How The Makioka Sisters improves as it moves along into Book 2

I have to admit that, after a slow start, Junichiro Tanizaki's The Makioka Sisters (1943-48) gets ahold of you. It takes a while, especially of English-language readers, to become familiar with the names of those in the family, including the 4 sisters (I still can't spell each name from memory, and it's particularly irksome that 3 of the 8 or so main characters have names beginning w/ T), but I'm now pretty familiar w/ each of the main characters (and have recognized the naming convention that female characters have names ending in -ko and the servants have names beginning w/ O- - not sure why that is) and their traits and plights. Much of the 150-page book 1 concerns efforts to find a match for 3rd sister Yochiko, especially important because 4th sister, Taeko, cannot marry out of sequence - this family being one of the last it seems to cling to tradition as if to a lifeline in a changing, turbulent world. Toward the end of book 1 we see the psychological cost of this prescribed marriage ritual; Yochiko obviously resists the various suitors who come to the Makioka family seeking to make the match, and she seems to suffer from depression and a # of other, probably psychosomatic, ailments. By the end of book 1 we feel pity for her. Book 2, of about the same length, begins much more dramatically, in 2 ways. First, much more than in book 1 world event begin to play a role in the shaping of character: There are several references to the "China Incident," which involved a Japanese attack on China in the early 1940s - this seems to have created a sense of crisis and material shortages in Japan, so we begin to see that the Makioka sisters are fighting in a lost cause as the cling to traditions and to quaint cultural ceremonies, such as elaborate Japanese dance recitals w/ full costume and hair done up in elaborate styles. Near the beginning of book 2 there is a tremendous storm and flooding on Ashiya (the small city near Osaka where 3 of the sisters live together w/ spouse of sister #2 and their daughter), which endangers everyone's life - by far the most active and visceral chapters in the novel so far, plus JT also gives some depth to sister #2, as she, pushing a travel commitment too far, comes home w/ severe cramps and miscarries, sending her swirling into a deep depression. These sisters are trying to live a life of decor and tradition, but the world is too much with them.