WE271 || My reading this weekend ...

The House of the Sleeping Beauties, written by the Japanese, Yasunari Kamawata, Nobel laureate 1968.

Hello, Galenkp, in this novel and the two short stories in this book, this author shows all his literary and creative mastery. It is a subtle and psychological novel. With an atmosphere of mystery and phantasmagoria, bordering all the time the mystery of the life and memory of a man who met women, but not the woman who allowed him to know what "love" was like.

I think it is axiomatic, that in the patriarchal macho culture, it is difficult to know women forced to silence, to the repression of their feelings, and to live with masks and dissimulation.

For example, in the Bible, which is a sapiensal book par excellence, asks: Woman, whom are you looking for? Woman, why are you crying? Who are you looking for? .

On the other hand, women, in all times and conditions, have always known and know the vulnerable condition of men, beyond appearances...

This fire is not going out...

In this novel the protagonist, at the beginning of his "old age" makes an inventory of the women in his life, while lying next to the sleeping beauties. By the way, it is a fruitful exercise of male self-awareness.

It is an in-depth exploration of the human condition, as beings born to accompany and be accompanied, it is what we generically call "love" in all its dimensions, eros, philia, agape, etc...

The old Eguchi, he knew that every woman was different from the others, asleep or awake, it only occurred to them to die during sleep. Eguchi was just an old man of normal circumstances. Being human from time to time, who fell, into a lonely emptiness, into a cold despair.

With certainty, I can say that existence and emptiness always go hand in hand, hence the psychological need to give meaning to life, regardless of age and circumstances.

It is a wonderful experience to read and understand this work, which I read at my own pace, in my space and in my time, it is a symbolic, intimate and transformative experience, at least this is what I want to do this weekend, Galenkp.

As Lao Tze says, "When you realize that you lack nothing, the whole world belongs to you."

Janitze 🌹