If there is any trace of unbridled passion and freshness in Kawabata's major works, you would find it in "Izu no Odoriko". Youth creeps in and out of life and by the time you learn to treasure it you would have lost it for good. Such is also true for a lot of encounters in life. Chances are, one matures by regretting and becomes more calculating, so the beauty of innocence and honesty can only be appreciated in hindsight, through the sense of loss. Fate comes unannounced, journey goes on as it happens, and lives carry on with no resolution. Just as stars cross and do not meet again, it enjoys certain transient beauty - it is the aesthetic of "mono no aware" again. The romantic sentiment has become obscure and irrelevant in this rapid social media era, but this brutally short and compact novella reminds us how deep and slow passion used to burn, even in the absence of vulgar physical intimacy. Those who have ever loved unreservedly with no calculation would resonate with it.
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