(The Key is the story of a dying marriage, told in the for...)
The Key is the story of a dying marriage, told in the form of parallel diaries. After nearly thirty years of marriage, a dried-up, middle-aged professor frenziedly strives for new heights of carnal pleasure with his repressed, dissatisfied wife, resorting to stimulants galore for her: brandy, a handsome young lover. During the day, they record their adventures of the previous night. When they begin to suspect each other of peeping into their respective diaries, it becomes unclear whether each spouse's confessions might not be intended for the other's eyes.
(Sonoko Kakiuchi is a cultured Osaka lady, unfortunately w...)
Sonoko Kakiuchi is a cultured Osaka lady, unfortunately widowed young. But her story is unsettlingly at odds with her image. it is a tale of infatuation and deceit, of eliberate evil. Its theme is humiliation, its victim Sonoko's mild-mannered husband. At is centre - seductive, manipulating, enslaving - is one of Tanizaki's most extraordinary characters, the beautiful and corrupt art student Mitsuko.
(Junichiro Tanizakis Naomi is both a hilarious story of o...)
Junichiro Tanizakis Naomi is both a hilarious story of one mans obsession and a brilliant reckoning of a nations cultural confusion. When twenty-eight-year-old Joji first lays eyes upon the teenage waitress Naomi, he is instantly smitten by her exotic, almost Western appearance. Determined to transform her into the perfect wife and to whisk her away from the seamy underbelly of post-World War I Tokyo, Joji adopts and ultimately marries Naomi, paying for English and music lessons that promise to mold her into his ideal companion. But as she grows older, Joji discovers that Naomi is far from the naïve girl of his fantasies. And, in Tanizakis masterpiece of lurid obsession, passion quickly descends into comically helpless masochism.
(The marriage of Kaname and Misako is disintegrating: whil...)
The marriage of Kaname and Misako is disintegrating: whilst seeking passion and fulfilment in the arms of others, they contemplate the humiliation of divorce. Misako's father believes their relationship has been damaged by the influence of a new and alien culture, and so attempts to heal the breach by educating his son-in-law in the time-honoured Japanese traditions of aesthetic and sensual pleasure. The result is an absorbing, chilling conflict between ancient and modern, young and old.
(Tanizaki wrote these poems as he endured the tumultuous y...)
Tanizaki wrote these poems as he endured the tumultuous years of the Second World War and Japan's defeat. The tanka poetic form (5-7-5-7-7), as well as the titular reference to the former Japanese capital of Kyoto, denotes a return to classical Japanese themes for the purpose of reflecting on modern issues.
(Japanese Edition. In the story, a tattoo artist inscribes...)
Japanese Edition. In the story, a tattoo artist inscribes a giant spider on the body of a beautiful young woman. Afterwards, the woman's beauty takes on a demonic, compelling power, in which eroticism is combined with sado-masochism. The story foreshadows many of the archetypes which reappear in many of Tanizaki's later works.
(The four stories in this volume date from the first and s...)
The four stories in this volume date from the first and second decades of Tanizaki’s long career and reflect themes that appear throughout his work: exoticism, sexuality, sadomasochism, contrasts between traditional and modern societies, disparities between appearance and reality, the power of dreams, amorality, an interest in cinema, and a fascination with the techniques of storytelling.
(Black and White is a literary murder mystery in which the...)
Black and White is a literary murder mystery in which the lines between fiction and reality are blurred. The writer Mizuno has penned a story about the perfect murder. His fictional victim is modeled on an acquaintance, a fellow writer. When Mizuno notices just before the story is about to be published that this mans real name has crept into his manuscript, he attempts to correct the mistake, but it is too late. He then becomes terrified that an actual murder will take place?and that he will be the main suspect. Mizuno goes to great lengths to establish an alibi, venturing into the city's underworld. But he finds himself only more entangled as his paranoid fantasies, including a mysterious "Shadow Man" out to entrap him, intrude into real life.
(The three pieces in this collection?the novella "A Cat, A...)
The three pieces in this collection?the novella "A Cat, A Man, and Two Women" and two shorter pieces "The Little Kingdom" and "Professor Rado" are lighthearted and entertaining variations on one of Tanizakis favorite preoccupations: dominance and submission in relationships, complicated even further here by customs, public opinion, and comic grotesqueries.
Jun'ichirō Tanizaki was one of the major writers of modern Japanese literature, and perhaps the most popular Japanese novelist after Natsume Sōseki.
Background
Tanizaki was born on July 24, 1886 in Nihonbashi, Tokyo. He came from a well-to-do merchant class family, his uncle owned a printing press, which had been established by his grandfather. His family's finances declined dramatically as he grew older until he was forced to reside in another household as a tutor.
Education
Despite financial problems, he attended the Tokyo First Middle School, where he became acquainted with Isamu Yoshii. Tanizaki attended the Literature Department of Tokyo Imperial University from 1908, but was forced to drop out in 1911 because of his inability to pay for tuition.
Career
Tanizaki began his literary career in 1909. His first work, a one-act stage play, was published in a literary magazine that he had helped found. Tanizaki's name first became widely known with the publication of the short story Shisei ("The Tattooer") in 1910. The femme-fatale is a theme repeated in many of Tanizaki's early works, including Kirin (1910), Shonen ("The Children", 1911), Himitsu ("The Secret," 1911), and Akuma ("Devil", 1912). Tanizaki's other works published in the Taishō period include Shindo (1916) and Oni no men (1916), which are partly autobiographical.
In 1918, Tanizaki toured Korea, northern China and Manchuria. In 1922, he relocated from Odawara, where he had been living since 1919, to Yokohama, which had a large expatriate population, living briefly in a Western-style house and leading a decidedly bohemian lifestyle. This outlook is reflected in some of his early writings.
Tanizaki had a brief career in silent cinema, working as a script writer for the Taikatsu film studio. He was a supporter of the Pure Film Movement and was instrumental in bringing modernist themes to Japanese film. He wrote the scripts for the films Amateur Club (1922) and A Serpent's Lust (1923).
Tanizaki's reputation began to take off in 1923, when he moved to Kyoto after the Great Kanto earthquake, which destroyed his house in Yokohama. His first novel after the earthquake, and his first truly successful novel, was Chijin no ai (Naomi, 1924-25), which is a tragicomic exploration of class, sexual obsession, and cultural identity.
Tanizaki made another trip to China in 1926, where he met Guo Moruo, with whom he later maintained correspondence. He relocated from Kyoto to Kobe in 1928. His renewed interest in classical Japanese literature culminated in his multiple translations into modern Japanese of the eleventh-century classic The Tale of Genji and in his masterpiece Sasameyuki (literally "A Light Snowfall," but published in English translation as The Makioka Sisters, 1943–1948), a detailed characterization of four daughters of a wealthy Osaka merchant family who see their way of life slipping away in the early years of World War II. Tanizaki relocated to the resort town of Atami, Shizuoka in 1942, but returned to Kyoto in 1946.
His first major post-war work was Shōshō Shigemoto no haha ("Captain Shigemoto's Mother," 1949–1950), which includes a restatement of Tanizaki's frequent theme of a son's longing for his mother. Tanizaki returned to Atami in 1950, and was designated a Person of Cultural Merit by the Japanese government in 1952. He suffered from paralysis of the right hand from 1958, and was hospitalized for Angina pectoris in 1960.
In 1964, Tanizaki moved to Yugawara, Kanagawa, southwest of Tokyo, where he died of a heart attack on 30 July 1965, shortly after celebrating his 79th birthday. His grave is at the temple of Hōnen-in in Kyoto.
Throughout his fiction run strains of eroticism and lyricism together with a good deal of imagery taken from the acute observation of real life. The character of a dominant or destructive woman is much in evidence in many of his novels, as are subtle contrasts of new and old, Japanese and Occidental.
Tanizaki saw and depicted vividly the clash between Japan and the West, but on the esthetic plane.
Membership
American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters
,
Japan
1964
Personality
Tanizaki described his admittedly pampered childhood in his Yōshō Jidai (Childhood Years, 1956). His childhood home was destroyed in the 1894 Meiji Tokyo earthquake, to which Tanizaki later attributed his lifelong fear of earthquakes.
Interests
Writers
Edgar Allan Poe, Charles Baudelaire, Oscar Wilde
Connections
Tanizaki married his first wife, Chiyoko, in 1915, and his first child, a daughter, was born in 1916. However, it was an unhappy marriage, and in time he encouraged a relationship between Chiyoko and his friend and fellow writer Haruo Satō.