November 26th, 2019 THE K PAOLETTER Yasunari Kawabata’s novel Thousand Cranes begins with a memory: Running late to a tea ceremony organized by Chikako, the friend and onetime lover of his father, Kikuji remembers the strange birthmark on the woman’s chest that he glimpsed as a child. “It covered half the left breast and ran down into the hollow between the breasts, as large as the palm of one’s hand,” Kawabata writes, “Hair seemed to be growing on the purple-black mark, and Chikako was in the process of cutting it.”
K Paoletter 16: Mind's Eye
K Paoletter 16: Mind's Eye
K Paoletter 16: Mind's Eye
November 26th, 2019 THE K PAOLETTER Yasunari Kawabata’s novel Thousand Cranes begins with a memory: Running late to a tea ceremony organized by Chikako, the friend and onetime lover of his father, Kikuji remembers the strange birthmark on the woman’s chest that he glimpsed as a child. “It covered half the left breast and ran down into the hollow between the breasts, as large as the palm of one’s hand,” Kawabata writes, “Hair seemed to be growing on the purple-black mark, and Chikako was in the process of cutting it.”