The nihility in Snow Country has deeply penetrated the tradition of Japanese classical literature, and it is an "oriental" nihility. Although Kawabata Yasunari was dissatisfied with the present situation of the literary world when he first came to the literary world, he once launched a "new feeling movement" with Yokomitsu and others, trying to create a brand-new feeling world by means of Dadaism, Expressionism and other western modernist methods. He did not attach importance to the Japanese literary tradition and once "tried to deny it and exclude it."
However, after middle age, Yasunari Kawabata found himself more and more "having never experienced western-style grief and distress, and I have never seen western-style nothingness and decadence in Japan". He began to move closer to tradition. When writing Snow Country, in order to write the beauty that does not exist in this world, he can only seek creative inspiration from Japanese traditional culture.
Extended information:
Creative background
The nihility shown by Yasunari Kawabata in Snow Country is the same as the thought of mourning for things in Tales of Genji. The first layer of mourning is touching people. Especially the sadness of the relationship between men and women. This is manifested in the creative motivation of Snow Country.
Yasunari Kawabata once said, "I wrote both The Dancer of Izu and The Snow Country with gratitude for love. This kind of performance was simply expressed in The Dancer of Izu, but it went a little deeper in Snow Country and made a painful performance." It is a tradition of Japanese classical literature to express sad thoughts from the love between men and women.
In Snow Country, Koko really falls in love with Shimamura. Shimamura clearly knows that Koko has a crush on him, but he thinks that Koko's pursuit of love and even her survival itself is futile. Sadly, Shimamura lives in Koko for life, and the sad sea of women's love for love is drifting, and his heart is soaked with bitterness.
Baidu Encyclopedia-Snow Country