his right hand, he called again to the other children.
"Does anyone want a grasshopper? A grasshopper!"
"I do! I do!" Four or five more children came running up. It seemed you could not catch a more precious insect than a grasshopper. The boy called out a third time.
"Doesn't anyone want a grasshopper?"
Two or three more children came over.
"Yes. I want it."
It was a girl, who just now had come up behind the boy who had discovered the insect. Lightly turning his body, the boy gracefully bent forward. Shifting the lantern to his left hand, he reached his right hand into the bush.
"It's a grasshopper."
"Yes. I'd like to have it."
The boy quickly stood up. As if to say "Here!" he thrust out his fist that held the insect at the girl. She, slipping her left wrist under the string of her lantern, enclosed the boy's fist with both hands. The boy quietly opened his fist. The insect was transferred to between the girl's thumb and index finger.
"Oh! It's not a grasshopper. It's a bell cricket." The girl's eyes shone as she looked at the small brown insect.
"It's a bell cricket! It's a bell cricket!" The children echoed in an envious chorus.
"It's a bell cricket. It's a bell cricket."
Glancing with her bright intelligent eyes at the boy who had given her the cricket, the girl opened the little insect cage hanging at her side and released the cricket in it.
"It's a bell cricket."
"Oh, it's a bell cricket," the boy who had captured it muttered. Holding up the insect cage close to his eyes, he looked inside it. By the light of his beautiful many-colored lantern, also held up at eye level, he glanced at the girl's face.
Oh, I thought. I felt slightly jealous of the boy, and sheepish. How silly of me not to have understood his actions until now! Then I caught my breath in surprise. Look! It was something on the girl's breast, which neither the boy, who had given her the cricket, nor she who had accepted it, nor the children who were looking at them noticed.
In the faint greenish light that fell on the girl's breast, wasn't the name "Fujio" clearly discernable? The boy's lantern, which he held up alongside the girl's insect cage, inscribed his name, cut out in the green-papered aperture, onto her white cotton kimono. The girl's lantern, which dangled loosely from her wrist, did not project its pattern so clearly, but still one could make out, in a trembling patch of red on the boy's waist, the name "Kiyoko." This chance interplay of red and green - if it was chance or play - neither Fujio nor Kiyoko knew about.
Even if they remembered forever that Fujio had given her the cricket and that Kiyoko had accepted it, not even in dreams would Fujio ever know that his name had been written in green on Kiyoko's breast or that Kiyoko's name had been inscribed in red on his waist, nor would Kiyoko ever know that Fujio's name had been inscribed in green on her breast or that her own name had been written in red on Fujio's waist.
Fujio! Even when you have become a young man, laugh with pleasure at a girl's delight when, told that it's a grasshopper, she is given a bell cricket; laugh with affection at a girl's chagrin when, told that it's a bell cricket, she is given a grasshopper.
Even if you have the wit to look by yourself in a bush away from the other children, there are not many bell crickets in the world. Probably you will find a girl like a grasshopper whom you think is a bell cricket.
Finally, to your clouded, wounded heart, even a true bell cricket will seem like a grasshopper. Should that day come, when it seems to you that the world is only full of grasshoppers, I will think it a pity that you have no way to remember tonight's play of light, when you’re name was written in green by your beautiful lantern on a girl's breast.