WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:02.120 I want you to imagine a specific kind of artist. 00:00:03.140 --> 00:00:06.160 Imagine someone who builds this beautiful, just 00:00:06.160 --> 00:00:09.720 pristine house. They spend years perfecting every 00:00:09.720 --> 00:00:11.960 detail, the architecture, the lighting, the furniture. 00:00:12.119 --> 00:00:15.080 Okay. And then the moment it's finished, they 00:00:15.080 --> 00:00:17.140 invite everyone over, hand out sledgehammers 00:00:17.140 --> 00:00:19.460 and say, okay, let's smash it to pieces just 00:00:19.460 --> 00:00:21.760 to see what the rubble looks like. That is a... 00:00:22.140 --> 00:00:26.019 a pretty destructive image. It is, but it feels 00:00:26.019 --> 00:00:28.359 so appropriate for the man we are talking about 00:00:28.359 --> 00:00:32.159 today. We are diving into the life and mind of 00:00:32.159 --> 00:00:35.479 Junichiro Tanizaki. And if you think you know 00:00:35.479 --> 00:00:37.899 Japanese literature, if you're picturing, you 00:00:37.899 --> 00:00:40.600 know, quiet tea ceremonies and cherry blossoms 00:00:40.600 --> 00:00:43.100 falling gently on the water, you really need 00:00:43.100 --> 00:00:44.719 to buckle up. Yeah, that's not what we're getting 00:00:44.719 --> 00:00:47.229 here. Not at all. Because Tanizaki is the guy 00:00:47.229 --> 00:00:49.890 who brings the spiders, the foot fetishes, and 00:00:49.890 --> 00:00:52.170 the psychological warfare to the tea ceremony. 00:00:52.250 --> 00:00:54.850 He absolutely disrupts the tranquility. I mean, 00:00:54.869 --> 00:00:57.670 Tanizaki is a figure of massive contradictions. 00:00:58.109 --> 00:01:00.649 he's a paradox wrapped in a kimono sitting in 00:01:00.649 --> 00:01:03.450 a western style chair it's it's a lot to unpack 00:01:03.450 --> 00:01:05.909 a paradox is a good word for it it really is 00:01:05.909 --> 00:01:08.230 because on one side you have this writer who 00:01:08.230 --> 00:01:10.829 is just completely obsessed with the shocking 00:01:10.829 --> 00:01:14.030 and we're talking about um destructive erotic 00:01:14.030 --> 00:01:17.170 obsessions sadomasochism and stories where beauty 00:01:17.170 --> 00:01:20.400 isn't just pretty it's this demonic force that 00:01:20.400 --> 00:01:23.340 completely ruins men's lives which sounds more 00:01:23.340 --> 00:01:25.719 like the plot of a pulp more novel honestly exactly 00:01:25.719 --> 00:01:29.159 it has that gritty psychological edge but then 00:01:29.159 --> 00:01:30.959 on the other side of that same coin you have 00:01:30.959 --> 00:01:34.540 the exact same man writing these incredibly subtle 00:01:34.540 --> 00:01:36.939 high art portrayals of traditional family dynamics 00:01:36.939 --> 00:01:40.280 he becomes the great defender of the fading beauty 00:01:40.280 --> 00:01:42.620 of old japan right the guy writing about shadows 00:01:42.620 --> 00:01:44.799 the guy who writes entire treatises on the nuance 00:01:44.799 --> 00:01:47.120 of shadows and the aesthetic value of a dim room 00:01:47.719 --> 00:01:49.719 It really feels like we are talking about two 00:01:49.719 --> 00:01:51.819 different people, but we aren't. It's all Jinachiro 00:01:51.819 --> 00:01:54.219 Tanizaki. And he's not some fringe figure, right? 00:01:54.280 --> 00:01:56.659 We aren't talking about some underground cult 00:01:56.659 --> 00:01:58.540 author that only a few people have read. Oh, 00:01:58.579 --> 00:02:01.780 far from it. He is one of the big three post 00:02:01.780 --> 00:02:04.819 -war Japanese writers, right alongside Yasunori 00:02:04.819 --> 00:02:07.819 Kawabata and Yukio Mishima. He was a literary 00:02:07.819 --> 00:02:10.830 giant, an absolute pillar. In fact, he was one 00:02:10.830 --> 00:02:13.330 of the six authors on the final shortlist for 00:02:13.330 --> 00:02:16.330 the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1964. The final 00:02:16.330 --> 00:02:18.770 shortlist. The final six. And he might very well 00:02:18.770 --> 00:02:20.909 have won it, too, had he not passed away the 00:02:20.909 --> 00:02:22.849 following year. So we're talking high stakes, 00:02:23.129 --> 00:02:28.009 high art, and very low primal urges. Yeah. That's 00:02:28.009 --> 00:02:29.889 the mix we're dealing with. That is the perfect 00:02:29.889 --> 00:02:32.389 summary. And the mission for this deep dive, 00:02:32.490 --> 00:02:35.050 I think, is to figure out how this guy ticked. 00:02:36.139 --> 00:02:38.539 We want to understand how a man who started his 00:02:38.539 --> 00:02:43.199 career as a Western -obsessed mohime, I mean, 00:02:43.199 --> 00:02:46.139 wearing suits, watching movies, living in a European 00:02:46.139 --> 00:02:49.120 -style house, how did he transform into the ultimate 00:02:49.120 --> 00:02:51.599 guardian of Japanese aesthetics? And we're going 00:02:51.599 --> 00:02:53.280 to find that the answer, strangely enough, lies 00:02:53.280 --> 00:02:56.460 in trauma, specifically geological trauma. Earthquakes. 00:02:56.560 --> 00:02:58.840 The earthquakes. You absolutely cannot understand 00:02:58.840 --> 00:03:00.979 Tanizaki's brain without understanding the ground 00:03:00.979 --> 00:03:03.400 literally shaking beneath his feet. And on top 00:03:03.400 --> 00:03:06.000 of that... We have to unpack the scandalous aspects 00:03:06.000 --> 00:03:08.719 of his personal life, including a wife swap incident 00:03:08.719 --> 00:03:11.360 that honestly makes modern celebrity gossip look, 00:03:11.539 --> 00:03:14.620 well, tame. It's unbelievable. It sounds like 00:03:14.620 --> 00:03:16.360 something he would have written, but it actually 00:03:16.360 --> 00:03:18.319 happened. I still can't believe that part is 00:03:18.319 --> 00:03:20.879 real, but we will get there. Let's rewind the 00:03:20.879 --> 00:03:22.819 clock first. Let's go back to the origin story. 00:03:23.099 --> 00:03:28.379 Okay. Junichiru Tanizaki, born July 24, 1886, 00:03:29.000 --> 00:03:33.060 Nihonbashi, Tokyo. What kind of world is he stepping 00:03:33.060 --> 00:03:36.580 into? well he's born into the Meiji era which 00:03:36.580 --> 00:03:39.560 is a time of just massive massive change in Japan 00:03:40.250 --> 00:03:42.669 The country is modernizing at a breakneck speed. 00:03:43.250 --> 00:03:45.830 But his immediate surroundings are very rooted 00:03:45.830 --> 00:03:48.270 in the merchant class. His family was actually 00:03:48.270 --> 00:03:49.969 doing quite well when he was born. They were 00:03:49.969 --> 00:03:52.949 well off. For a time, yes. His grandfather had 00:03:52.949 --> 00:03:55.129 established a printing press, and his uncle owned 00:03:55.129 --> 00:03:58.370 it. So there's this connection to ink, paper, 00:03:58.490 --> 00:04:00.449 and the written word right from the very beginning 00:04:00.449 --> 00:04:02.370 of his life. And from what I've read in his memoir, 00:04:02.530 --> 00:04:05.449 Childhood Years, or Yushi Jidai, he wasn't exactly 00:04:05.449 --> 00:04:08.270 a scrappy street kid fighting for scraps. Not 00:04:08.270 --> 00:04:11.090 at all. Not even close. He openly admits to having 00:04:11.090 --> 00:04:13.150 a pampered upbringing. He was the young master. 00:04:13.370 --> 00:04:16.790 He was spoiled, indulged, and very, very protected. 00:04:17.149 --> 00:04:19.269 And I think that's a crucial detail because when 00:04:19.269 --> 00:04:21.750 you are that sheltered, the outside world can 00:04:21.750 --> 00:04:23.990 seem absolutely terrifying. A fragile bubble. 00:04:24.149 --> 00:04:26.370 A very fragile bubble. And for Tanizaki, that 00:04:26.370 --> 00:04:29.569 terror became very real, very quickly. The bubble 00:04:29.569 --> 00:04:32.509 burst. It burst in two very distinct ways. First, 00:04:32.649 --> 00:04:35.470 financially. As he grew older, the family fortune 00:04:35.470 --> 00:04:46.949 just... That's a classic literary trope, isn't 00:04:46.949 --> 00:04:48.930 it? The fall of the great house. It is, and he 00:04:48.930 --> 00:04:51.009 lived it firsthand. It got bad enough that he 00:04:51.009 --> 00:04:53.050 had to move out of his family home and live in 00:04:53.050 --> 00:04:54.930 another household as a tutor just to get by. 00:04:55.110 --> 00:04:58.100 Wow. Yeah. He eventually clawed his way into 00:04:58.100 --> 00:05:00.699 the prestigious Tokyo Imperial University in 00:05:00.699 --> 00:05:02.680 1908 and the literature department. But he had 00:05:02.680 --> 00:05:05.819 to drop out in 1911. He simply couldn't pay the 00:05:05.819 --> 00:05:08.060 tuition. So he goes from the pampered prince 00:05:08.060 --> 00:05:11.540 to the dropout tutor. That's a massive blow to 00:05:11.540 --> 00:05:14.759 the ego for anyone I'd imagine. It is a huge 00:05:14.759 --> 00:05:17.459 psychological shock. But the second trauma was 00:05:17.459 --> 00:05:21.459 more visceral and it happened much earlier. 1894, 00:05:21.800 --> 00:05:24.199 the Meiji Tokyo earthquake. He would have been 00:05:24.199 --> 00:05:26.699 just a child then, eight years old. Exactly eight 00:05:26.699 --> 00:05:29.920 years old. And his childhood home was destroyed 00:05:29.920 --> 00:05:32.459 in that quake. Now, for a child who is already 00:05:32.459 --> 00:05:34.800 a bit sensitive and pampered, this is completely 00:05:34.800 --> 00:05:37.879 cataclysmic. I can't even imagine. Tanizaki later 00:05:37.879 --> 00:05:41.180 attributed his lifelong pathological fear of 00:05:41.180 --> 00:05:44.079 earthquakes to this specific moment. When you 00:05:44.079 --> 00:05:46.600 say pathological, you mean, what, he was just 00:05:46.600 --> 00:05:49.589 jumpy? I mean, he was paralyzed by it. Underly 00:05:49.589 --> 00:05:52.430 terrified. Throughout his life, friends reported 00:05:52.430 --> 00:05:54.829 that he would freeze up at the slightest tremor. 00:05:54.870 --> 00:05:57.610 Even a truck rumbling by outside could set him 00:05:57.610 --> 00:05:59.689 off. OK, so that's deep seated. It's very deep 00:05:59.689 --> 00:06:02.029 seated. And this fear is so important because 00:06:02.029 --> 00:06:03.889 it sets up a psychological baseline for him. 00:06:03.949 --> 00:06:06.449 The world is unstable. The ground you stand on 00:06:06.449 --> 00:06:08.490 literally and metaphorically can open up and 00:06:08.490 --> 00:06:10.569 swallow you at any moment. Nothing is permanent. 00:06:10.709 --> 00:06:13.509 So we have a young man who is financially humbled. 00:06:14.110 --> 00:06:16.709 terrified of nature, and trying to make his way 00:06:16.709 --> 00:06:18.910 in the literary world without a university degree. 00:06:19.129 --> 00:06:21.569 A pretty precarious position. And he makes his 00:06:21.569 --> 00:06:24.269 debut in 1910 with a short story that doesn't 00:06:24.269 --> 00:06:25.970 just open the door, it really kicks the door 00:06:25.970 --> 00:06:30.110 down. The Tattooer, or Shisei. This is the birth 00:06:30.110 --> 00:06:33.199 of what you might call Tanizaki the Demon. I 00:06:33.199 --> 00:06:35.560 read the summary of this story, and it is intense. 00:06:35.620 --> 00:06:37.379 It feels like a horror movie set up from the 00:06:37.379 --> 00:06:40.000 very first line. You have this tattoo artist, 00:06:40.259 --> 00:06:43.819 Seikichi, who is obsessed with finding the perfect 00:06:43.819 --> 00:06:46.800 skin, the perfect canvas for his art. Right, 00:06:46.860 --> 00:06:49.600 but he's not just an artist. He's a sadist. This 00:06:49.600 --> 00:06:52.240 story makes it clear he enjoys the pain he inflicts 00:06:52.240 --> 00:06:54.120 with his needles. He's been waiting for years 00:06:54.120 --> 00:06:55.959 to find a woman with the right quality of skin 00:06:55.959 --> 00:06:58.379 and, crucially, the right spirit to bear his 00:06:58.379 --> 00:07:01.040 masterpiece. And he finds her, a young geisha. 00:07:01.670 --> 00:07:04.670 And then it gets really dark. He drugs her, which 00:07:04.670 --> 00:07:06.930 is already a major red flight. A huge red flight. 00:07:07.009 --> 00:07:09.149 And while she's unconscious, he tattoos a giant 00:07:09.149 --> 00:07:11.610 spider on her back. A giant black widow spider, 00:07:11.790 --> 00:07:13.949 essentially. The text is very specific. It covers 00:07:13.949 --> 00:07:17.149 her entire back. It's his magnum opus. Now, in 00:07:17.149 --> 00:07:20.209 a normal story, or at least a more moralistic 00:07:20.209 --> 00:07:23.629 one from that era, the woman would wake up, she'd 00:07:23.629 --> 00:07:26.980 scream, cry, and be the tragic victim. But that 00:07:26.980 --> 00:07:29.339 is absolutely not what happens here. No. And 00:07:29.339 --> 00:07:32.079 this is the core of early Tanizaki. This is the 00:07:32.079 --> 00:07:34.259 key. When she wakes up and sees the spider in 00:07:34.259 --> 00:07:37.220 the mirror, she isn't horrified. She's empowered. 00:07:37.800 --> 00:07:41.279 Yes. The story explicitly suggests that the tattoo 00:07:41.279 --> 00:07:44.259 gives her a demonic, compelling power. The pain 00:07:44.259 --> 00:07:46.100 of the needle and the image of this predator 00:07:46.100 --> 00:07:48.079 unlocks something that was dormant inside her. 00:07:48.220 --> 00:07:50.860 She actually tells the artist, you have made 00:07:50.860 --> 00:07:54.120 me a true beauty. And then she essentially steps 00:07:54.120 --> 00:07:56.019 on him. She completely dominates him. And he 00:07:56.019 --> 00:07:58.199 likes it. He loves it. He becomes her first victim. 00:07:58.319 --> 00:08:01.079 He has created this perfect, beautiful monster, 00:08:01.160 --> 00:08:03.860 and all he wants is to be consumed by it. And 00:08:03.860 --> 00:08:06.560 this story establishes the template for so much 00:08:06.560 --> 00:08:09.519 of Tanizaki's early work, the femme fatale. He 00:08:09.519 --> 00:08:12.600 combines eroticism with sadomasochism. He links 00:08:12.600 --> 00:08:15.079 beauty directly, inextricably, to destruction. 00:08:15.399 --> 00:08:18.459 So for him, beauty isn't passive. It's not a 00:08:18.459 --> 00:08:21.259 flower sitting in a vase. No, it's a spider that 00:08:21.259 --> 00:08:25.470 eats you. It's an active, dangerous force. And 00:08:25.470 --> 00:08:27.670 it's a power dynamic. He explores this in other 00:08:27.670 --> 00:08:30.069 early stories, too, like The Children, The Secret, 00:08:30.209 --> 00:08:33.730 and Devil. There is this clear recurring obsession 00:08:33.730 --> 00:08:37.230 with the idea that men secretly desire to be 00:08:37.230 --> 00:08:39.789 destroyed by beauty. They want to be the fly 00:08:39.789 --> 00:08:42.529 in the web. That is a pretty radical departure 00:08:42.529 --> 00:08:47.519 from the good wife. wise mother ideal that the 00:08:47.519 --> 00:08:49.279 Japanese government was promoting at the time. 00:08:49.379 --> 00:08:51.960 It was a direct confrontational rejection of 00:08:51.960 --> 00:08:54.460 it. Tanizaki wasn't interested in moral instruction. 00:08:54.759 --> 00:08:56.620 He was interested in psychological extremes. 00:08:56.940 --> 00:08:59.340 And this rebellious streak didn't just stay in 00:08:59.340 --> 00:09:01.899 his books. It spilled out into his entire lifestyle. 00:09:02.179 --> 00:09:03.960 Which leads us into what we can call his modern 00:09:03.960 --> 00:09:07.139 boy phase. Exactly. The roaring 20s or the Japanese 00:09:07.139 --> 00:09:09.320 equivalent, the Taisho democracy era. Right. 00:09:09.399 --> 00:09:12.919 So from about 1913 to 1923, Tanizaki went through 00:09:12.919 --> 00:09:23.990 this period where he was absolutely He was. You 00:09:23.990 --> 00:09:26.440 have to understand. Japan at this time was modernizing 00:09:26.440 --> 00:09:29.799 so rapidly. There was new technology, new fashions, 00:09:29.799 --> 00:09:34.039 jazz, cafes. It was a cultural explosion. And 00:09:34.039 --> 00:09:36.519 Tanizaki just threw himself headfirst into all 00:09:36.519 --> 00:09:39.899 of it. In 1922, he makes a very significant move 00:09:39.899 --> 00:09:42.779 to Yokohama. And Yokohama is significant because... 00:09:42.779 --> 00:09:44.480 It's a port city. It's where the ships came in. 00:09:44.879 --> 00:09:47.940 It had a huge expatriate population. It was by 00:09:47.940 --> 00:09:50.759 far the most Western city in Japan at the time. 00:09:50.860 --> 00:09:53.059 So he's immersing himself. Completely. Tanizaki 00:09:53.059 --> 00:09:55.700 lived in a Western style house. He wore Western 00:09:55.700 --> 00:09:58.679 suits. He led a bohemian lifestyle. He wanted 00:09:58.679 --> 00:10:01.460 to be modern. And for him, nothing, absolutely 00:10:01.460 --> 00:10:03.639 nothing was more modern than the cinema. I was 00:10:03.639 --> 00:10:06.279 so surprised to learn this. Tanizaki was a movie 00:10:06.279 --> 00:10:08.679 guy. He was deeply, deeply involved in the film 00:10:08.679 --> 00:10:10.960 industry. He worked as a script writer for the 00:10:10.960 --> 00:10:13.000 Taikatsu film studio. And he wasn't just, you 00:10:13.000 --> 00:10:15.389 know, churning out pulp. He was a serious supporter 00:10:15.389 --> 00:10:17.610 of what was called the Pure Film Movement. What 00:10:17.610 --> 00:10:20.309 does pure film mean in this context? Well, at 00:10:20.309 --> 00:10:22.230 the time, a lot of Japanese cinema was really 00:10:22.230 --> 00:10:24.330 just filmed theater. They would literally set 00:10:24.330 --> 00:10:26.370 up a camera in front of a stage play and record 00:10:26.370 --> 00:10:29.409 it. It was very static. Ah, okay. The Pure Film 00:10:29.409 --> 00:10:31.750 Movement wanted to use actual cinematic techniques, 00:10:32.169 --> 00:10:35.190 close -ups, editing, visual storytelling, to 00:10:35.190 --> 00:10:39.279 create a new distinct art form. Tanizaki wrote 00:10:39.279 --> 00:10:42.759 scripts for films like Amateur Club in 1922 and 00:10:42.759 --> 00:10:47.200 A Serpent's Lust in 1923. A Serpent's Lust. That 00:10:47.200 --> 00:10:49.340 title fits right in with the spider tattoo, doesn't 00:10:49.340 --> 00:10:51.100 it? It certainly does. The themes were consistent. 00:10:51.710 --> 00:10:54.029 And scholars argue that you can't fully understand 00:10:54.029 --> 00:10:56.330 his later writing style without understanding 00:10:56.330 --> 00:10:59.129 his work in film. He learned how to tell stories 00:10:59.129 --> 00:11:00.809 through images, through lighting, through the 00:11:00.809 --> 00:11:02.830 visual framing of a scene. That makes sense. 00:11:03.009 --> 00:11:05.289 That visual nature becomes absolutely crucial 00:11:05.289 --> 00:11:07.210 later when he starts writing his masterpiece 00:11:07.210 --> 00:11:10.789 on, of all things, shadows. So he's living the 00:11:10.789 --> 00:11:12.909 high life in Yokohama, writing movie scripts, 00:11:13.149 --> 00:11:15.429 living in a Western house, pretending he's in 00:11:15.429 --> 00:11:18.100 Paris or London. That's the vibe. But we need 00:11:18.100 --> 00:11:19.860 to talk about his personal life during this time 00:11:19.860 --> 00:11:23.320 because there is some real life drama that sounds 00:11:23.320 --> 00:11:25.399 like it was scripted for a particularly bizarre 00:11:25.399 --> 00:11:29.259 reality TV show. The wife swap incident or the 00:11:29.259 --> 00:11:31.500 Odawara incident, as it's sometimes called. This 00:11:31.500 --> 00:11:36.340 is just wild. So he gets married in 1915 to a 00:11:36.340 --> 00:11:38.879 woman named Chiyo Ishikawa. They have a child, 00:11:38.960 --> 00:11:41.960 a daughter named Ayuko, but it's not a happy 00:11:41.960 --> 00:11:44.279 home. No, by all accounts, it was a miserable 00:11:44.279 --> 00:11:47.019 marriage. Tanizaki apparently found Shio too 00:11:47.019 --> 00:11:50.279 traditional, too domestic. She wasn't the spider 00:11:50.279 --> 00:11:52.659 woman or the modern girl he was fantasizing about 00:11:52.659 --> 00:11:54.980 in his fiction. She was just a wife, and that 00:11:54.980 --> 00:11:57.220 bored him immensely. So most people in that situation 00:11:57.220 --> 00:12:00.139 would, I don't know, get a divorce or have a 00:12:00.139 --> 00:12:03.120 discreet affair. Tanizaki does something much, 00:12:03.159 --> 00:12:05.470 much more complicated. He does something unique 00:12:05.470 --> 00:12:08.070 with Hanasaki. He actively encouraged a relationship 00:12:08.070 --> 00:12:10.470 between his wife Chiyo and his friend, the fellow 00:12:10.470 --> 00:12:13.070 writer Haro Satu. Wait, he pushed them together? 00:12:13.330 --> 00:12:15.389 He did. He essentially tried to hand her off 00:12:15.389 --> 00:12:17.330 to his friend, but then he would get cold feet 00:12:17.330 --> 00:12:19.950 or maybe jealous and pull her back. Then he'd 00:12:19.950 --> 00:12:21.990 push her away again. It was this years -long 00:12:21.990 --> 00:12:24.110 psychological torment for everyone involved, 00:12:24.470 --> 00:12:27.070 especially for Chiyo. Why on earth would he do 00:12:27.070 --> 00:12:29.899 that? It seems so unbelievably cruel. It was 00:12:29.899 --> 00:12:32.259 incredibly cruel. But if you look at it through 00:12:32.259 --> 00:12:34.480 the lens of his work, it makes a twisted kind 00:12:34.480 --> 00:12:37.200 of sense. He was treating the people around him 00:12:37.200 --> 00:12:39.240 like characters in his fiction. He was the puppet 00:12:39.240 --> 00:12:42.080 master pulling the strings just to see what kind 00:12:42.080 --> 00:12:44.539 of drama would unfold. So he was mining his own 00:12:44.539 --> 00:12:46.779 life for material? Constantly. He even wrote 00:12:46.779 --> 00:12:49.980 plays and novels about this exact situation while 00:12:49.980 --> 00:12:53.210 it was happening. Because I love her and between 00:12:53.210 --> 00:12:56.230 men and the gods. That is next level narcissism. 00:12:56.289 --> 00:12:58.370 I'm going to ruin my marriage and my friendship 00:12:58.370 --> 00:12:59.950 so I have something interesting to write about. 00:13:00.029 --> 00:13:02.629 It's the artist as a monster in a way. Yeah. 00:13:02.690 --> 00:13:05.549 But eventually this all comes to a head. In 1930, 00:13:05.730 --> 00:13:08.450 they actually released a signed public statement. 00:13:08.570 --> 00:13:11.889 All three of them, Tanizaki, Chiyo, and Satuth, 00:13:11.970 --> 00:13:14.389 signed a letter that was published in the press. 00:13:14.529 --> 00:13:16.549 They published it? Yes, announcing that Chiyo 00:13:16.549 --> 00:13:18.990 was being transferred to Satuth. They issued 00:13:18.990 --> 00:13:22.220 a press release. for a wife swap they did it 00:13:22.220 --> 00:13:25.340 caused a massive scandal as you can imagine but 00:13:25.340 --> 00:13:27.639 it shows you where tanizaki's head was at he 00:13:27.639 --> 00:13:30.200 was trying to modernize everything even the institution 00:13:30.200 --> 00:13:33.559 of marriage he was treating life itself as one 00:13:33.559 --> 00:13:36.559 big strange experiment so he's playing these 00:13:36.559 --> 00:13:39.080 dangerous manipulative games with people's lives 00:13:39.080 --> 00:13:41.840 he's living in a western house that he probably 00:13:41.840 --> 00:13:45.240 thinks is the height of modern civilization but 00:13:45.240 --> 00:13:47.080 while he's orchestrating all this personal chaos 00:13:48.250 --> 00:13:50.230 The Earth is preparing to deliver some chaos 00:13:50.230 --> 00:13:52.529 of its own. We've arrived at the pivot point, 00:13:52.669 --> 00:13:55.389 the great pivot of his life and career, September 00:13:55.389 --> 00:14:00.009 1st, 1923. The Great Canto Earthquake. We mentioned 00:14:00.009 --> 00:14:02.950 his childhood trauma with the 1894 quake. But 00:14:02.950 --> 00:14:05.529 the 1923 earthquake was on a scale that is hard 00:14:05.529 --> 00:14:08.830 to even comprehend. Magnitude 7 .9. It didn't 00:14:08.830 --> 00:14:11.429 just shake Tokyo and Yokohama. It leveled them. 00:14:11.590 --> 00:14:13.750 Total destruction. Total destruction. And then 00:14:13.750 --> 00:14:17.230 came the fires. Firestorms raged for days. Over 00:14:17.230 --> 00:14:20.090 100 ,000 people died. It was an apocalypse. And 00:14:20.090 --> 00:14:22.529 Tanizaki was living right there in Yokohama in 00:14:22.529 --> 00:14:24.870 his precious Western -style house. Yes. And his 00:14:24.870 --> 00:14:26.950 house was destroyed. It completely collapsed 00:14:26.950 --> 00:14:28.889 into a pile of rubble. Was he home when it happened? 00:14:28.779 --> 00:14:31.000 it happen? Fortunately, no. He was on a bus in 00:14:31.000 --> 00:14:33.240 Hakon, which is a mountainous resort area nearby, 00:14:33.340 --> 00:14:36.059 so he physically survived. But when he came back 00:14:36.059 --> 00:14:38.679 down from the mountains and saw the ruins, the 00:14:38.679 --> 00:14:42.059 psychological impact was profound. What did he 00:14:42.059 --> 00:14:44.460 see? What was that experience like? He saw that 00:14:44.460 --> 00:14:46.659 the modern world he had been worshipping was 00:14:46.659 --> 00:14:49.600 made of paper and glass. He saw that the Western 00:14:49.600 --> 00:14:51.740 architecture, which he thought was so solid and 00:14:51.740 --> 00:14:54.700 superior, had crumbled just as easily as the 00:14:54.700 --> 00:14:57.259 traditional Japanese structures. In fact, in 00:14:57.259 --> 00:14:59.840 many cases, it was worse. The brick buildings 00:14:59.840 --> 00:15:02.960 collapsed and crushed people. The fires consumed 00:15:02.960 --> 00:15:05.279 everything. It must have been a terrifying validation 00:15:05.279 --> 00:15:07.419 of his childhood fear. It's like the universe 00:15:07.419 --> 00:15:09.840 telling him, see, I was right all along. The 00:15:09.840 --> 00:15:12.600 ground is the enemy. Exactly. It confirmed his 00:15:12.600 --> 00:15:15.860 deepest paranoia. And it triggered this massive 00:15:15.860 --> 00:15:19.399 internal change. He realized that this modernity 00:15:19.399 --> 00:15:22.440 he loved was fragile. It was just the thin veneer 00:15:22.440 --> 00:15:25.919 over a volatile, dangerous landscape. So he made 00:15:25.919 --> 00:15:28.320 a decision. He ran. He left the entire region. 00:15:28.399 --> 00:15:30.759 He relocated from the ruins of the Tokyo area 00:15:30.759 --> 00:15:33.399 to the Kansai region, the area around Kyoto, 00:15:33.580 --> 00:15:36.120 Osaka, and Kobe. For our listeners who might 00:15:36.120 --> 00:15:37.960 not be familiar with the cultural geography of 00:15:37.960 --> 00:15:40.860 Japan, Can you explain the significance of that 00:15:40.860 --> 00:15:42.740 move? It's not just a change of scenery, is it? 00:15:42.970 --> 00:15:45.789 No, it's a profound cultural and spiritual shift. 00:15:45.950 --> 00:15:48.789 It's like a time travel move. Tokyo was the center 00:15:48.789 --> 00:15:52.269 of politics, modernization, and the new. Kansai, 00:15:52.490 --> 00:15:54.809 and particularly Kyoto, was the historical heart 00:15:54.809 --> 00:15:57.809 of tradition. It was the old imperial capital. 00:15:58.029 --> 00:16:00.370 So old Japan. It was old Japan. It's where the 00:16:00.370 --> 00:16:02.450 ancient temples were. It's where the old merchant 00:16:02.450 --> 00:16:05.809 culture of Osaka thrived. By moving to Kansai, 00:16:06.009 --> 00:16:09.169 Tanizaki was physically and spiritually retreating 00:16:09.169 --> 00:16:11.190 into the past. He's running away from the modern 00:16:11.190 --> 00:16:13.299 ruins to find... something that feels permanent. 00:16:13.720 --> 00:16:16.399 Something with roots. Precisely. The earthquake 00:16:16.399 --> 00:16:19.000 didn't just break buildings, it broke his obsession 00:16:19.000 --> 00:16:21.519 with the West. Or maybe it's more accurate to 00:16:21.519 --> 00:16:23.340 say it made him realize that he couldn't just 00:16:23.340 --> 00:16:26.360 be Western, he was Japanese, living on unstable 00:16:26.360 --> 00:16:28.639 Japanese soil, and he had to reckon with that. 00:16:28.820 --> 00:16:30.220 But it wasn't an overnight switch, right? He 00:16:30.220 --> 00:16:31.759 didn't just wake up the next day in a kimono 00:16:31.759 --> 00:16:34.980 writing haiku. No, not at all. There was a transition 00:16:34.980 --> 00:16:37.820 period, a kind of cultural hangover, if you will. 00:16:38.340 --> 00:16:41.559 And the key work from this time is the novel 00:16:41.559 --> 00:16:45.379 Naomi, or Chi - which was published around 1924 00:16:45.379 --> 00:16:47.840 -25. Naomi, this is a famous one. Some people 00:16:47.840 --> 00:16:50.320 call it the Japanese Lolita. It shares some themes 00:16:50.320 --> 00:16:54.240 with Lolita, certainly. The plot is this tragicomic 00:16:54.240 --> 00:16:58.320 exploration of sexual obsession in class. The 00:16:58.320 --> 00:17:01.679 protagonist, Joji, is this boring middle -aged 00:17:01.679 --> 00:17:04.519 engineer. He meets a young teenage waitress named 00:17:04.519 --> 00:17:07.339 Naomi. And he becomes obsessed. Utterly obsessed. 00:17:07.440 --> 00:17:10.440 But specifically, he is obsessed with making 00:17:10.440 --> 00:17:13.519 her Western. He wants to mold her, like a Pygmalion 00:17:13.519 --> 00:17:16.259 story. Exactly. He wants to create his perfect 00:17:16.259 --> 00:17:18.740 modern girl. He pays for her to learn English. 00:17:28.440 --> 00:17:30.920 It sounds like Tanizaki is writing about his 00:17:30.920 --> 00:17:33.200 own recent past. He's working something out here. 00:17:33.359 --> 00:17:35.940 He is absolutely satirizing himself. Joji is 00:17:35.940 --> 00:17:37.960 the fool who worships the West without any critical 00:17:37.960 --> 00:17:40.559 thought. And Naomi, well, Naomi takes his money 00:17:40.559 --> 00:17:42.779 and his lessons and she turns into a monster. 00:17:43.019 --> 00:17:45.240 The spider returns. The spider returns in a flapper 00:17:45.240 --> 00:17:47.779 dress. She completely dominates him. She cheats 00:17:47.779 --> 00:17:49.519 on him. him with Western men. She's cruel to 00:17:49.519 --> 00:17:51.539 him. And Joji just takes it because he is so 00:17:51.539 --> 00:17:54.779 enslaved by her modern allure. So even though 00:17:54.779 --> 00:17:57.460 he's moving physically toward tradition, his 00:17:57.460 --> 00:17:59.640 mind is still wrestling with this destructive 00:17:59.640 --> 00:18:03.940 modern girl figure. Exactly. Naomi is the bridge. 00:18:04.039 --> 00:18:06.579 It's him processing the failure of his Western 00:18:06.579 --> 00:18:09.680 fantasy, showing how hollow it was. But once 00:18:09.680 --> 00:18:12.140 he settles into the Kansai period for good, the 00:18:12.140 --> 00:18:15.400 deep dive into tradition really begins. From 00:18:15.400 --> 00:18:17.960 the late 1920s through the 1940s, we see the 00:18:17.960 --> 00:18:20.579 emergence of the shadow Tanizaki. This is the 00:18:20.579 --> 00:18:22.680 era where he writes the masterpieces that he's 00:18:22.680 --> 00:18:25.200 most remembered for. It is. He totally immerses 00:18:25.200 --> 00:18:27.960 himself in the local culture. He becomes fascinated 00:18:27.960 --> 00:18:30.839 by the Osaka dialect, which is much softer and 00:18:30.839 --> 00:18:32.799 more musical than the standard Tokyo Japanese. 00:18:33.380 --> 00:18:35.640 He starts attending Bunraku, the traditional 00:18:35.640 --> 00:18:38.240 puppet theater, and Kabuki. He's like an anthropologist 00:18:38.240 --> 00:18:40.319 of his own culture. And this leads to the novel 00:18:40.319 --> 00:18:43.839 Some Prefer Nettles, published in 1928 -29. This 00:18:43.839 --> 00:18:45.869 book is pivotal. It's almost a manifesto for 00:18:45.869 --> 00:18:48.170 his change in perspective. The story is about 00:18:48.170 --> 00:18:50.930 a Tokyo man named Kaneme who is living near Osaka. 00:18:51.250 --> 00:18:53.849 He's in a loveless marriage, a recurring theme 00:18:53.849 --> 00:18:56.390 for Tanizaki, obviously, and he finds himself 00:18:56.390 --> 00:18:59.210 torn. Torn between what? Torn between two worlds. 00:18:59.289 --> 00:19:02.670 On one side, he has his modern westernized life. 00:19:03.069 --> 00:19:06.089 On the other, he is increasingly drawn to his 00:19:06.089 --> 00:19:08.490 father -in -law's mistress, a very traditional 00:19:08.490 --> 00:19:11.089 woman who represents old Japan, who is obsessed 00:19:11.089 --> 00:19:13.869 with the puppet theater, who embodies this quiet... 00:19:14.089 --> 00:19:16.509 Subtle beauty. It's a literal representation 00:19:16.509 --> 00:19:19.150 of his own internal conflict, East versus West, 00:19:19.349 --> 00:19:21.549 right there on the page. It is. It's a mirror 00:19:21.549 --> 00:19:23.650 of his own journey. And the conclusion of the 00:19:23.650 --> 00:19:25.970 book, which is very ambiguous, suggests that 00:19:25.970 --> 00:19:28.589 he is slowly, inevitably drifting toward the 00:19:28.589 --> 00:19:30.849 traditional side. He stops fighting it. He's 00:19:30.849 --> 00:19:33.349 surrendering to the Japan inside him. And this 00:19:33.349 --> 00:19:35.490 surrender leads to an essay that I think is one 00:19:35.490 --> 00:19:38.230 of the most beautiful and, frankly, strange things 00:19:38.230 --> 00:19:41.900 ever written about aesthetics. In Praise of Shadows. 00:19:42.039 --> 00:19:45.460 In E. Ray Zahn, published in 1933. If you care 00:19:45.460 --> 00:19:48.859 about design, architecture, food, or just beauty 00:19:48.859 --> 00:19:51.079 in general, you have to read this essay. It will 00:19:51.079 --> 00:19:53.259 change how you see the world. Let's unpack it. 00:19:53.279 --> 00:19:56.039 What is his core argument? It's pretty radical. 00:19:56.180 --> 00:19:59.039 His core thesis is that Western culture is fundamentally 00:19:59.039 --> 00:20:02.420 obsessed with light. The West wants to illuminate 00:20:02.420 --> 00:20:05.779 everything. White walls, bright electric bulbs, 00:20:06.000 --> 00:20:09.259 clarity, sterility. They want to banish the dark. 00:20:09.609 --> 00:20:11.309 Which makes sense on a practical level. We want 00:20:11.309 --> 00:20:13.049 to be able to see things clearly. Yeah, of course. 00:20:13.190 --> 00:20:15.250 But Tanizaki argues that traditional Japanese 00:20:15.250 --> 00:20:17.950 beauty is built on shadows. He says that the 00:20:17.950 --> 00:20:19.829 beauty of a traditional Japanese room depends 00:20:19.829 --> 00:20:23.029 entirely on the varying degrees of dimness. He 00:20:23.029 --> 00:20:25.369 talks about how gold leaf looks in a dark room. 00:20:25.569 --> 00:20:27.950 How does it look? Well, if you put gold leaf 00:20:27.950 --> 00:20:30.390 in a bright fluorescent lit room, it just looks 00:20:30.390 --> 00:20:32.950 gaudy. It's tacky. It's cheap. But if you put 00:20:32.950 --> 00:20:36.970 that same gold leaf in a dark room lit by a single 00:20:36.970 --> 00:20:40.599 candle. It glows. It seems to gather the faint 00:20:40.599 --> 00:20:43.500 light and reflect it with this deep, heavy, mysterious 00:20:43.500 --> 00:20:46.660 power. He says the darkness is what gives the 00:20:46.660 --> 00:20:49.279 gold its value. He talks about soup, too. Yeah. 00:20:49.420 --> 00:20:51.319 Which I absolutely love. The lacquerware soup 00:20:51.319 --> 00:20:53.660 bowl, yes. He compares it to Western white ceramic 00:20:53.660 --> 00:20:56.099 dishes. He says Western dishes are shallow and 00:20:56.099 --> 00:20:57.940 bright. You see the soup immediately. It just 00:20:57.940 --> 00:20:59.319 looks like brown liquid. There's no mystery. 00:20:59.500 --> 00:21:01.460 But with a dark lacquer bowl, you have to bring 00:21:01.460 --> 00:21:03.839 it close to your face, and you gaze down into 00:21:03.839 --> 00:21:05.619 the darkness of the soup at the bottom of the 00:21:05.619 --> 00:21:09.430 dark bowl. It retains the heat. It feels mysterious 00:21:09.430 --> 00:21:12.630 and profound. He argues the pleasure of the food 00:21:12.630 --> 00:21:15.009 itself is enhanced by the shadows it's served 00:21:15.009 --> 00:21:17.509 in. And we absolutely cannot forget the toilet. 00:21:17.670 --> 00:21:20.410 The famous toilet section. You can't talk about 00:21:20.410 --> 00:21:22.309 Impreza of Shadows without talking about the 00:21:22.309 --> 00:21:25.880 toilet. He writes this beautiful... almost romantic 00:21:25.880 --> 00:21:28.680 love letter to the traditional japanese outhouse 00:21:28.680 --> 00:21:31.519 he does he contrasts the western toilet which 00:21:31.519 --> 00:21:34.940 is white tiled sterile and clinical a place of 00:21:34.940 --> 00:21:37.859 pure function with the traditional wooden outhouse 00:21:37.859 --> 00:21:40.420 he describes the outhouse as a place of spiritual 00:21:40.420 --> 00:21:43.920 repose spiritual repose In an outhouse. Yes. 00:21:44.079 --> 00:21:46.299 He talks about the dark wood, the faint light 00:21:46.299 --> 00:21:48.420 filtering through a paper screen, the smell of 00:21:48.420 --> 00:21:50.519 moss, the sound of rain falling on leaves just 00:21:50.519 --> 00:21:53.700 outside. He finds this profound meditative beauty 00:21:53.700 --> 00:21:56.579 in the most functional biological act, as long 00:21:56.579 --> 00:21:58.859 as it is wrapped in shadow and nature. It's such 00:21:58.859 --> 00:22:01.279 a complete rejection of the clean, bright, modern 00:22:01.279 --> 00:22:04.079 life he was living in Yokohama. He's basically 00:22:04.079 --> 00:22:06.140 saying that by turning on all the lights, we 00:22:06.140 --> 00:22:08.420 killed the magic. Exactly. He's issuing a warning. 00:22:08.519 --> 00:22:11.119 He's saying that when we chase Western modernization, 00:22:11.400 --> 00:22:14.180 we are bleaching our own culture. We are losing 00:22:14.180 --> 00:22:16.740 the nuance. We are losing the shadows. And for 00:22:16.740 --> 00:22:19.420 him, the shadows were where beauty lived. This 00:22:19.420 --> 00:22:22.380 philosophy of shadows and fading beauty culminates 00:22:22.380 --> 00:22:25.440 in what is arguably his greatest work, the Makioka 00:22:25.440 --> 00:22:28.160 Sisters. Sasamuki. It was written over a long 00:22:28.160 --> 00:22:32.119 period, between 1943 and 1948. The title literally 00:22:32.119 --> 00:22:36.220 translates to a light snowfall. It's such a beautiful, 00:22:36.339 --> 00:22:38.859 gentle image. It fits the novel perfectly. It's 00:22:38.859 --> 00:22:41.640 a massive book, over 500 pages. But nothing massive 00:22:41.640 --> 00:22:44.319 really happens in terms of action or plot. It 00:22:44.319 --> 00:22:47.420 follows four daughters of a wealthy, old money 00:22:47.420 --> 00:22:50.200 Osaka merchant family. The Makioka family. Right. 00:22:50.319 --> 00:22:52.319 And the central tragedy of the book is all in 00:22:52.319 --> 00:22:54.200 the background. Their traditional way of life 00:22:54.200 --> 00:22:57.279 is slowly... gently slipping away. It's set in 00:22:57.279 --> 00:23:00.099 the years leading up to World War II, from 1936 00:23:00.099 --> 00:23:03.400 to 1941. But it's not a war novel. Not at all. 00:23:03.440 --> 00:23:05.480 The characters aren't fighting on the front lines. 00:23:05.700 --> 00:23:07.759 They are trying to arrange marriages for the 00:23:07.759 --> 00:23:10.720 third sister, Yukiko. They are going on trips 00:23:10.720 --> 00:23:13.259 to view the cherry blossoms. They are catching 00:23:13.259 --> 00:23:16.759 fireflies. They are trying on kimonos. The drama 00:23:16.759 --> 00:23:19.779 is all in these small, everyday acts of cultural 00:23:19.779 --> 00:23:22.240 preservation. It's about the preservation of 00:23:22.240 --> 00:23:25.299 a mood, of a feeling. It is. It's about a world 00:23:25.299 --> 00:23:28.380 that is fading like melting snow. And unlike 00:23:28.380 --> 00:23:31.000 his early characters who are screaming and fighting 00:23:31.000 --> 00:23:34.039 about their identity, these sisters don't have 00:23:34.039 --> 00:23:36.619 identity crises. They aren't torn between East 00:23:36.619 --> 00:23:39.180 and West. They are just trying to exist beautifully 00:23:39.180 --> 00:23:42.160 in a world that is moving on without them. Now, 00:23:42.240 --> 00:23:46.960 here is the fascinating conflict. Tanizaki was 00:23:46.960 --> 00:23:49.819 writing and trying to serialize this novel during 00:23:49.819 --> 00:23:52.000 World War II. Yes, right in the middle of it. 00:23:52.059 --> 00:23:54.579 And the Japanese military government. They hated 00:23:54.579 --> 00:23:56.900 it. They absolutely despised it. Well, I mean, 00:23:56.900 --> 00:23:58.779 on the surface, it sounds like the most Japanese 00:23:58.779 --> 00:24:01.039 thing ever written. It's about kimonos and family 00:24:01.039 --> 00:24:03.859 and tradition and cherry blossoms. That is the 00:24:03.859 --> 00:24:07.039 supreme irony of the whole situation. But it 00:24:07.039 --> 00:24:09.299 wasn't the right kind of Japanese for the fascists 00:24:09.299 --> 00:24:12.099 in power. The military government wanted war 00:24:12.099 --> 00:24:15.539 spirit. They wanted stories about self -sacrifice, 00:24:15.539 --> 00:24:18.680 nationalism, and soldiers dying gloriously for 00:24:18.680 --> 00:24:21.140 the emperor. And Tanizaki was giving them. What? 00:24:21.240 --> 00:24:24.519 He was giving them luxury, femininity, softness, 00:24:24.519 --> 00:24:26.700 and the decadent beauty of a past they wanted 00:24:26.700 --> 00:24:29.900 to erase. He was focusing on the unimportant 00:24:29.900 --> 00:24:33.079 lives of women. It was banned. Effectively, yes. 00:24:33.400 --> 00:24:36.319 The editors of the literary magazine, Tusharan, 00:24:36.500 --> 00:24:38.700 where it was being serialized, were called in 00:24:38.700 --> 00:24:41.180 by the military police. They were warned that 00:24:41.180 --> 00:24:43.500 this novel did not contribute to the war effort. 00:24:43.640 --> 00:24:46.299 They were told it was effeminate and individualistic. 00:24:46.539 --> 00:24:48.740 And when the magazine tried to continue publishing 00:24:48.740 --> 00:24:50.680 it, the government threatened to cut off their 00:24:50.680 --> 00:24:53.079 paper supplies. They cut off the paper. That 00:24:53.079 --> 00:24:55.920 is a very bureaucratic and chilling way to kill 00:24:55.920 --> 00:24:58.480 a masterpiece. It shows that Tanizaki's version 00:24:58.480 --> 00:25:02.160 of tradition was aesthetic, not political. He 00:25:02.160 --> 00:25:04.180 wasn't a nationalist in the militaristic sense. 00:25:04.279 --> 00:25:07.279 He was an esthete. He cared about beauty, not 00:25:07.279 --> 00:25:10.160 war. In a way, he was resisting the war simply 00:25:10.160 --> 00:25:12.720 by ignoring it and focusing on the pattern of 00:25:12.720 --> 00:25:15.180 a beautiful kimono instead. So the war ends. 00:25:15.690 --> 00:25:18.589 The militarist Japan is defeated. Tanizaki has 00:25:18.589 --> 00:25:20.849 survived the earthquake, the personal scandals, 00:25:20.849 --> 00:25:23.150 and the government censorship. He emerges in 00:25:23.150 --> 00:25:25.410 the post -war period as a legend. He becomes 00:25:25.410 --> 00:25:28.309 the grand old man of Japanese letters, a living 00:25:28.309 --> 00:25:30.630 treasure. He wins the prestigious Asahi Prize 00:25:30.630 --> 00:25:33.769 in 1948. He receives the Order of Culture from 00:25:33.769 --> 00:25:37.539 the Emperor in 1949. In 1964, he becomes the 00:25:37.539 --> 00:25:39.880 first Japanese writer ever elected to honorary 00:25:39.880 --> 00:25:42.180 membership in the American Academy and Institute 00:25:42.180 --> 00:25:44.259 of Arts and Letters. So logically, this is the 00:25:44.259 --> 00:25:46.240 part of his life where he settles down, acts 00:25:46.240 --> 00:25:48.660 dignified, and writes gentle memoirs about his 00:25:48.660 --> 00:25:51.589 grandkids, the respectable elder statesman. You 00:25:51.589 --> 00:25:53.690 would think so. That would be the logical progression. 00:25:54.029 --> 00:25:56.269 But this is Kanazaki. He did not mellow with 00:25:56.269 --> 00:25:58.569 age. In fact, in some ways, he became more biologically 00:25:58.569 --> 00:26:01.190 explicit. He became the mad old man. This is 00:26:01.190 --> 00:26:03.730 my favorite twist in his whole story. Just when 00:26:03.730 --> 00:26:05.349 you think he's become the shadow man forever, 00:26:05.589 --> 00:26:08.569 the old demon from his youth comes roaring back. 00:26:08.750 --> 00:26:11.390 The demon comes back, but he's old now and he's 00:26:11.390 --> 00:26:14.170 frail. And that's what he writes about in the 00:26:14.170 --> 00:26:17.549 1950s and 60s. Tanizaki starts exploring sexuality 00:26:17.549 --> 00:26:21.509 in old age, and he is unflinching about the often 00:26:21.509 --> 00:26:24.690 grotesque realities of the aging body. He writes 00:26:24.690 --> 00:26:28.730 the key. Or Keggy in 1956. Yes. And this novel 00:26:28.730 --> 00:26:31.289 shocked people all over again. It's a psychological 00:26:31.289 --> 00:26:33.349 thriller told through the diaries of a husband 00:26:33.349 --> 00:26:36.089 and wife. The husband is an aging professor who 00:26:36.089 --> 00:26:38.369 is losing his sexual vitality. He can't perform 00:26:38.369 --> 00:26:41.250 anymore. So he comes up with this twisted plan. 00:26:41.789 --> 00:26:44.750 He arranges for his wife to commit adultery with 00:26:44.750 --> 00:26:47.170 a younger man, their daughter's fiance. Why? 00:26:47.579 --> 00:26:49.599 What's the end game there? He wants to make himself 00:26:49.599 --> 00:26:52.140 pathologically jealous. He finds that the jealousy, 00:26:52.299 --> 00:26:54.200 the humiliation gives him a spark of energy. 00:26:54.359 --> 00:26:56.259 It's the only thing that can arouse him anymore. 00:26:56.460 --> 00:26:59.039 He literally feeds off his own humiliation to 00:26:59.039 --> 00:27:01.480 feel alive. That goes right back to the voyeurism 00:27:01.480 --> 00:27:03.559 and manipulation we saw in his 20s with the wife 00:27:03.559 --> 00:27:05.700 swap. It's the same psychological mechanism. 00:27:06.059 --> 00:27:08.660 It is. It proves that the core obsessions never 00:27:08.660 --> 00:27:11.119 left him. He just adapted them to the circumstances 00:27:11.119 --> 00:27:14.880 of his aging body. And then there is his final 00:27:14.880 --> 00:27:17.720 major work, Diary of a Mad Old Man, or Food and 00:27:17.720 --> 00:27:20.980 Roja Nikki, published in 1961 -62. The title 00:27:20.980 --> 00:27:22.940 is pretty upfront about what you're getting into. 00:27:23.119 --> 00:27:25.619 It is. In this one, the protagonist is a wealthy, 00:27:25.779 --> 00:27:28.740 sick old man. He suffers from all kinds of ailments, 00:27:28.859 --> 00:27:31.740 nerve pain, high blood pressure. And early in 00:27:31.740 --> 00:27:33.759 the novel, he actually suffers a major stroke. 00:27:33.940 --> 00:27:36.259 And what causes the stroke? An excess of sexual 00:27:36.259 --> 00:27:39.039 excitement. He gets too worked up while watching 00:27:39.039 --> 00:27:41.380 his beautiful daughter -in -law, Satsuko, perform 00:27:41.380 --> 00:27:43.640 a traditional dance. He literally strokes out 00:27:43.640 --> 00:27:46.460 from voyeurism. Yes. And as he is recovering, 00:27:46.720 --> 00:27:49.640 or rather as he is slowly dying, his diary records 00:27:49.640 --> 00:27:51.660 his efforts to bribe this daughter -in -law. 00:27:51.799 --> 00:27:54.240 She is a total modern girl type. She likes boxing 00:27:54.240 --> 00:27:56.680 matches. She wears Western clothes. She is Naomi 00:27:56.680 --> 00:27:59.799 all over again 40 years later. The modern girl 00:27:59.799 --> 00:28:02.740 returns to haunt his final days. she returns 00:28:02.740 --> 00:28:05.220 and the old man knows he can't have her sexually 00:28:05.220 --> 00:28:08.099 so he bribes her for small favors he wants her 00:28:08.099 --> 00:28:09.980 to let him kiss her foot or just show him her 00:28:09.980 --> 00:28:12.900 legs and in exchange for these little thrills 00:28:12.900 --> 00:28:15.920 he buys her things what does he buy her this 00:28:15.920 --> 00:28:19.029 is the amazing part He buys her Western baubles, 00:28:19.130 --> 00:28:22.569 a distinctively Western handbag, an expensive 00:28:22.569 --> 00:28:25.529 cat's eye ring, all these imported luxury accessories 00:28:25.529 --> 00:28:27.950 from Paris or New York. Wait, really? So we've 00:28:27.950 --> 00:28:29.789 come completely full circle? Completely, totally 00:28:29.789 --> 00:28:33.069 full circle. In his final years, the West returns 00:28:33.069 --> 00:28:35.849 to his work. But notice the difference. In his 00:28:35.849 --> 00:28:38.549 youth, the West was an ideal. It was a philosophy, 00:28:38.809 --> 00:28:42.170 a lifestyle he wanted to live. Now, at the end 00:28:42.170 --> 00:28:44.759 of his life... The West is just a fetish object. 00:28:44.900 --> 00:28:47.579 It's a shiny toy that a dying man uses to buy 00:28:47.579 --> 00:28:49.839 a fleeting moment of sensation. That is such 00:28:49.839 --> 00:28:52.200 a cynical yet perfect ending to his thematic 00:28:52.200 --> 00:28:55.259 arc. The West starts as a religion, becomes a 00:28:55.259 --> 00:28:57.940 ruin after the earthquake, and ends up as a bribe 00:28:57.940 --> 00:29:00.400 for a foot fetish. It's Tanizaki in a nutshell. 00:29:00.880 --> 00:29:03.160 He was cynical, but he was also deeply honest. 00:29:03.440 --> 00:29:05.619 He wrote about his own health issues directly 00:29:05.619 --> 00:29:08.180 in that book. He really did suffer from paralysis 00:29:08.180 --> 00:29:11.319 of his right hand starting in 1958. He really 00:29:11.319 --> 00:29:14.279 did have angina pectoris. He used his own physical 00:29:14.279 --> 00:29:17.180 decline as raw material for his fiction. He cannibalized 00:29:17.180 --> 00:29:19.700 his own life until the very end. There is a tanka 00:29:19.700 --> 00:29:22.240 poem he wrote in 1963, just a couple of years 00:29:22.240 --> 00:29:24.759 before he died, that I think captures his mindset 00:29:24.759 --> 00:29:27.880 perfectly. Yes, I know the one. This heart of 00:29:27.880 --> 00:29:29.940 mine is only one. It cannot be known by anybody. 00:29:30.190 --> 00:29:32.509 but myself. He lived a life that was so public 00:29:32.509 --> 00:29:35.490 in so many ways. The scandals, the awards, the 00:29:35.490 --> 00:29:39.410 essays. But internally, he remained a complete 00:29:39.410 --> 00:29:43.250 enigma. He died on July 30, 1965, of a heart 00:29:43.250 --> 00:29:46.109 attack in Ugawara. He was buried at Hunan -in 00:29:46.109 --> 00:29:48.670 Temple in Kyoto. A very traditional temple, I 00:29:48.670 --> 00:29:51.069 assume. A beautiful, quiet temple known for its 00:29:51.069 --> 00:29:53.670 moss and its deep shadows. A fitting resting 00:29:53.670 --> 00:29:56.069 place for the author of In Praise of Shadows. 00:29:56.309 --> 00:29:59.369 And his legacy is completely cemented. The Tanizaki 00:29:59.369 --> 00:30:02.470 Prize was established that same year, 1965, and 00:30:02.470 --> 00:30:04.390 it's still one of the most prestigious and sought 00:30:04.390 --> 00:30:06.930 -after literary awards in Japan today. When you 00:30:06.930 --> 00:30:08.910 look back at the whole trajectory, it's just 00:30:08.910 --> 00:30:11.170 astonishing. He starts with the spider tattoo 00:30:11.170 --> 00:30:13.970 body horror. He moves to silent film scripts 00:30:13.970 --> 00:30:16.950 and western suits. He survives the great Kanto 00:30:16.950 --> 00:30:19.509 earthquake, which shatters his entire worldview. 00:30:19.890 --> 00:30:22.549 He retreats to the Kansai region to write the 00:30:22.549 --> 00:30:25.390 high art of the Makioka sisters. And then he 00:30:25.390 --> 00:30:27.930 ends his career staring unflinchingly at the 00:30:27.930 --> 00:30:31.230 grotesque realities of elderly desire. What a 00:30:31.230 --> 00:30:33.710 ride. It's an incredible artistic journey. So 00:30:33.710 --> 00:30:36.089 let's wrap this up. What is the so what here? 00:30:36.230 --> 00:30:39.430 Why does Tanizaki matter to us sitting here today? 00:30:39.920 --> 00:30:41.779 I think he matters because he didn't just choose 00:30:41.779 --> 00:30:44.359 East or West. He embodied the violent, messy 00:30:44.359 --> 00:30:46.799 struggle between them, Japan in the 20th century, 00:30:46.859 --> 00:30:48.980 and really the whole world was trying to figure 00:30:48.980 --> 00:30:50.960 out how to be modern without completely losing 00:30:50.960 --> 00:30:54.240 its soul. And Tanizaki's life and work show that 00:30:54.240 --> 00:30:56.400 it's not a clean transition. It involves pain, 00:30:56.640 --> 00:31:00.039 confusion, contradiction, and loss. And he showed 00:31:00.039 --> 00:31:02.579 us the value of the shadows we've lost. He taught 00:31:02.579 --> 00:31:05.380 us that tradition isn't just about museums or 00:31:05.380 --> 00:31:08.160 history books or tea ceremonies. It's about a 00:31:08.160 --> 00:31:11.039 way of seeing the world. It's about shadows, 00:31:11.140 --> 00:31:14.690 darkness, and nuance. He warned us that when 00:31:14.690 --> 00:31:17.109 we turn on the bright lights of modernity, whether 00:31:17.109 --> 00:31:19.730 that's literal electric lights or just the constant 00:31:19.730 --> 00:31:22.329 glare of the Internet and global culture, we 00:31:22.329 --> 00:31:24.829 lose something profound. We lose the mystery. 00:31:24.970 --> 00:31:27.430 We lose the mystery. We lose the ability to see 00:31:27.430 --> 00:31:30.450 the gold leaf glowing in the dark. That brings 00:31:30.450 --> 00:31:32.690 us to a final thought for our listeners. We talked 00:31:32.690 --> 00:31:35.930 a lot about the earthquake. Tanizaki hated earthquakes. 00:31:36.089 --> 00:31:37.849 He was terrified of them his whole life. They 00:31:37.849 --> 00:31:40.900 were his trauma. And yet the Great Kanto Earthquake 00:31:40.900 --> 00:31:43.000 was the very thing that forced him to move to 00:31:43.000 --> 00:31:46.720 Kansai. It forced him to pivot. It arguably forced 00:31:46.720 --> 00:31:48.839 him to become the great writer he became. It 00:31:48.839 --> 00:31:51.140 destroyed his house, but it built his legacy. 00:31:51.299 --> 00:31:54.460 A terrible paradox. Exactly. So here is a provocative 00:31:54.460 --> 00:31:57.039 question for you, the listener, to think about. 00:31:57.319 --> 00:32:00.880 Is destruction sometimes necessary for true reinvention? 00:32:01.559 --> 00:32:04.839 Can we only truly value our culture or even our 00:32:04.839 --> 00:32:07.319 own lives once we've seen the ruins of what we 00:32:07.319 --> 00:32:09.269 thought we wanted? It's a terrifying thought, 00:32:09.390 --> 00:32:12.250 but perhaps a necessary one. Sometimes the ground 00:32:12.250 --> 00:32:14.069 has to shake before we can find our footing. 00:32:14.289 --> 00:32:17.589 Something to mull over. That's it for this deep 00:32:17.589 --> 00:32:19.970 dive into the shadows and spiders of Junichiru 00:32:19.970 --> 00:32:22.269 Tanizaki. Thanks for listening. Thanks.