World War II and Tanizaki's fiction

As readers can surmise from previous posts, Junichiro Tanizaki's novel The Makioka Sisters (1943-48, serial publication) is a terrific novel about the complex relationships among 4 sisters, a smart study of individual psychology and family dynamics, set against the background of life in Japan ca 1935-41. The Makioka family is one of fallen wealth and stature, and the sisters, particularly the elder ones, cling to tradition in every way - their taste in music and the arts, in fashion, most of all the social proprieties regarding arranged marriages - in a world in which tradition is crumbling and falling away: they are, as the increasingly become aware, relics from a lost age. On finishing reading the novel, which has a surprisingly abrupt conclusion, I have to think about all the JT excluded from this novel, and what that signifies. As you look at the dates of serialization, you can see that the novel began publication in the midst of World War II and was completed five years into the American occupation of Japan; the events of the novel, however, conclude just before the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. JT has many shadings of the effect of the war on life in Japan - references particularly in book 3 to shortages and to concerns about travel abroad - and JT includes several letters from a
German family to the M sisters, especially at the end of the novel, so the shadings are present: how can we not feel a chill when reading the letter from Hamburg saying that everything looks great from Hamburg and they expect soom to celebrate a victory? Still - how can a Japanese novel completed in 1948 fail to mention or allude to Hiroshima and Nagasaki? To the Holocaust? To the fall of the Emperor? Just as the M sisters are relics of a lost age, so, in a way, is Tanizaki: living in a world in ruins, writing about a world that no longer exists. I have to wonder as well whether there was official censorship or self-censorship during the war years, which may have prevented JT from telling the story of Japan in the war in any way but through allusion and indirection. And then in the post-war years: Was it just too painful and humiliating to write directly about the postwar Japan? To reconcile with history and try to make sense of Japan's alliance w/ Nazi Germany? Or was his subtle treatment of the war an accurate picture of how most Japanese felt about the war before 1941 - that it was something off in the distance that wouldn't affect them much aside from raising the price of groceries? The war is the dark cloud of truth that casts its shadow across this work of fiction.

Why William Trevor should have won a Nobel Prize

I felt a bit sad to see a William Trevor story (Mrs. Casthorpe) in the current NYer, mainly because it reminded me that Trevor died, w/ little notice, about a year ago and we won't be seeing more stories from one of the greatest writers of our time. You can't say that Trevor was unrecognized or unrewarded, though he was by no means as well known as many of this contemporaries and near equals and it's a shame that he never received a Nobel - I think they should have split the award between him and Alice (the Great) Munro, but so be it. To my knowledge this is his first posthumous story in the NYer, and maybe there are enough uncollected to make one last book. His previous NYer story was from a year to so before his death and to be honest it showed diminished powers. Similarly, Mrs. Casthorpe will not be ranked among his greatest works - the conclusion is a little forced and too dependent on coincidence or chance - but it does have some of the great Trevor qualities and characteristics: Sorrowful people, some (like the title character) w/ quite an edge, living lives of quiet desperation, disrupted by desires and aspirations, all of which are generally frustrated or unfulfilled, generally leaving the central character with a sense of their loneliness or social isolation - in other words, not exactly cheery stuff, but work in a direct line of descent from Chekhov. His earlier works tended to be set in rural Ireland; later works, such as this one, in contemporary England, often in the remote suburbs our out districts of London. This story involves a relatively young widow who hopes to carry on her sex life and emotional life with a younger man - though she greatly over-estimates her powers of attraction and goes into a spiral toward death. Trevor alternates among three different POVs for this story - a little rough going at first, but the strands of the story do tie together by the end. Not sure why this was left unpublished, perhaps WT felt  it was unpolished or incomplete, but despite my quibbles I finished reading it hoping that there are more Trevor stories waiting to see the light.

The Makika family pride and its fatal consequences

Is it another death scene? I don't know yet, but The Makioka Sisters (Junichiro Tanizaki, 1943-48) takes another sharp turn toward the dramatic as youngest sister, Taeko (Koi-san), comes down with a serious infection while staying at the house of her male friend possible fiance, Okabatu (sp?). Her older sister the unmarried Yuchiko comes in to help care for the gravely ill Taeko, but things get worse and worse, and once again we see the disparity in medical care: the doctor treating her is obviously out of his league; the sisters try to get some other medical help involved, but Taeko, with her last strength, resists and protests - she cannot abide having the family doctor see that she is living with a man. She may die for this. This family crisis plays out against yet another failed marriage match-up for the pathetic Yuchiko; an intelligent and attractive older man completely breaks off their arranged courtship after he's unable to get more than a word or two out of the incredibly shy Y. He assumes, as anyone would, that she's not interested in him, but that's not the case - she's almost pathologically shy and withdrawn during each of these arranged meetings w/ potential husbands. Is she too tied to the family? Too picky? Does she have some morbid fear of sexual relationships? Is she attracted to women? JT leaves all of these possibilities open, at least a little, but I'm thinking that w will never get a definitive answer as to why Yuchiko repels or rebuffs all suitors. Of course it's in part the Makioka family pride: Just as Yuchiko can never make the effort to communicate with her potential husbands, Taeko puts her life at risk rather than reveal that she is living with a man.

Why The Makioka Sisters is more than a soap opera in prose

Crisis for the four sisters in Junichi Tanizaki's The Makioka Sisters (1943-48) as, following the death of the young photographer Ikaburo (?), the youngest sister, Taeko, aka Koi-san, has begun surreptitious visits to her Okabata, aka Kei-boy, who was her former love interest and now is emerging as a serious potential husband. But the older sisters are disturbed by Taeko's blatant scorning of convention and flaunting her independence and, in their view, amorality - visiting Okabata in his home, even at night! The sisters are not really sure what to do as, on the one hand, Okabata might make a good match for Takeko - he's profligate, but wealthy - yet there's always the issue of daughter #3, Yochiko: Taeko can't marry until her holder sister is married. The sisters write to sister #1, Tsuruko, who lives apart from the other 3 w/ her husband and 6 children in a crowded house in Tokyo and who is horrified by Taeko's behavior and demands - easy for her to do from afar - that Taeko break off relations w/ the unsuitable Kei-boy. Taeko decides to leave home (she's in her 20s, by the way). Meanwhile there has been yet another marriage inquiry regarding the beautiful but morbidly shy and physically weak Yochiko - this time from a very wealthy widower; after the clumsily arranged meet-up, the miai in Japanese, the man (Sawazaki) sends a brief not to the intermediary that says sorry, no longer interested. This is another blow to the pride of the M sisters, as up to now it had always been the sisters who rejected the potential suitors; now the shoe is on the other foot. Perhaps Yochiko's time has passed? All this to give you a sense of the soap-opera qualities of this novel - I have to believe it has been adopted for TV or screen somewhere, and you can see how it was popular as a serial novel in Japan in its time - but there's much more to the novel that the goings-on; it's really a portrait of a segment of Japanese society in decline set against the backdrop, only just barely sketched in (for example, a passage of one of the characters admiring the diamond-like designs seen around Tokyo at this time - obviously, swastikas) of Japan heading toward an alliance w/ the hateful German regime and near-total devastation in the war. It's in the tradition of Buddenbrooks, Gone with the Wind though without the romance, and even perhaps War and Peace though without the war.

The death scene in The Makioka Sisters and what it signifies

He doesn't exactly measure up to the standard of the master - who does? - but Junichiro Tanizaki's death-scene account (spoilers coming for those of you who actually might read this novel) in The Makioka sisters belongs at least in the same arena as Tolstoy's death scenes (Ivan Ilych, the prince [?] in War and Peace) - a terrific and harrowing account of the painful death of Ikatura (sp?), the young photographer who hopes to marry youngest sister, Taeko. Aside from the harrowing description of the pain Ik endured in the last days of his life, there is an equally painful social context to this death scene. It's obvious that Ik is dying because of medical malfeasance - he was in a hospital to have an ear infection removed by surgery (this is in 1939, and apparently there were no antibiotic treatments at that time?), a botched operation that led to blood poisoning and a slow and painful death. We know that the M sisters, from a once-prosperous family that is desperately trying to hold on to its social grandeur, would never have had the same kind of medical treatment as Ik, a man from a peasant background with no social status or wealth: his hospital room is crowded and dingy, the doctor who botched the operation basically disappeared for several days rather than talk to the family, the doctor was apparently an alcoholic and had a record of many failed surgeries, etc., and all this made worse by Ik's family coming in from the countryside and having no idea how to make vital medical decisions when needed. This disparity plays out against the social snobbery of the M family, as the sisters, especially the elder 2, Tsuruko and Sachiko (sp?), have been scheming as to how to preserve the family honor and have Taeko marry the wealthy but worthless older suitor, Okabato (sp?). Fate - or actually social prejudices and inequality - have made the decision for them; S. feels guilty about this, but part of her thinks that Ik's death is a blessing for Taeko. This kind of thinking, however, seems doomed and tragic by the end of Book 2, which, surprisingly, concludes with two completely oblivious letters from the Stolz family, now relocated in Hamburg, encouraging the M sisters to pay a visit. The world around the Makioka sisters is falling apart as the World War seems more and more inevitable, but they just don't get it, focusing on family honor and tradition while their nation lives in the shadow of war and, of course - JT was completing this novel in 1948 - of aerial attack.

A family tries to hang on to tradition as the world falls apart around them - Tanizaki

Sister #2 (Sochiko) gets a letter informing her than the unmarried Sister #4 (Taeko) is secretly meeting w/ the young photographer, Ikatoro (?) who rescued her when she was about to be swept away in the flood. Contemporary readers would say: Big deal, but for this family - The Makioka Sisters (Janichiro Tanizaki, 1943-48) this is a big deal: The sisters are one of the last, or so it seems, surviving "good" families of Osaka and they go to extraordinary lengths to maintain all social conventions, to honor the traditional Japanese arts (dance, kabuki) and dress (saris, obis), and especially marital: sisters must marry in age order, the husband must pass all sorts of scrutiny and investigation, and of course no premarital sex! The youngest sister is considered them most modern, and she pushes against convention - but maybe too much for the family and for herself. Once she confesses to Sochiko that she loves the photographer, who has no social background, the plan is to send her off to France for a year or so to study dressmaking - obviously a way to avoid problems rather than solve them. But this avoidance, and obliviousness, is at the heart of this novel; we see a dying social class clinging to the last threads of what they see as honor and dignity while the world around them is in turmoil. The trip to Europe is an absurd idea, as this is 1938, the world is on the cusp of war, even the sisters recognize the impossibility of a year in Europe. Here at about the midpoint of this 3-volume novel we get our clearest look at the background of the family: both parents died when Taeko was an infant, most of their wealth is gone, the remaining fortune is entrusted to the husband of Sister #1; he's a banker, but he and his family of 8 are suffering from poverty as they try to make a life in a cheap, crowded rental in Tokyo. He's reluctant to give any of the trust fund to Taeko for her travels and studies. And the older sisters are so worried about scandal and reputation - years ago there was an article in the newspaper about Taeko's having an affair w/ a young man - not a true account, and why would that be a news item anyway? - but they are swimming against the tide, so to speak. It's painful to watch these women try to hang on to the vestiges of a world that is crumbling into ruins all around them - as I'm sure we'll see more of in the 2nd half of this work as Japan enters the war and suffers devastation.

Symbolism in The Makioka Sisters

Let's look at all the odd things happening to the eponymous Makioka Sisters in Junichiro Tanizaki's novel: they live through a horrendous rainstorm and flood in their Osaka suburb during which the youngest sister is almost swept to her death in a torrent and hter brother-in-law risks his life trying to find and rescue her; Japan is at war with China (this is the late 1930s) which creates shortages and business failures and their next-door neighbors (a German family, the Stolzes) have to leave Japan and return home; the sisters and the daughter of sister #2 are suffering from weird maladies, such as vitamin shortages, and they repeatedly give one another injections of vitamin B and they take the daughter out of school for what seems to be weeks for her to see a specialist in Tokyo; the oldest sister, forced to relocate to Tokyo because her husband has a new job in banking, is living in a house far to small for their six (!) children and the parents (and 2 servants), and the house literally almost blows to the ground during a typhoon. I could go on - but it's obvious to all readers that their world is falling apart around them, they are no longer a prosperous family, the nation is in crisis - yet their continue to try to maintain and live by the code of various traditions, most notably keeping the youngest from marrying until her older sister marries and engaging in elaborate courtship rituals involving formal meetings and detailed background checks, which seem to be making it impossible for daughter #3 (Yochiko) to find a husband - and for that matter she seems to be afraid of marriage (and possible of sex?). JT is not one to write w/ heavy symbolism - this was a serialized novel (1943-48) and he was obviously trying to make the novel popular and accessible, much like a soap or a miniseries today, but we have to see the sisters as emblematic of an old and privileged way of life that is being crushed - much like their flimsy houses in the typhoon and the flood  - by the forces of modernism, nationalism, isolationism, militarism, and - perhaps, depending on how JT treats the alliance w/ Nazi Germany - racism.