CULTURE / Books

Searching to define difficult, elusive concept

Eye of the beholder: 'For some, the bright shade of cherry blossom is the antithesis of yugen, though the great dramatist of noh, Zeami Motokiyo, used this very term, 'hana' (flower), to describe it,' the reviewer writes. | BLOOMBERG

By David Burleigh

Sep 7, 2013

The title of this book is exquisite, while the cover illustration is of something else, different yet just as exquisite. This is appropriate because the aesthetic concept that the book considers is not just beautiful, but elusive and difficult to define.

SNOW IN A SILVER BOWL: A Quest for the World of Yugen, by Hiroaki Sato. Red Moon Press, 2013, 114 pp., $12 (paperback)

With his long experience of translating Japanese poetry, and writing about it, Hiroaki Sato makes this essay on the subject into a ruminative journey, rather than a prescriptive list. He begins by asking friends who are knowledgeable for examples of yugen, which include images from funerals, music, lines of poetry and even "nothing at all."

Searching to define difficult, elusive concept

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