The Sound of the Mountain narrative location Japan
The Sound of the Mountain (Japanese: 山の音, Hepburn: Yama no oto) is a novel by Japanese writer Yasunari Kawabata, serialized between 1949 and 1954, and first published as a standalone book in 1954 by Chikuma Shobō, Tokyo.Plot
Shingo Ogata, a 62-year-old businessman living in Kamakura and working in Tokyo, is close to retirement. He is experiencing temporary lapses of memory, recalling strange and disturbing dreams upon waking, and hearing sounds, including the titular noise which awakens him from his sleep, "like wind, far away, but with a depth like a rumbling of the earth." Shingo takes the sound to be an omen of his impending death. At the same time, he is repeatedly confronted with the passing away of friends and former fellow students.
Shingo observes and questions his relations with the other family members. He married his wife Yasuko after the untimely death of her older sister, whose beauty Shingo adored, considering both Yasuko and their daughter Fusako to be rather unattractive. Shingo has both fatherly and subtle erotic feelings for his daughter-in-law Kikuko, who calmly endures his son Shūichi's affair with another woman. When Fusako leaves her husband and returns to the family home with her two little children, Shingo starts to perceive the marital difficulties of his son and daughter as the result of not fulfilling his role as a father. In addition, Fusako blames him for marrying her to a man she did not want, and for preferring Kikuko over her.
Shingo's secretary Eiko helps him to find Shūichi's mistress Kinuko, a war widow, and learns of his son's mean and abusive behaviour towards her. Not only is Shūichi reluctant to his father's request to end the affair and treat his wife Kikuko with more respect, he even borrows money from his mistress to pay for Kikuko's abortion. Shingo is devastated, speculating if Shūichi's and Kikuko's unborn child might have been the reincarnation of Yasuko's older sister. Shūichi eventually leaves Kinuko when she expects a child, which she claims to be from another man and wants to keep. In the newspaper, Shingo and his family read about the suicide attempt of Fusako's husband, whom Fusako is about to divorce.