A SHORT REFLECTION ON “HOUSE OF THE SLEEPING BEAUTIES”

Today I finished a novella called “House of the Sleeping Beauties” by Yasunari Kawabata.

This book shocked me as the plot is nothing that I have heard of before. It is about a 76-year-old man, Mr. Eguchi, who goes to a secret house that puts virgin girls into sleep and lets him touch and sleep beside one of them after paying a secret price. This story excites me as much as it disturbs me. I get excited when I read the story from the lens of the old man, while I get frustrated when I think of the story from the perspective of those “sleeping beauties.” Throughout the story, the themes of youth/old, life/death, and beauty/ugliness are noticeable. The scents, shapes, and smells of the adolescent girls serve as something that can purify and vitalize the old men who can no longer be called a “man.” What is really interesting is the fact that Eguchi cannot stop himself from not going back to the house of sleeping beauties even though he is guilty about his own immoral act. However, this immoral act is justified because those drugged girls will not remember anything that happened while they are asleep when they wake up. In the end, “any kind of inhumanity, given practice, becomes human” (75).

Eguchi is not yet a complete “old man” (his down there is still functioning), but he chooses to come to this secret place instead of going to a proper brothel to fulfill himself. Here, I understand that Eguchi’s primary goal is not to satisfy his physical needs. Instead, this older man thinks of his earlier memories and the flashbacks on his mind while observing and touching the sleeping beauties. He thinks of his wife, lovers, mother, and his daughters. Those sleeping beauties are turned into a secret door for Eguchi to walk into his past and have a closer look at his own lived experiences. By doing it, Eguchi gains a greater understanding of himself. Having lived through all these years, Eguchi feels both old and young inside him. On top of this, he feels both deadly and yet alive while lying beside young fleshes. “[T]he aged have death, and the young have love, and death comes once, and love comes over and over again” (76). Perhaps this feeling urges the old Eguchi to visit the house of sleeping beauties again and again.

Again and again: older men return to the secret house of sleeping beauties. Again and again: several young virgin girls are heavily drugged and put to sleep with men they have never seen. Again and again: they are touched and kissed by unknown old hands: face, hair, breasts, nipples, down there, feet, hands, everywhere you can imagine. Again and again: older men return to the secret house of sleeping beauties. Again and again: they realize their pedophilic desire that sits side by side with their loneliness, sadness, and selfishness. Again and again: girls are turned into things – only that they are still hot and warm!

In the end, one of the girls dies while sleeping beside the old Eguchi. It was 4 in the morning. Eguchi wanted to go home. But the mama-san gave him sleeping pills so that he can sleep even more! Then there is no more, leaving the readers to create a story according to their imaginations. Again and again: this is a story of sacrifice. For what? Money. Phallocentricism. Oh, it’s even ironic here, as all the customers (except Eguchi) have already lost their phalluses.

Work Cited:

Kawabata, Yasunari. House of the Sleeping Beauties and Other Stories. NY: Vintage International Vintage Books, 1969.