SOURCE: A review of House of the Sleeping Beauties, in Books in Canada, Vol. 12, No. 3, March 26, 1983, p. 26.

In the following excerpt, Stuewe asserts that in House of the Sleeping Beauties, "Kawabata's writing … confronts the most basic contradictions of human life with poise and serenity, and makes high art out of the existential ebb and flow that will ultimately lay us low."

Bodily decline, and in the case of the story "One Arm," dismemberment, play prominent roles in Yasunari Kawabata's House of the Sleeping Beauties and Other Stories translated into English in 1969 and now available in an attractive paperback edition…. The title novella relates an elderly man's fascination with an unusual kind of brothel, where those who can no longer make love to women pay to watch them sleep. This may sound like an unpromising or even precious conceit, but Kawabata develops it beautifully. Evocative memories of love affairs...