Thank you for the excellent explanation. The original title is Sasame-yuki (細雪: lightly falling snow), a very delicate and poetic wording in Japanese. Have you read In Praise Of Shadows by Junichiro Tanizaki? This book is also beautiful.
Hello, Thank-you for the nice comment! I have not read 'In Praise of Shadows' but I will. I have seen that a lot of people really like this book, it is popular on RU-vid. I've been reading a lot of Japanese literature in the last few years and I have been enjoying it very much.
Nice review. I finished this a few days ago and am still thinking about it. It was so beautiful, but that ending was so befuddling! Their lives being marked by the ever-changing seasons was my favorite feature in this story.
Found this book in my school's library and I'm loving reading it. The themes are great and the characters feel compelling. I just don't like how overexplained things can be. I don't need to know really how each of the sisters dresses and what makeup they have on. Love the review, keep it up!
Hello Stormer, I hope you keep going with the book all the way to the end. There is quite a lot of minute details, and I feel your frustration with it, but it's a style. It's when an author wants to paint the clearest picture of the characters. But I do think the developments in the story keep it moving along nicely, not quickly, but nicely. Thanks for writing!
This sat on my shelf for a decade unread. I decided to donate it after hearing it was a bit plodding and I’ve not been in the mood for something I have to work hard for. I hope that changes. I’m doubting my decision after watching this and I may need to check it out at the library. I hope you are ready to wrap up the school year and get some rest. Thanks for your thoughts! I appreciate you!
Thanks for the kind message Nikki, that was very kind and really cheered me up today! School is just OK. This semester the other students are really getting me down. I'm going to make a University reading list (semester 5) video and talk about my frustrations, but I will have to walk carefully since my professors know about my RU-vid channel. If slow-moving books are not your thing, you will most likely have difficulty with this one. It really needs some patience and persistence. Sometimes with the long slow ones I just have to force myself to read 50 pages a day, and that's the only way I can get through it. However, when I read it this way, in large doses, it does seem to improve the book greatly. But I know most people don't have that much time to set aside. Good-luck! Hope you are well Nikki, I'm always happy to hear from you!
@@grantlovesbooks oh no! I’m so sorry to hear about your frustrations! I am looking forward to hearing whatever you feel ok with sharing. I wear a shirt sometimes that says, “I used to be a people person but people ruined it for me.” Ain’t that the truth? It’s not hard to be kind, it’s not hard just keep one’s nose to the grindstone which is what ppl in college should be doing. I swear, though, people seem so bored with life that they create issues with themselves and others. It’s embarrassing. I actually think many young people these days are so disrespectful, bored, and miserable with life. I’ll never understand it. I grew up in the 80’s and 90’s and I just felt grateful to get an education, have friends and make a meaningful life. All of the people I knew in school, for the most part, felt this way. We just lived life and tried to do our best to NOT make problems for others. My daughter is 22 and she always says that her generation just moans and whines and wants to start drama. She said she was born in the wrong time period. I raised her to work hard and respect others. That’s missing in way too many people today. Hang in there and have a chat with us whenever you can.
@@nikkivenable73 Thanks for the personal and introspective comment! I try not to be too dour and condemning, but it is difficult. In my third year English Literature class, Renaissance Drama, we went around the room, introducing ourselves, and telling the others what our favourite read was in the past year. One student said she liked the Harry Potter series, and one student said she "didn't like reading." I sat behind her last class, she spent the three hours on her phone and browsing for high-heeled shoes on her laptop. The teacher asked if any of us could recall a film from 50 years ago. I should have kept quiet, but couldn't help myself. I said, "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest." He looked at the rest of the class and asked, "Has anyone else heard of that one?" He wasn't being mean or sarcastic, but it did quite sharply point out what a gulf there was between me and the other students. It's alright, I've always been something of a pariah.
@@grantlovesbooks omg, Grant. I’d lose my mind if I had to deal with that. I think Uni is making people dumber these days but maybe it’s always been that way. The high heeled shoes made me lol because I’m a woman and if I had access to the internet while I was in college, I may have done that. 🤣. Kidding, kind of. These days no one has to be bored. In my day, we had to sit through class and either take notes, participate or sleep. These days ppl just get on their stupid phones and never have to feel that boredom or at least not as much. You are so well read and really intelligent….anyone can tell just by listening to you. I’d love to be a fly on the wall in your classes. Hang in there!
@@nikkivenable73 Thanks Nikki! I appreciate the support. I'll be OK, I just need to stick to it and try to take it easy. My RU-vid hobby keeps me in a good mood!
It is really quite long, but I felt they were like my own cousins by the time I finished the novel. The depth of the characters is amazing. (I'm going to check those Ozu films!)
Thanks for this informative and interesting take on Makioka Sisters. Sweating--I don't know what to say. I have never noticed it but it's interesting to think about it. Whenever new characters appear in old novels, I have found it curious that a lot of words are devoted to detailed descriptions of their appearance (clothing, footwear, hair, etc.), which I don't see in novels in English. More modern Japanese fiction doesn't have this, so it must have died off.
Very interesting, I will try to keep my eyes open for that. Perhaps it was to give a sense of a characters social position, based on what they were wearing?
Wow! I've read a book that Stefan Nilsson hasn't read yet? I'll have to mark this day in my diary! I would strongly recommend this one. I think with your vast reading experience you will really appreciate this book. Very subtle and rich, the characters are so realistic, it's as though we spent some time living together. One of the best books of 2023 certainly.
@@grantlovesbooks Oh, you've read plenty of books that I haven't read. The number of books out there is so vast that we could each have read ten thousand great books and we needn't have any overlap whatsoever. And that would be great bookd, the very good ones and the good ones are also out there in even greater numbers
Hi, Grant. Rich Leiter here. We corresponded a couple of times about a year ago. I just wanted to give you a head's up that I send you an email at your gmail account
Thanks Rich, Good luck with the new book, it looks like you've put a lot of work into it. Currently I am back at university, which takes up most of my time. These days I'm having a hard time getting any personal reading done, which makes it even more difficult to manage the RU-vid channel. I would be interested to know about self-publishing, but currently, I don't have even the smallest amount of time for anything extraneous. I hope you are doing well, and I hope you have great success with your book!
