On the surface level, this is a story that is inspired by Stravinsky's "Petrushka" and the life story of Vaslav Nijinsky, the ballet dancer who performed the part of Petrushka at its premiere - in essence, a love triangle and the lament and psychological shell-shock of war. When one re-assesses the text using 2017 lingos, one realises that this is a visionary commentary on the (potential) disintegration of an "ordered" society in the name of liberalism, an inevitable fate that the Japanese society must have been facing at the time. In the novel, a traditional home is torn by personal desire when 1) the faithful but WWII-scarred academic father who lives off his wife's income and house wants to secretly emigrate to the US to avoid suffering from future wars; 2) the unhappy mother who runs a ballet school wants freedom and decides to reunite with a former lover; 3) the teenage daughter who is a promising ballerina elopes with a failed ballet dancer out of passion; and 4) the family feels uncomfortable with the gay teenage son. This title also introduces the very important concept of "the realm of the wicked" (魔界), a term from the words of the Zen Buddhist Ikkyu, that is found in many of Kawabata's later works. "Maihime" is perhaps the most in-your-face story amongst his most popular titles. The metaphorical dusk scenes are as scenic and beautiful as the galaxy ending of "Snow Country". Our "liberal" generation might find the "old-fashioned" sentiments bewildering, but it's an important document that records the predicaments of a rapidly changing world.
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