Some Prefer Nettles (Vintage International) - Softcover

Tanizaki, Junichiro

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0679752692 ISBN 13: 9780679752691

Publisher: Vintage Books, 1995

Synopsis

Junichiro Tanizaki's Some Prefer Nettles is an exquisitely nuanced exploration of the allure of ancient Japanese tradition--and the profound disquiet that accompanied its passing.

It is the 1920s in Tokyo, and Kaname and his wife Misako are trapped in a parody of a progressive Western marriage. No longer attracted to one another, they have long since stopped sleeping together and Kaname has sanctioned his wife's liaisons with another man. But at the heart of their arrangement lies a sadness that impels Kaname to take refuge in the past, in the serene rituals of the classical puppet theater--and in a growing fixation with his father-in-law's mistress. Some Prefer Nettles is an ethereally suggestive, psychologically complex exploration of the crisis every culture faces as it hurtles headfirst into modernity.

About this title

Review:

"Tanizaki writes with an unabashed sensuality."
--John Updike

"Japan's great modern novelist, [Tanizaki] created a lifelong series of ingenious variations on a dominant theme: the power of love to energize and destroy."
--Chicago Tribune

Book Description:

A powerful, autobiographical work set in 1920s Tokyo and Osaka

About this edition

• Publisher: Vintage Books
• Publication date: 1995
• ISBN 10: 0679752692
• ISBN 13: 9780679752691
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 224