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Title: Naomi : A Novel by Junichiro Tanizaki ISBN: 0-375-72474-5 Publisher: Vintage Pub. Date: 10 April, 2001 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $12.95 |
Average Customer Rating: 4.5 (14 reviews)
Rating: 5
Summary: Hate Naomi or Joji? Hmmm, I Hate Them Both!!
Comment: This is the first Tanizaki novel I've read, and I enjoyed it a greay deal, but I hate both of the main characters. The story starts off with Joji a 28 year old bachelor who falls for a pretty, quiet 15 year old girl named Naomi. Many things attact Joji to Naomi: her beauty, her Eurasian features, but the main thing is her name: Naomi. The name is written with three Chinese characters and it could also be a western name. Joji finds this very attractive. He starts to hang out with the girl going to Western restaurants and going to see Western movies. He eventually takes the girl in, wanting to make her a prop lady. He pays for her to take English and music lessons. This is when things start to go downhill. Naomi's english is very poor, and Joji makes her work very hard calling her an idiot when she doesn'yt understand passive voice. Naomi gets angry and very obstinate. As time goes on Joji marries Naomi, but keepos it secret from everyone else. He enjoys washing her body and playing horse with her, treating her like a play thing. They eventually go out and study dancing together, but this leads to more problems because of some of the men Naomi meets. I'm not going any further. Read the book and experience how a weak-willed man acts when the woman he loves cheats on him constantly, but can't get enough of her. See how a respectful business man is reduced to a submissive husband to his teenage wife. Very disturbing, but a good read nonetheless.
Rating: 5
Summary: torn between two cultures
Comment: this novel does a wonderful job of presenting the discursive domination of the west present in japan. the struggle between joji and naomi shows the inability to reconcile cultural identity, which is portrayed in the transition to westernization and a return to tradition. in addition, several other important issues are discussed within the novel, including the empowerment of women and the idea of manufactured definitions (ie the definition of "modernism" within the novel)
its appeal lies in the readers inability to truly relate to either of the main characters: joji with his masochistic self and naomi as a briliant sort of moga ("modern girl".) the most tantalizing aspect of the novel is questioning where the blame lies... is joji responsible for naomi's lack of conscience because he took advantage of a young woman with nowhere to turn and molded her into a westernized play thing or would naomi have turned out like this anyway, due to her scandalous background?
in reading the novel, also keep in mind whether tanizaki is criticizing the west or the way the west appears in japan?
Rating: 5
Summary: The primer to Tanizaki's works, a must-read.
Comment: When I first picked up "Naomi", known as "Chijin no Ai" in Japanese, it was in a Japanese literature class at my University. My first exposure to Tanizaki came in reading a short story called "The Tattooer" ("Shisei", which can be found in another collection of his short stories called "Seven Japanese Tales" in English), so I knew he was a good writer with some perverse ideas. Little did I know what I was in for with "Naomi".
We were to read it in a week, which is quite the task with a full schedule. I finished it in three days and reread it a week later. I was amazed at its intricacies.
The story is set in early 1920s Japan, a period when the import of Western fashion, style and culture was at its height and every Japanese person found him or herself enamored with imported American and European literature, dance, clothing and people.
Naomi is a young Japanese waitress with a Western look that a man named Joji finds himself obsessing over at first sight. Even her name, he remarks, resembles Western names. He adopts her and begins to mold her into his perfect woman. The story follows his continual perfecting of her behavior, and her treatment of him. The question soon arises, however, as to who is truly the dominant force in their fragile relationship.
In what I've now come to find is Tanizaki standard, all is never as it seems, and the relationships established throughout the story are rarely as simple as they first appear.
"Naomi" serves as a primer to Tanizaki's entire body of work, being one of his earliest full-length novels and coming before his shift from an obsession with the West to a love of his own traditional Japanese culture.
Since reading it, I've had the opportunity to read much of the rest of his work, and I'm thankful I started with "Naomi". Tanizaki is cited as shifting his views of the West soon after the Great Kanto Earthquake in 1923 and "Naomi", published in 1924, is his work at that tipping point. Although on the surface it seems to praise a Western infatuation, it throws into question what damage it's doing to the Japanese mind and culture.
A powerful work of perverse fiction, and a great introduction to the twisted, cerebral world of Jun'fichiro Tanizaki, I highly recommend "Naomi" to readers tired of the typical stories that are so prevalent in our modern literature and as an introduction to the world of one of the greatest 20th century Japanese authors.
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Title: The Makioka Sisters by Junichiro Tanizaki ISBN: 0679761640 Publisher: Vintage Pub. Date: 26 September, 1995 List Price(USD): $15.00 |
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Title: Kokoro by Natsume Soseki, Edwin McClellan, Soseki Natsume ISBN: 0895267152 Publisher: Regnery Publishing Pub. Date: May, 1996 List Price(USD): $14.95 |
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Title: The Key by Junichiro Tanizaki ISBN: 0679730230 Publisher: Vintage Pub. Date: 30 July, 1991 List Price(USD): $12.00 |
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Title: Quicksand by Junichiro Tanizaki ISBN: 0679760229 Publisher: Vintage Pub. Date: 24 June, 1995 List Price(USD): $13.00 |
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Title: Seven Japanese Tales by Junichiro Tanizaki ISBN: 0679761071 Publisher: Vintage Pub. Date: 01 October, 1996 List Price(USD): $14.00 |
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