Thousand Cranes by Yasunari Kawabata

I had to read this book twice. Like much Japanese literature, it is obscurely laconic. The main character, Yukiko is a young man caught in the web of the women who control his life. First there is Chikako, the woman with an ugly birthmark on her breast, who was once his father’s mistress. She tries to arrange a marriage for Yukiko and the Inamura girl, but at the meeting, he sees Mrs. Ota, his father’s lifelong mistress, and her daughter, whom he finds rather attractive. He ends up having a fleeing affair with his father’s ex-mistress, who dies of a guilt attack. The story gets more and more complicated. The end leaves you suspended in mid-air, so you don’t really know what to make of the novel. What seems to stay with you after you put down the book is the mood, or atmosphere, of the lonely characters and vivid images of the tea bowls and cups, which are described in greater detail than the characters themselves.