The Story of Tomoda and Matsunaga by Junichiro Tanizaki - 1926 Translated by Paul Warham - A Novella

The Story of Tomoda and Matsunaga by Junichiro Tanizaki - 1926 Translated by Paul Warham - A Novella

I read this work  in The Penquin Book of Japanese Short Stories 

The Japanese Literature Challenge 14 - Hosted by Dolce Bellezza 

January 1 to March 31. Japanese Literature Challenge 14

My  readings  for JL14 2021 so far

1. “Peony Lanterns” a Short Story by Aoko Matsuda - translated from the Japanese by Polly Barton -2020 - a delightful story you can read online. Linked to traditional stories of Ghosts
2. Before The Coffee Gets Cold by TOSHIKAZU KAWAGUCHI -2020- an international bestseller
3. The Memory Police by Yoko Ogawa - 1998
4. The Lady Killer by Masako Togawa - 1968
5. The Convenience Store Woman by Sayaka Murata - 2016 - cult favorite
6. UNDER RECONSTRUCTION - A short story by Ōgai Mori - first published 1910 - translated from the Japanese by Ivan  Morris 1968
7. Dream Pictures  - A Short Story by Kenzaburo Óe - 1996

I first begun reading Junichiro Tanazaki in 2009, The first year I participated in The Japanese Literature Challenge.  

Junichiro Tanizaki (1886 to 1965) is now  one of my “read all I can” writers.  Were he writing now, his every new  novel would be a bestseller, made into an international movie.  Among my favourite of his novels are Naomi, Some Prefer Nettles and his most now read book, The Makioka Sisters, about four upper Class Japanese sisters in search of a husband, Austen fans love this book.  (Viking Press has  recently published his The Maids, told from the point of views of the maids of the four sisters.  As soon as this is out on Kindle I will read it!). 

The Story of Tomoda and Matsunaga, as is a common theme in Tanazaki, treats Janus like attitude of Japan between wars to European and American influences.  It is part a mystery story, as well as a memoir of a Japanese man’s obsession with western prostitutes, his marked preference for them sexually to Japanese women, including his wife.

There are themes of sexual obsession in a number of his works, few depictions of happy enduring marriages.  

The story is narrated by a famous writer, much like the author.  He gets lots of letters, many from aspiring writers seeking his help and also from people seeking advise on personal issues.  One letter from a woman intrigues him.  She has seen in a news paper a picture of the author with a man identified as his friend. She says the man seems to resemble her husband.  He left home three years ago and she has not heard from him.  She says in the letter her husband of many years will disappear peridically for periods of three or four years, never communicating.  Then he returns, looking haggard, and acts the model husband.  Then in a couple of years, announcing his plans, he tells his wife he is leaving and Will be back in three years or so.  He tells her you can try to find me but you never Will.  She lives from his famlies acricultural holdings. She asks the author to tell the  man his daughter is very ill and he needs to return.  The man says the woman is crazy but he seems disturbed.

We learn man is very into brothels stocked with European women. He spends most of his nights in brothels  and seems an owner of one place.  He tells the author of a beautiful Portuguese woman just arrived he should experience.  He speaks French and English.  We along on the brothel visit. Owners of brothels contact him when they get in a new worker they feel he might like.

There is a lot of time in brothels in the story. The man denigrates the sexual interest of Japanese women, saying they  are very dull and plain.

The woman keeps up her contact, insisting new photographs of man the author sent her do look like her husband.  She tells him to see if the man has a certain ring.  When asked about the ring, the man gets very irrate.

The story takes a very interesting turn. 

To those new to Tanazaki i suggest you start with The Makioka Sisters.

 

 

“The Secret” - A Short Story by Junichiro Tanizaki - 1909, translated by Antony Chambers, 2017

Information on The Japanese Literature Year 11 Event, hosted by Dolce Bellezza

Japanese Iiterature and history on The Reading Life

Junichiro Tanizaki (1886 to 1965) is one of my “read all I can” writers.  Were he writing now, his every new  novel would be a bestseller, made into an international movie.  I have been reading his work for years.  Among my favourite of his novels are Naomi, Some Prefer Nettles and his most now read book, The Makioka Sisters, about four upper Class Japanese sisters in search of a husband, Austen fans love this book.  (Viking Press has very recently published his The Maids, told from the point of views of the maids of the four sisters.  As soon as this is out on Kindle I will read it!). 

Tanizaki is known for his exploration of sexual themes, in a bolder fashion than most English or European writers of the time.  He writers of obsession, sadism, cross dressing (this has a long history in Japanese culture), domination, role playing, cruelty and disquises. His lead characters, as in today’s marvelous story, are often highly cultured men, deeply into the rituals of Japanese culture.  In the time in which “The Secret” was published, 1909, there was none of relatively open social mixing of men and women found in 1948 when The Makioka Sisters was published.  Normally if a man wanted sex he availed himself of a woman from The Water World, a teashop or for The highly impecunious, street walkers.  The rich employed geishas, most had long term clients.

“The Secret” is a story about a mystery, a sexual relationship in which identities are concealed.  As the story opens the lead character tours rougher parts of Tokyo.  The trip through these areas almost felt like Dickens.  He rents a room and begin to roam The  streets at night dressed as a woman, perfectly attired and betioleted. The lead character, as the story opens, is at a fashionable Tokyo opera House, in a private box, dressed as a woman.  Next to him is a distinquished looking older man, his companion a younger woman.  At first the man wonders if she is geisha, a mistress then he realized she was a woman he had a brief romance with a few years ago.  He slips a note in the folds of her gown suggesting they meet.  She responds on the next night, agreeing  to meet.  A clandestine relationship develops in which she sends 

a rickshaw to pick him up and bring him blindfolded to her home where they have sex.  I am leaving the close untold.

I strongly recommend the reading of the short stories of Tanizaki, elegantly presented in the books in the image at the start of this post.

Mel u