Word: okie
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...Oki Toshio, a successful but somewhat lonely novelist in his tifties, decides to visit one of the loves of his youth. Ueno Otoko. This visit awakens feelings of passion and remorse that had lain dormant through the 24 years since their separation; he had deserted the 16-year-old Otoko following her suicide attempt prompted by the death of their premature baby. During the visit, he meets Keiko, Otoko's young protege and lover, in whom he sees the full bloom of Otoko's lost beauty and passion. But aware of Otoko's past. Keiko sets out single mindedly...
...COMMON factor uniting all the characters in the story is itself an abstraction--a romantic novel, in which Oki had sought to immortalize his passion for Otoko. The novel was a work of love, and an immediate success. The book had made his career, had meant luxuries for the family and education for his children; but it nearly destroyed his marriage and later cast Otoko into the harsh glare of public curiosity...
...characters, however, are uncomfortable with their shared destiny. Oki wonders...
Thus the reflections abound and multiply. Oki sees Otoko in Keiko; Keiko sees a youthful Oki in Taichiro. And Otoko finally loses her lover to Oki and Taichiro just as Oki's wife once lost...
...characters in Beauty and Sadness are finally lost in the confusion between image and reality Otoko seeks release from her sadness in the vision of her Intant. Oki tries to break out of his loneliness by finding the heroine of his novel in its model. Confronted by these images, none of the characters is finally able to smash the mirror to see the others as real, independent people...