SOURCE: "Kawabata Yasunari," in The Moon in the Water: Understanding Tanizaki, Kawabata, and Mishima, The University Press of Hawaii, 1979, pp. 121-200.

In the excerpt below, Petersen details the imagery and allusive language of "House of the Sleeping Beauties. "

Dancing figures—expressions of loneliness or focusing a sense of loss—move through Onsen-yado (A Hotspring Inn, 1929) as through Snow Country, through Niji (The Rainbow, 1934), through Hana no Warutsu (Flower Waltz, 1936), and even through Funa Yūjo (Boat Prostitute), a play that had its premier at Tokyo's Kabuki-za in October 1970. Written originally for dance master Nishikawa Koisaburō and adapted for the Osaka stage as Biwa Monogatari (Tale of the Biwa [or Tale of the lute]), this is in some ways reminiscent of "Izu no Odoriko" in its interweaving of journey, longing, and loss.

Its source is in the tales of Heike warrior Kagekiyo (subject of Nō and Kabuki dramas, too...