Almost painful to read Tanizaki's Naomi, unless it becomes a novel of her empowerment

It's almost painful to read Junichiro Tanizaki's1925 novel, Naomi (his first novel, I think - published in serialized form in a Japanese newspaper, like his great novel from the 1940s, The Makioka Sisters), as the portrayal of women is so retro, so out of date, so sexist, which of course raises 2 questions: Is the attitude that of the author or of the narrator, Joji? And, is the attitude typical of its time and place or eccentric even then and unique to this work? The only way to go on reading is to assume, believe, and hope that the narrator is perverse in his attitude, even in 1925 Tokyo, and that he will get his come-uppance. On one level, this is a Pygmalion story transposed: Joji is a 28-year-old man with a responsible job in electronics, I think, born and raised int eh country and feeling out of place and awkward in the big city, and completely naive in his relationships to women. He develops a crush I guess you'd call it on a cafe hostess, the eponymous Naomi, who is 15 years old. He asks her out and the 2 of them begin taking long walks, and eventually he proposes that the two of them should live together, she to serve as his maid and housekeeper, and he will pay for her to receive and education (music lessons, English lessons). Her family is completely indifferent to her and apparently had been steering her toward a life as a geisha, i.e., a prostitute, so they go along with this odd proposal. Over time, their relationship becomes sexual and romantic and they quietly marry. Joji treats her more or  less as a pet, or at best as a servant and subordinate - and she, at least so far (about 1/4 through the novel) is completely under his control and dominance. I've just reached a point in the novel where she convinces him to join her in dancing lessons, and here she seems the superior - more skilled, more at ease w/ other people her age - and we sense, or he senses, the vast difference in their ages and backgrounds. So the only way to read this novel, I think, is to hope that it becomes a novel of her empowerment and liberation; we'll see.