The latest addition to my website is Fumiko Enchi‘s 女坂 (The Waiting Years). This a feminist novel about the mistreatment of women in the family of a well-to-do official at the end of the nineteenth/beginning of the twentieth century. Tomo is married to Yukitomo Shirakawa and they have two children. However, he has now decided … Read more
For the past two years, at around this time of year, I have focussed on reading books from only one country. Two years ago, it was Iceland. Last year it was Russia. I could easily have done Russia again but, as the title says, I will be focussing on Japan for the next few weeks. … Read more
The latest addition to my website is Jun’ichiro Tanizaki‘s 春琴抄 (The Story of Shunkin; later: A Portrait of Shunkin). This is another novella from Tanizaki about delving into the past and about sex, though the sex is decidedly lower key than the last two Tanizaki novellas I reviewed. This tells the story of Shunkin, born … Read more
The latest addition to my website is two novellas by Jun’ichiro Tanizaki: 蘆刈 (Ashikari; later: The Reed Cutter) and 少将滋幹の母 (Captain Shigemoto’s Mother), both published in English in the same volume. The first is a short novella telling the tale of a man (the author) who decides to visit the Minase Shrine, site of an … Read more
The latest addition to my website is Jun’ichiro Tanizaki‘s 瘋癲老人日記 (Diary of a Mad Old Man). This is, in fact, the diary of seventy-seven year old man who, while he might have one or two mental issues, is more of a dirty old man than a mad old man. The narrator is suffering from ill … Read more
The latest addition to my website is Jun’ichiro Tanizaki‘s 鍵 (The Key). This is a highly erotic novel, written entirely in the form of diary entries by an older, unnamed man and his younger wife, Ikuko. The husband is concerned that, as he is getting older, his sexual performance has deteriorated. Ikuko, while still loving … Read more
The latest addition to my website is Haruki Murakami‘s 色彩を持たない多崎つくると、彼の巡礼の年 (Colourless Tsukuru Tazaki and His Years of Pilgrimage). This book has had mixed reviews but, though it is not your standard Murakami (and shorter than some of his recent ones) I still enjoyed it very much, not least because Murakami writes so well and tells … Read more
The latest addition to my website is Jun’ichiro Tanizaki‘s The Makioka Sisters, one of the great Japanese novels. I have now read this novel three times and seen the film and it continues to give me great pleasure. It tells the story of four sisters, daughters of an old family, whose father had had considerable … Read more
The latest addition to my website is Jun’ichiro Tanizaki‘s 武州公秘話 (The Secret History of the Lord of Musashi). This is another thoroughly enjoyable Tanizaki novel. It tells the tale of the fictitious Terukatsu, who will later become a great general. However, instead of giving a conventional account of a great general, which would have invariably … Read more
The latest addition to my website is Jun’ichiro Tanizaki‘s お艶殺し (A Spring-Time Case). This is the earliest of Tanizaki’s works to be translated into English, though the English text is very difficult to get hold of, having first been published in 1927 in Japan and never reprinted. This fairly short novel tells the story of … Read more