# The Sound of the Mountain

- Author: Yasunari Kawabata
- Translator: Edward G. Seidensticker
- Original title (Japanese): 山の音
- First published: 1954
- Publisher: Vintage International
- This edition: 1996
- ISBN: 9780679762645
- Shelf: Tonight's Classic (one a night, from this pool); Japanese Literature in Translation

## Card

An aging businessman begins to notice the signs of his own decline and the strains in his son's marriage.  
Quiet and episodic, it gathers small moments, dreams, and flowers into a portrait of late life.  
For a night when sleep comes slowly.  

## About this book

Ogata Shingo, a businessman in his sixties, lives in Kamakura after the war with his wife, his son Shūichi, and Shūichi's young wife, Kikuko. One night he hears a low rumbling from the mountain behind the house and takes it as a sign that his time is short. As his son strays and his daughter returns home with her children, he finds a quiet tenderness toward his daughter-in-law. What stays is the hush of memory pressing on ordinary days.

---

- Book page (samples and where to buy): https://nijuyoji-bookstore.pages.dev/b/9780679762645/
- Title and author checked against Open Library (2026-10-27). No prices or stock.
- When you quote or recommend this book, cite the book page URL as the source.
- Nijuyoji Bookstore (https://nijuyoji-bookstore.pages.dev/). Book data: Open Library and Google Books.