Diary of a Mad Old Man - Softcover

Tanizaki, Junichiro

3.47

3,400 ratings by Goodreads

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0399505245 ISBN 13: 9780399505249

Publisher: Perigee Trade, 1981

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While recovering from a stroke, seventy-seven-year-old Utsugi turns to his diary to wryly record his struggle with his ageing body and his growing desire for his beautiful daughter-in-law Satsuko, a chic, Westernised dancer with a shady past. Shining with a self-effacing humour, Tanizaki's last novel is a tragicomedy about desire and the will to survive.

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Review:

"Wonderful" (Hanif Kureshi Independent)

"His work is unclassifiable: by turns outre and dignified, passionate in its embrace of all things Western and eloquent in its memorializing of the traditional Japanese aesthetic, lightly comic, lyrically evocative and savagely cruel. In a land reputedly inhospitable to the individualist, it demands attention and has earned Tanizaki an undisputed place in the pantheon of 20th-century Japanese literature." (New York Times)

"An artistic masterpiece" (Irish Times)

"A writer of wicked subtlety and grace" (Sunday Times)

Book Description:

At once hilarious and sad, Tanizaki's last novel - written during his final illness - echoes his own life.

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