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Naomi
A hilarious story of one man’s obsession and a brilliant reckoning of a nation’s cultural confusion—from a master Japanese novelist.
When twenty-eight-year-old Joji first lays eyes upon the teenage waitress Naomi, he is instantly smitten by her exotic, almost Western appearance. Determined to transform her into the perfect wife and to whisk her away from the seamy underbelly of post-World War I Tokyo, Joji adopts and ultimately marries Naomi, paying for English and music lessons that promise to mold her into his ideal companion. But as she grows older, Joji discovers that Naomi is far from the naïve girl of his fantasies. And, in Tanizaki’s masterpiece of lurid obsession, passion quickly descends into comically helpless masochism.
When twenty-eight-year-old Joji first lays eyes upon the teenage waitress Naomi, he is instantly smitten by her exotic, almost Western appearance. Determined to transform her into the perfect wife and to whisk her away from the seamy underbelly of post-World War I Tokyo, Joji adopts and ultimately marries Naomi, paying for English and music lessons that promise to mold her into his ideal companion. But as she grows older, Joji discovers that Naomi is far from the naïve girl of his fantasies. And, in Tanizaki’s masterpiece of lurid obsession, passion quickly descends into comically helpless masochism.
237 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1924
About the author
Jun'ichirō Tanizaki
507 books1,971 followersJun'ichirō Tanizaki (谷崎 潤一郎) was a Japanese author, and one of the major writers of modern Japanese literature, perhaps the most popular Japanese novelist after Natsume Sōseki.
Some of his works present a rather shocking world of sexuality and destructive erotic obsessions; others, less sensational, subtly portray the dynamics of family life in the context of the rapid changes in 20th-century Japanese society.
Frequently his stories are narrated in the context of a search for cultural identity in which constructions of "the West" and "Japanese tradition" are juxtaposed. The results are complex, ironic, demure, and provocative.
Some of his works present a rather shocking world of sexuality and destructive erotic obsessions; others, less sensational, subtly portray the dynamics of family life in the context of the rapid changes in 20th-century Japanese society.
Frequently his stories are narrated in the context of a search for cultural identity in which constructions of "the West" and "Japanese tradition" are juxtaposed. The results are complex, ironic, demure, and provocative.
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July 22, 2020
”It is often said that ‘women deceive men.’ But from my experience, I’d say that it doesn’t start with the woman deceiving the man. Rather, the man, without any prompting, rejoices in being deceived; when he falls in love with a woman, everything she says, whether true or not, sounds adorable to our ears…. I know what you are up to, but I’ll let you tempt me.”
Jōji’s Lolita.
Jōji is a salaryman. He grew up on a wealthy farm in the country and has no desire to return. He enjoys the benefits of living in a city. He is obsessed with breaking from tradition and adopting Western ways. He is twenty-eight when he first sees the beautiful fifteen year old siren working as a café hostess. Naomi is docile and meek and a plan begins to formulate in Jōji’s mind.
He will sculpt her into what he desires.
He visits her family and is shocked by how easily they agree to allow him to take her into his home.
Naomi reminds him of the silent screen actress Mary Pickford. Her skin is pale, much lighter than most Japanese girls. He encourages her to fix her hair like the actress. He buys her western clothes and begins to train her to be the perfect “modern” girl.
Mary Pickford is the prototype for Naomi.
So in the beginning he has complete control. There are certainly Pygmalion elements to Jōji’s obsession with this sculpted creature. He is a man of honor even though the circumstances do warrant a raised eyebrow. He does not debauch her. He bathes her. He enjoys watching the burgeoning woman emerge from the slender reed he first brought home.
”For me Naomi was the same as a fruit that I’d cultivated myself. I’d labored hard and spared no pains to bring that piece of fruit to its present, magnificent ripeness, and it was only proper that I, the cultivator, should be the one to taste it. “
Jōji’s desire grows as he continues to deny himself the pleasures her body has been so carefully designed to administer to him. There is a shift in power that begins very subtly, but then becomes a full revolution. Naomi is embracing her modernization and has discovered that men find her desirable.
Naomi embracing her modernization in the 1967 movie adaptation called The Love of an Idiot
”The precious, sacred ground of her skin had been imprinted forever with the muddy tracks of two thieves.”
The Shimizu white peach has been bruised.
His investment has been stolen mere moments before he intended to finally enjoy the “fruits” of his labor. He has been deceived. He has all the normal reactions to finding this out. ”I realized that a woman’s face grows more beautiful the more it incurs a man’s hatred.” He hates her. He despises her. He misses her. He loves her.
”Night is usually associated with darkness; but to me, night always brought thoughts of the whiteness of Naomi’s skin. Unlike the bright shadowless whiteness of noon, it was a whiteness wrapped in tatters, amid soiled, unsightly, dusty quilts; and that drew me to it all the more.”
The complexity of desire.
It is impossible to have control as long as a coveted passion exists. Does Jōji adapt or does he snap like a dry bamboo twig? It is fascinating watching this shifting of power and what he is willing to do, what he is willing to put up with just to stay in Naomi’s presence. The doll slave becomes the master.
Junichiro Tanizaki spurred the Westernization of Japan.
The novel is set in 1924, but the book was published in 1947 right in the midst of a radical shift in Japanese culture from the traditions that had governed their behavior for centuries to a more westernized version. Junichiro Tanizaki’s book had an enormous impact on Japanese women who were just beginning to reject the traditional housewife role and embrace the Western idea of female freedom. The absurd aspects of the Japanese male tendency to dream of being seduced by a siren is examined with a certain level of sympathy. There are several abnormal situations in the book, but what I have come to know, with knowing more people, that what may seem abnormal actually exists in very normal circumstances. People define relationships very differently. The expanded status aspect of a Facebook account shows the complexity of defining our connections with people.
Is there a moral to this story?
”If you think that my account is foolish, please go ahead and laugh. If you think that there’s a moral in it, then, please let it serve as a lesson. For myself, it makes no difference what you think of me; I’m in love with Naomi.”
Ultimately, wouldn’t we all be happier if we didn’t let people outside of a relationship dictate our own feelings for the person who, for better or worse, is the person we love? This is a Japanese spin on a Nabokovian theme (though published before Lolita) of the love and desire of forbidden fruit and the potential for that love to prove toxic. What will you do to be with the one you love?
If you wish to see more of my most recent book and movie reviews, visit http://www.jeffreykeeten.com
I also have a Facebook blogger page at:https://www.facebook.com/JeffreyKeeten
Jōji’s Lolita.
Jōji is a salaryman. He grew up on a wealthy farm in the country and has no desire to return. He enjoys the benefits of living in a city. He is obsessed with breaking from tradition and adopting Western ways. He is twenty-eight when he first sees the beautiful fifteen year old siren working as a café hostess. Naomi is docile and meek and a plan begins to formulate in Jōji’s mind.
He will sculpt her into what he desires.
He visits her family and is shocked by how easily they agree to allow him to take her into his home.
Naomi reminds him of the silent screen actress Mary Pickford. Her skin is pale, much lighter than most Japanese girls. He encourages her to fix her hair like the actress. He buys her western clothes and begins to train her to be the perfect “modern” girl.
Mary Pickford is the prototype for Naomi.
So in the beginning he has complete control. There are certainly Pygmalion elements to Jōji’s obsession with this sculpted creature. He is a man of honor even though the circumstances do warrant a raised eyebrow. He does not debauch her. He bathes her. He enjoys watching the burgeoning woman emerge from the slender reed he first brought home.
”For me Naomi was the same as a fruit that I’d cultivated myself. I’d labored hard and spared no pains to bring that piece of fruit to its present, magnificent ripeness, and it was only proper that I, the cultivator, should be the one to taste it. “
Jōji’s desire grows as he continues to deny himself the pleasures her body has been so carefully designed to administer to him. There is a shift in power that begins very subtly, but then becomes a full revolution. Naomi is embracing her modernization and has discovered that men find her desirable.
Naomi embracing her modernization in the 1967 movie adaptation called The Love of an Idiot
”The precious, sacred ground of her skin had been imprinted forever with the muddy tracks of two thieves.”
The Shimizu white peach has been bruised.
His investment has been stolen mere moments before he intended to finally enjoy the “fruits” of his labor. He has been deceived. He has all the normal reactions to finding this out. ”I realized that a woman’s face grows more beautiful the more it incurs a man’s hatred.” He hates her. He despises her. He misses her. He loves her.
”Night is usually associated with darkness; but to me, night always brought thoughts of the whiteness of Naomi’s skin. Unlike the bright shadowless whiteness of noon, it was a whiteness wrapped in tatters, amid soiled, unsightly, dusty quilts; and that drew me to it all the more.”
The complexity of desire.
It is impossible to have control as long as a coveted passion exists. Does Jōji adapt or does he snap like a dry bamboo twig? It is fascinating watching this shifting of power and what he is willing to do, what he is willing to put up with just to stay in Naomi’s presence. The doll slave becomes the master.
Junichiro Tanizaki spurred the Westernization of Japan.
The novel is set in 1924, but the book was published in 1947 right in the midst of a radical shift in Japanese culture from the traditions that had governed their behavior for centuries to a more westernized version. Junichiro Tanizaki’s book had an enormous impact on Japanese women who were just beginning to reject the traditional housewife role and embrace the Western idea of female freedom. The absurd aspects of the Japanese male tendency to dream of being seduced by a siren is examined with a certain level of sympathy. There are several abnormal situations in the book, but what I have come to know, with knowing more people, that what may seem abnormal actually exists in very normal circumstances. People define relationships very differently. The expanded status aspect of a Facebook account shows the complexity of defining our connections with people.
Is there a moral to this story?
”If you think that my account is foolish, please go ahead and laugh. If you think that there’s a moral in it, then, please let it serve as a lesson. For myself, it makes no difference what you think of me; I’m in love with Naomi.”
Ultimately, wouldn’t we all be happier if we didn’t let people outside of a relationship dictate our own feelings for the person who, for better or worse, is the person we love? This is a Japanese spin on a Nabokovian theme (though published before Lolita) of the love and desire of forbidden fruit and the potential for that love to prove toxic. What will you do to be with the one you love?
If you wish to see more of my most recent book and movie reviews, visit http://www.jeffreykeeten.com
I also have a Facebook blogger page at:https://www.facebook.com/JeffreyKeeten
March 1, 2017
Naomi is Junichiro Tanizaki’s stunningly evocative work exhibiting a man’s romantic-erotic obsession with his unfaithful wife.
“I wanted to boast to everyone, “This woman is mine. Take a look at my treasure.”
This is a tale of agony, emotionally and sexually. Joji, a successful professional almost in his thirties, is bewitched by a modest and innocent eurasian waitress of fifteen so much so that the he propositions her and takes her guardianship as his own. Initially unsure of what he wanted, they start off being friends but as men and women often do when they live under one roof, they become man and wife. They start as the very image of happiness and he spoils her and educates her, as one would do to a pet domesticated from the wild, that is until the curtain drops and his pet bares her fangs and reveals the beast inside untamed. His little pet, his Naomi, was never a pet but rather a puppeteer deploying her masterful strings of deceit and stringing him along with her lies. The image of chastity shatters and out comes a harlot so wily yet so terrifyingly breathtaking. In his contempt he falls further into depravity and a giant passion takes hold of him.
“I realized that a woman’s face grows more beautiful the more it incurs a man’s hatred.”
Joji becomes blinded by love and lust, repeatedly experiencing suffering and betrayal at her hand, he marches on unceasingly in his pathological desire for her beauty. And so little by little he grows accustomed to the pain, to the torment, he becomes numb, and he emerges a docile man completely under the spell of his little Naomi.
“I’ve known all along that she’s fickle and selfish; if those faults were removed, she would lose her value. The more I think of her as fickle and selfish, the more adorable she becomes, and the more deeply I am ensnared by her.”
It is difficult to ascertain what quality in Joji is to blame. Perhaps lechery? Maybe stubbornness? Or is it self-deception? As an introverted person he knows he does not enjoy her personality especially when they are with other people. He even admits that her level of intelligence is a disappointment to him. However every time they escape the prying eyes of society, when only her and him exist, she transforms into the most beautiful creature he can ever imagine. The Naomi that matters to him is the Naomi who is alone with him, the Naomi of other people he does not care about. Is this enough? He envisions a closed off union with only the two of them, like pet and master, man and wife, nobody else, as if to say “let the world burn, but give me Naomi.”
Romantic love is a fragile, jealous, and possessive concept that needs trust to blossom, while in turn, for trust to thrive it needs fidelity. But what if fidelity is not there, can romantic love transpire? It might be possible. The emotional and sexual aspects of a romantic relationship are two different but codependent functions. Our cultural and moral upbringing has instilled in us the notion that these two are one function only, but cases like Joji and Naomi present us with the probability that perhaps sexual and emotional can be separate. Maybe copulation does not dictate emotion. Maybe a woman is a woman first, and she can be a sexual being without the label of ‘wife.’ Don’t misunderstand my intentions; I am not defending Naomi’s actions. I am merely trying to understand Joji’s mindset and their unusual marriage unweighed by pride and compromised with acceptance.
There are a different number of ways to look at their relationship. In the end all he ever wanted was to love her fully, unconditionally. Instead, all he did was put himself deeper and deeper inside her pocket until he was barely felt at all, as light as air, as forgettable as innocence. She was the master and he the little pet. Well, at least, that’s how society would see this.
However, for Joji, he has merely done what a husband in love would do: accept his wife despite her flaws. Is this folly or is this virtue? Is he a victim or is he the victor?
“For myself, it makes no difference what you think of me; I’m in love with Naomi.”
“I wanted to boast to everyone, “This woman is mine. Take a look at my treasure.”
This is a tale of agony, emotionally and sexually. Joji, a successful professional almost in his thirties, is bewitched by a modest and innocent eurasian waitress of fifteen so much so that the he propositions her and takes her guardianship as his own. Initially unsure of what he wanted, they start off being friends but as men and women often do when they live under one roof, they become man and wife. They start as the very image of happiness and he spoils her and educates her, as one would do to a pet domesticated from the wild, that is until the curtain drops and his pet bares her fangs and reveals the beast inside untamed. His little pet, his Naomi, was never a pet but rather a puppeteer deploying her masterful strings of deceit and stringing him along with her lies. The image of chastity shatters and out comes a harlot so wily yet so terrifyingly breathtaking. In his contempt he falls further into depravity and a giant passion takes hold of him.
“I realized that a woman’s face grows more beautiful the more it incurs a man’s hatred.”
Joji becomes blinded by love and lust, repeatedly experiencing suffering and betrayal at her hand, he marches on unceasingly in his pathological desire for her beauty. And so little by little he grows accustomed to the pain, to the torment, he becomes numb, and he emerges a docile man completely under the spell of his little Naomi.
“I’ve known all along that she’s fickle and selfish; if those faults were removed, she would lose her value. The more I think of her as fickle and selfish, the more adorable she becomes, and the more deeply I am ensnared by her.”
It is difficult to ascertain what quality in Joji is to blame. Perhaps lechery? Maybe stubbornness? Or is it self-deception? As an introverted person he knows he does not enjoy her personality especially when they are with other people. He even admits that her level of intelligence is a disappointment to him. However every time they escape the prying eyes of society, when only her and him exist, she transforms into the most beautiful creature he can ever imagine. The Naomi that matters to him is the Naomi who is alone with him, the Naomi of other people he does not care about. Is this enough? He envisions a closed off union with only the two of them, like pet and master, man and wife, nobody else, as if to say “let the world burn, but give me Naomi.”
Romantic love is a fragile, jealous, and possessive concept that needs trust to blossom, while in turn, for trust to thrive it needs fidelity. But what if fidelity is not there, can romantic love transpire? It might be possible. The emotional and sexual aspects of a romantic relationship are two different but codependent functions. Our cultural and moral upbringing has instilled in us the notion that these two are one function only, but cases like Joji and Naomi present us with the probability that perhaps sexual and emotional can be separate. Maybe copulation does not dictate emotion. Maybe a woman is a woman first, and she can be a sexual being without the label of ‘wife.’ Don’t misunderstand my intentions; I am not defending Naomi’s actions. I am merely trying to understand Joji’s mindset and their unusual marriage unweighed by pride and compromised with acceptance.
There are a different number of ways to look at their relationship. In the end all he ever wanted was to love her fully, unconditionally. Instead, all he did was put himself deeper and deeper inside her pocket until he was barely felt at all, as light as air, as forgettable as innocence. She was the master and he the little pet. Well, at least, that’s how society would see this.
However, for Joji, he has merely done what a husband in love would do: accept his wife despite her flaws. Is this folly or is this virtue? Is he a victim or is he the victor?
“For myself, it makes no difference what you think of me; I’m in love with Naomi.”
July 13, 2022
يبدو الحب أحيانا وكأنه احتلال لا يستطيع الانسان التحرر منه
صورة مزعجة لعلاقة يجمع بين طرفيها الحب والاستغلال
أسلوب الكاتب الياباني جونتشيرو تانيزاكي بسيط لكنه دقيق
في التعبير عن حال بطلي الرواية والتحولات في شخصية كل منهما
صورة مزعجة لعلاقة يجمع بين طرفيها الحب والاستغلال
أسلوب الكاتب الياباني جونتشيرو تانيزاكي بسيط لكنه دقيق
في التعبير عن حال بطلي الرواية والتحولات في شخصية كل منهما
August 27, 2016
One... two...three..... The nimble feet glide effortlessly to the choreographed beats, smooth flowing movements inviting the grace of the translucent skin embracing the rhythmic spin, the soft camellia lips flutter in coquettish whispers,the extravagance of the feline eyes prosper in the richness of the silk delicately stretched on the supple breasts swaying the vile sensuality on the genteel dance floors of El Dorado. The music stops. The moist palm slips away from the slender waist. To the shrill of an encore, the music begins again. “There she goes......”, groaned the man hunched on a chair in a forlorn corner, “There she goes.......My Mary Pickford.....my treasured diamond.....my Nao-chan....”
“Everyone called her “Nao-chan". When I asked about it one day, I learned that her real name was ‘Naomi’, written with three Chinese characters. A splendid name, I thought; written in Roman letters, it could be a Western name.”
The allure of the child-woman in the cafes of Ginza, pristine not yet polluted by worldly malevolence animates the humdrum existence of Kawai Joji, a twenty something engineer. For the inhibited “gentleman” brimming with social insecurities, Nao-chan was a barren canvas waiting to be painted in the Western flamboyancy. The lost young bird becomes a valued pet to a man who yearns to release his inadequacies and long-harboured dreams of acceptance in social hierarchy, a far cry from the social currency of being a discomfited country bumpkin. To say that Joji fell in love with Naomi at the very first instance is overturned by the potent magnetism of Joji being besotted by the mere Westernized ring to the name – Naomi and the recurrent comparison to his beloved Mary Pickford. The faint shades of addiction to Naomi, leisurely climb the monochromatic ladder of obsession for Western culture and to rectify personal shortcomings by moulding oneself through the physicality of a new adored maturing body overpowered by behavioural prism. Fixated on the aura of screen idols like Gloria Swanson, Mary Pickford... and the gratification derived from the adhered chimera of Western lifestyles, Joji’s aspiration to create a Westernized prototype thrives on his worship of the Naomi’s lithe sexuality and adolescent psyche. The preposterous dream fostering the hedonism of Western culture sparkling with an exotic power and glamour becomes a gateway to lessen Joji’s incompetence in trying to fit in a changing world.
“My heart was a battleground for the conflicting emotions of disappointment and love.”
The naive bird flapped its wings eager to fly in the air of modernity, burgeoning desires outgrew the monotony of the modest birdcage and the avian wonder surpassed the wit of the benefactor. Naomi’s maturity evoked through the exactness of a Eurasian woman embodies the cultural vagueness perceived by the society confronted by the practise of two polarised lifestyles in a homogenous subsistence. Irrationality of love coupled with uncouth fascination and social uselessness deepens the sensibilities of love and lust encircling the predicament of chastity. Would I call Joji a “decent man”? Is he the illustrious Humbert to the seditious Lolita? The imminent answers seem to be modified under the existing challenges of Joji modifying his young love into a woman who sparkles through the lens of modernity. Joji’s loyalty to Naomi is well accounted for, yet, his fondness charts an egotistical naturalness that accompanies the reins of addiction ensnared by the collision of two different worlds encompassing two dissimilar sexes.
“The greatest weakness of Japanese women is that they lack confidence. As a result, they look timorous compared to the Western women. For, the modern beauty an. Intelligent, quick-witted expressions and attitude are more important than lovely features.”
The wide-reaching ideology of ‘modan-gaaru’ or ‘mo-ga’ highly structured within Tanizaki’s prose becomes the crucial dais depicting the bemusement over accommodating two vastly different cultures minimizing the social gap between the Eastern and Western civilizing standardizations. Tanizaki illuminates the 1920’s Japanese society booming in the modernity of the so called “Jazz age” thronged with the ‘flapper’ generation. The bourgeoisie consumerism reflected through the chic standard of living and the indispensable liberation from a traditionalist society. Joji’s predicament over Naomi’s nurtured polymorphous personality signifies the broad-spectrum chaos revolving around the exposure to Westernization and the adherence to the peripheral illusion that the Western world brings to the unacquainted. Joji’s hypocritical stance flashes through his fear of the Naomi’s “Westernised” demeanour and the lack of adherence to conservative dogmas. Joji becomes a classic case of men who desire their women to acquire the Western cultural essence prearranging the ways which still dominate the conservative home-grown cultural norms restricting the operational lifestyle to egoistical desires. The battle of sexes emerging from the volatile deliberations between emancipation of love v/s of emancipation of sexual desires, overpowers the relationship coordination of Joji and Naomi disquieting the balance of power between the societal gradation in dominance of man and the subservience of a woman. Joji’s uncertainties on losing his own individuality in the domination of Naomi’s rambunctious feral persona and reverting back to the age-old Japanese mores is plausible, however I ponder the favourable possibility of the stakes being reversed crucially legitimizing a more of an old-fashioned attitude. The irresistible appeal to the coined “Naoism” embodies cultural ambiguity unearthing the recognition of power and essence of sensuality engulfing the desire to fit in a Western lifestyle.
The precious, sacred ground of her skin had been imprinted forever with the muddy tracks of two thieves.
The stance of promiscuity lurks from the multifarious triad of sexuality, eroticism and romance. Sexual autonomy exercised by Naomi on the realization of her sexual desires embryonic within her feminine voluptuousness is labelled as the vulgar peril of the Western culture. Tanizaki cautiously cultivates the ascending nature of sexuality through vivid subtleties of eroticisms. Joji’s ritual of bathing Naomi, the foreplay imitations of horseback rides insinuating sexual prowess and the pleasure derived from shaving her body carves a narrow alley that houses fragile residential berths of sexual duplicity. The concept of sexual perversion intimately associates with sexual emancipation with vulgarity taking a high stand in the delusion of the Western vices. Satirically, the term “harlot” coagulates the sexist pigeonhole of gender specific terminology. Tanizaki , once again highlights the quandary faced in the patriarchal society where sexual freedom is viewed as a man’s prerogative , the same courtesy bestowed in gender supremacy.
The ample urge of social and not personal modification in the cultural demeanour and reception signifies the puzzlement of a society and its populace jammed in between the recklessness of half-wit sensitivity to the liberation of a foreign culture and the reluctance to the claustrophobic existence in the home grown conventional dogmas. Joji along with Naomi are Tanizaki’s treasured pictograms of a nascent mentality gripping the loose ends of two miscellaneous worlds balancing the societal dispute of rank peculiarities, gender discrepancies and cultural practices.
"There’s nothing to be done when one loses confidence in one’s self”
Tanizaki’s poised précis lay bare the vicious dominance of ‘love’ when inundated in the vigour of passionate compulsion dissolves the fragile individuality of the one who helms the reins of obsession fearing the annihilation of the everlasting love mirage. The infantilized mode discovered a twisted yet amorous sense of belonging irrespective to conjugal distortion and consensual acquiescence.
I'm in love with Naomi........ Ms. Naomi.....foolish...George........
---------
**[the photographic illustrations are captured from the inspired movie 'Chijin no ai'(A Fool's Love, 1967)]**
October 19, 2021
Here’s a man of 28 marrying a girl of 15. (Well, she’s not 12, is she? And Humbert Humbert didn’t marry Lolita either.) Perhaps because the novel was published in decorous Japanese in 1924, there is absolutely no mention of sex. There’s a lot of exulting over Naomi‘s body, but sex, the act, not even a whisper. So when her husband, our narrator, in his rapture compares Naomi’s body to a boy’s, the Western reader a century later thinks ‘ah ha.’ But, sorry, this isn’t Yukio Mishima either. So a little cultural unease early on for this particular reader. For the narrator here seems absolutely bereft of human lust. (Unlike Genji.) Almost as if an alien were exulting over a specimen. He begins to bathe her but admits they’re still ‘just friends.’ She call him Papa. He has fun shopping for her and dressing her up. When they go out he gets off on others’s reactions to her beauty. Oh, it’s Pygmalion (1913). He’s turning a lower class girl into a “woman of distinction.” He’s paying for her English classes and music lessons. Pygmalion must be the model here, especially in a novel so obsessed with Westernization.
September 19, 2018
I write this with my experience as an Asian woman and my connection to South Korea in mind; but the broader fascination of the West that presents itself in Naomi is something that piqued my interest in this novel. A cursory examination of Jun’ichirō Tanizaki’s Naomi will undoubtedly perturb readers: a novel that centres on the protagonist Joji’s unhealthy obsession with 15-year-old Naomi. Yes, people have likened it to Lolita. This is, thematically, an easy way to draw parallels between the two works, but this is not enough. The two should be able to stand alone in their literary value. Some may start to loathe both characters as a psychological tit-for-tat unravels between the two, but I have come to realise that reading for pleasure might involve suspending your deconstructive skills. However, my English major and English teacher self couldn’t help but analyse and read into all the intricacies of this novel. And whilst I think it is okay to read for immersion; equally, it is the broader concepts and ideas that can be taken away from a novel that can only make us better readers and humans. Naomi was Tanizaki’s first fiction novel and the original title, Chijin no Ai, translates into A Fool's Love. Very loosely, the novel is about the protagonist’s obsessive fascination with Naomi. Naomi epitomises what Joji sees as the Western idealisation of beauty, seeking to mould her into the perfect image of western influences, through fashion, beauty, Western bodily ideals and form, dancing, and learning English. Naomi has the “majestic physique of a Westerner”, her hands are not weak and fragile, she has covetable white skin. There is a laugh-out-loud section in the novel where Naomi talks of doing the laundry and if she was to engage in this her fingers would get fat: “…I won’t be able to play the piano. What is it you called me? Your treasure? What’ll you do if my hands get all fat?” And this is precisely what makes Naomi a stand-alone. It is the mocking and satirical humour of Tanizaki that I think gets lost in people’s aversion to the content of the novel. Much of the critique that Tanizaki is alluding to is as important to understand what he is trying to achieve aesthetically in Naomi. Joji as the narrator is self-referential and metafictional – he directly addresses his readers and preempts our reactions. As the novel progresses, the powerplay between Naomi and Joji amplifies and Joji realises the manipulation and deception of Naomi – that he cannot fashion her into his own image and she cannot be ‘pinned’ down so easily and arguably acts autonomously of Joji’s flattery and objectification. He oscillates from derision and aversion to enchantment, which may irritate the reader, but I think ultimately makes the novel so attune to the psychological. I could continue to pick apart the novel and I have only brushed the surface, but read this is you’re interested in 1920s Japan, power relations between the genders, the psychology of relationships, body fetishisation, egos, jealousy, reconstructing and rethinking bodies…
March 16, 2015
1920'lerin Japonya'sında geçen, Lolita'ya ve Tanzimat dönemi romanlarına göz kırpan (Evet, Tanzimat!) bir roman. Körü körüne batılılaşmanın getirdiği ahlaki çöküntü, genç bir kıza duyulan yıkıcı bir tutku hikayesi ile anlatılıyor. Dönem Japonya'sına tanıklık etmek açısından ilginç. Bir yandan dans kulupleri, batı tarzı restoranlar, müzik dükkanları varken, bir yandan da elle çekilen arabalardan, kimonolardan, takunyalardan bahsediliyor.
İbret olması amacıyla yazılsa da didaktik tonun baskın olmaması kitabı okunabilir kılıyor. Çeviri genel olarak duru ve okunabilir (fakat zaman zaman İngilizce çeviri kokan cümleler de yok değil). Doğrusu gereksiz uzatıldığını düşünüyorum. Aynı şeyler daha konsantre bir biçimde yazılabilir, veya kitabın uzunluğu korunarak yoğunluğu artırılabilirdi. Yine de 1920'lerde yazılmış olduğunu ve roman kültürü olmayan bir ülkeden çıktığını düşünürsek, imkanları ölçüsünde başarılı bir şekilde kaleme alındığını söyleyebilirim.
İbret olması amacıyla yazılsa da didaktik tonun baskın olmaması kitabı okunabilir kılıyor. Çeviri genel olarak duru ve okunabilir (fakat zaman zaman İngilizce çeviri kokan cümleler de yok değil). Doğrusu gereksiz uzatıldığını düşünüyorum. Aynı şeyler daha konsantre bir biçimde yazılabilir, veya kitabın uzunluğu korunarak yoğunluğu artırılabilirdi. Yine de 1920'lerde yazılmış olduğunu ve roman kültürü olmayan bir ülkeden çıktığını düşünürsek, imkanları ölçüsünde başarılı bir şekilde kaleme alındığını söyleyebilirim.
January 21, 2022
Kitap bittiği zaman aklınızda sadece şu soru olacak; son derece aşağılık ve acınası bir hikâye miydi bu?
Bir kere Türkçe çevirisi çok iyi yapılmış ve dil inanılmaz bir şekilde sade. Bu yüzden okuması gayet kolay. Ergen bir kıza takıntılı bir adamın onu batılı, modern ve sofistike bir kadın haline dönüştürmesini konu alıyor kitap. Kadın mı adamı değiştiriyor, adam mı kadını yoksa ikisi de sonunda değişiyor mu tartışılır. Adam gerçekten körü körüne aşık mı oluyor da bir türlü vazgeçemiyor? Kitabı okurken yer yer o kadar çok kızıyorsunuz ki adama yeter artık bırak şu kızı diye içinizden geçiriyorsunuz.
Aşağılık kompleksinin derinden hissedildiği bu kitap oldukça da cesur. Kesinlikle tavsiye ederim.
Bir kere Türkçe çevirisi çok iyi yapılmış ve dil inanılmaz bir şekilde sade. Bu yüzden okuması gayet kolay. Ergen bir kıza takıntılı bir adamın onu batılı, modern ve sofistike bir kadın haline dönüştürmesini konu alıyor kitap. Kadın mı adamı değiştiriyor, adam mı kadını yoksa ikisi de sonunda değişiyor mu tartışılır. Adam gerçekten körü körüne aşık mı oluyor da bir türlü vazgeçemiyor? Kitabı okurken yer yer o kadar çok kızıyorsunuz ki adama yeter artık bırak şu kızı diye içinizden geçiriyorsunuz.
Aşağılık kompleksinin derinden hissedildiği bu kitap oldukça da cesur. Kesinlikle tavsiye ederim.
February 21, 2022
Rating - 4 stars
Author - Japan
Genre - Historical Fiction
Naomi is a warning to any man who falls for a much younger woman and is fool enough to think he can control her.
Naomi is a tale of deception. Its narrator is Joji Kawai, a 28 year old bachelor who is smitten with a naïve 15 year old café hostess named Naomi. Obsessed with all things Western, Joji believes Naomi possesses ideal Eurasian features. He offers to educate her in exchange for having her live with him.
Joji is determined to transform Naomi into the perfect woman, to ultimately deliver his fantasy of an exotic, Westernized wife that he can possess. He does everything he can to mould Naomi into the girl of his dreams – buying her a house, paying for English and music lessons, gifting her Western style clothes and shoes, and taking her to Western style dance classes.
Joji is fixated with ‘watching’ Naomi’s girlish body grow into that of a woman. From early on in their relationship he bathes her daily, delighting in the touch of her skin and in the examination of her form. And while Joji does end up marrying Naomi, he soon discovers that his wife is far from the naïve girl of his fantasies. Joji’s garish obsession quickly descends into helpless masochism.
I can’t say I "enjoyed" this novel in the true sense of the word. I had no affinity with the two key characters; one a love-sick fool and the other a self-centred harlet. However, I thought Naomi was a brilliant book in that it uncovered the psychology behind sexual obsession and also exposed the contradictions of Japanese culture during the 1920s. Written in 1924, Naomi evidenced how many of the ideas within modern Japanese literature involved the shift from the old traditions of the East, to the more Westernized cultural influence one finds in Japan today.
This book was recommended to me by a GR friend. It's well worth a read.
Author - Japan
Genre - Historical Fiction
Naomi is a warning to any man who falls for a much younger woman and is fool enough to think he can control her.
Naomi is a tale of deception. Its narrator is Joji Kawai, a 28 year old bachelor who is smitten with a naïve 15 year old café hostess named Naomi. Obsessed with all things Western, Joji believes Naomi possesses ideal Eurasian features. He offers to educate her in exchange for having her live with him.
Joji is determined to transform Naomi into the perfect woman, to ultimately deliver his fantasy of an exotic, Westernized wife that he can possess. He does everything he can to mould Naomi into the girl of his dreams – buying her a house, paying for English and music lessons, gifting her Western style clothes and shoes, and taking her to Western style dance classes.
Joji is fixated with ‘watching’ Naomi’s girlish body grow into that of a woman. From early on in their relationship he bathes her daily, delighting in the touch of her skin and in the examination of her form. And while Joji does end up marrying Naomi, he soon discovers that his wife is far from the naïve girl of his fantasies. Joji’s garish obsession quickly descends into helpless masochism.
I can’t say I "enjoyed" this novel in the true sense of the word. I had no affinity with the two key characters; one a love-sick fool and the other a self-centred harlet. However, I thought Naomi was a brilliant book in that it uncovered the psychology behind sexual obsession and also exposed the contradictions of Japanese culture during the 1920s. Written in 1924, Naomi evidenced how many of the ideas within modern Japanese literature involved the shift from the old traditions of the East, to the more Westernized cultural influence one finds in Japan today.
This book was recommended to me by a GR friend. It's well worth a read.
April 2, 2018
Bu kitabın #Jaguar yayınları tarafından yayımlanan İlker Özünlü'nün çevirisinden okudum.
Japonya'da geçen bir aşk romanı, daha doğrusu tek taraflı bir aşkın, arzunun tutkunun, aynı zamanda batıya hayranlığın romanı. Batılı gibi olmak ve batılı gibi yaşamak için kendi benliğini de yitirmenin romanı. Tavsiye ederim.
Japonya'da geçen bir aşk romanı, daha doğrusu tek taraflı bir aşkın, arzunun tutkunun, aynı zamanda batıya hayranlığın romanı. Batılı gibi olmak ve batılı gibi yaşamak için kendi benliğini de yitirmenin romanı. Tavsiye ederim.
June 21, 2016
1 foolish star
What the hell did I just read??
No. Why the hell did I even bother to read this book at all???!!!
God seriously I hated everything about this book!
This book was exactly like what the original title said『痴人の愛』 or often translated as 'A Fool's Love'.
Jōji was a lunatic masochist. I don't understand what the hell did he see on Naomi.
He would just do anything Naomi asked for, although she really was so lazy, useless, ungrateful bitch.
Naomi was an ungrateful, shameless, useless, selfish, good-foor-nothing bitch.
I didn't find anything good in her. Seriously she didn't even have a good education but yet she was so successfully lured all those idiot men into her trap.
I HATE HER SO MUCH!!
At first this story was started out good and I found very interesting. But then this Naomi bitch started to pissed me off, so I decided to leave this book on paused for months!
After months abandoned this book, I felt bad because I hate to DNF a book, especially the ones I bought in physical copy.
The reason I bought this book in the first place was just because it was on sale in the bookstore.
The praises about this book that were written in the back cover was also motivated me to buy this. But now I've read this book, I found all those praises were just a lie. I didn't enjoy this book. At. All.
I couldn't be more grateful to finally able to finish this book.
What the hell did I just read??
No. Why the hell did I even bother to read this book at all???!!!
God seriously I hated everything about this book!
This book was exactly like what the original title said『痴人の愛』 or often translated as 'A Fool's Love'.
Jōji was a lunatic masochist. I don't understand what the hell did he see on Naomi.
He would just do anything Naomi asked for, although she really was so lazy, useless, ungrateful bitch.
Naomi was an ungrateful, shameless, useless, selfish, good-foor-nothing bitch.
I didn't find anything good in her. Seriously she didn't even have a good education but yet she was so successfully lured all those idiot men into her trap.
I HATE HER SO MUCH!!
At first this story was started out good and I found very interesting. But then this Naomi bitch started to pissed me off, so I decided to leave this book on paused for months!
After months abandoned this book, I felt bad because I hate to DNF a book, especially the ones I bought in physical copy.
The reason I bought this book in the first place was just because it was on sale in the bookstore.
The praises about this book that were written in the back cover was also motivated me to buy this. But now I've read this book, I found all those praises were just a lie. I didn't enjoy this book. At. All.
I couldn't be more grateful to finally able to finish this book.
March 24, 2019
"Gece, karanlıkla ilişkilendirilir genellikle ama bana hep Naomi'nin teninin beyazlığını düşündürmüştür."
"'Allahaısmarladık o zaman. Her şey için teşekkürler...' Bir veda sözü ancak bu kadar basit olabilirdi."
"'Allahaısmarladık o zaman. Her şey için teşekkürler...' Bir veda sözü ancak bu kadar basit olabilirdi."
October 18, 2024
I have had this book sitting on my shelf for the last five years and finally got to it. I do agree with the comparison to "Lolita" which an older man falls under the spell of a sexually aggressive younger woman.
Yes, I understood on an objective level, this novel about Joji's sexual obsession with Naomi is supposed to be satirical towards Japan's inevitable cultural crossings and assimilation with Western Culture. I understood that it is an allegory of the shifts of norms and lifestyles changing during the early 20th century.
However, beyond context, I found Joji to be one of the most annoying characters I've encountered. He's whiny. He's always sexually frustrated. He complains all the time about Naomi having affairs all the time, and becomes the ultimate masochist. But I found the treatment of Naomi to be superficial and misogynistic.
Perhaps Tanizaki meant for us to laugh at her coquettish ways, and to find her obsession with Western culture and assimilation humorous. Maybe the tone of the book was supposed to be a dark comedy- but I felt she was absolutely voiceless, the victim of the hot male gaze.
I liked Naomi- she seemed like she was a lot of fun. I was glad she was able to control him completely in the end, a comical femme fatale. But I felt a tinge of sadness for her, because I think if written differently from her perspective- she would find Joji exasperating and just as awful she is seen.
Yes, I understood on an objective level, this novel about Joji's sexual obsession with Naomi is supposed to be satirical towards Japan's inevitable cultural crossings and assimilation with Western Culture. I understood that it is an allegory of the shifts of norms and lifestyles changing during the early 20th century.
However, beyond context, I found Joji to be one of the most annoying characters I've encountered. He's whiny. He's always sexually frustrated. He complains all the time about Naomi having affairs all the time, and becomes the ultimate masochist. But I found the treatment of Naomi to be superficial and misogynistic.
Perhaps Tanizaki meant for us to laugh at her coquettish ways, and to find her obsession with Western culture and assimilation humorous. Maybe the tone of the book was supposed to be a dark comedy- but I felt she was absolutely voiceless, the victim of the hot male gaze.
I liked Naomi- she seemed like she was a lot of fun. I was glad she was able to control him completely in the end, a comical femme fatale. But I felt a tinge of sadness for her, because I think if written differently from her perspective- she would find Joji exasperating and just as awful she is seen.
October 26, 2024
Naomi, Tanizaki’nin okuduğum ilk kitabı. Sanırım ana fikir; “aşk, budalalığın sınırındadır” olmalı.
Kitabın ilk bölümünde, karakterlerin “melek” ve “şeytan” rolleri, son bölümde yer değiştiriyor. Erkek karakterin, başlangıçta kadın karaktere hiç de etik olmayan yaklaşımını dikkate aldığımızda, sonuç birçoklarımızın içini soğutmuş olabilir.
Okurken beni en çok rahatsız eden ve şaşırtan konu; “Batıya ve Batılılara ” hayranlıkları oldu. Böylesine köklü ve asil bir gelenekten gelen Japon toplumunun, neredeyse aşağılık kompleksi düzeyindeki ezikliklerini tahmin bile edemezdim. Cümleler yüreğimi kanattı (“...Öyle bir hanımefendi olacaksın ki Batılıların arasına karışmaktan bile utanmayacaksın...”; sf; 40, “Birçok Japon gibi bir Batılıyla temas kurduğumda cesaretimi kaybetmek ve görüşlerimi açıkça söyleyememek gibi bir eğilim içindeydim ben de; dolayısıyla ... kalakalmış, söylemek istediğimi tam olarak ifade edememiştim....”; sf; 48, “...”Batılı dengi” ve “beğenilen” olmayı arzulayan her kadın...”; sf;49). Osmanlı Tanzimat döneminin benzeri bir dönemi anlatıyor. Ancak Metin üzerinden, o dönemde Osmanlı toplumundan farklı olarak Japon toplumunun, sarı ırka mensup olmalarından kaynaklanan sorunları da olduğunu düşündüm.
Diğer taraftan, bir çocuk yetiştirmenin hiç de kolay birşey olmadığını, bir alt metin olarak okumak mümkün.
Bence başarılı bir psikolojik analiz.
Kitabın ilk bölümünde, karakterlerin “melek” ve “şeytan” rolleri, son bölümde yer değiştiriyor. Erkek karakterin, başlangıçta kadın karaktere hiç de etik olmayan yaklaşımını dikkate aldığımızda, sonuç birçoklarımızın içini soğutmuş olabilir.
Okurken beni en çok rahatsız eden ve şaşırtan konu; “Batıya ve Batılılara ” hayranlıkları oldu. Böylesine köklü ve asil bir gelenekten gelen Japon toplumunun, neredeyse aşağılık kompleksi düzeyindeki ezikliklerini tahmin bile edemezdim. Cümleler yüreğimi kanattı (“...Öyle bir hanımefendi olacaksın ki Batılıların arasına karışmaktan bile utanmayacaksın...”; sf; 40, “Birçok Japon gibi bir Batılıyla temas kurduğumda cesaretimi kaybetmek ve görüşlerimi açıkça söyleyememek gibi bir eğilim içindeydim ben de; dolayısıyla ... kalakalmış, söylemek istediğimi tam olarak ifade edememiştim....”; sf; 48, “...”Batılı dengi” ve “beğenilen” olmayı arzulayan her kadın...”; sf;49). Osmanlı Tanzimat döneminin benzeri bir dönemi anlatıyor. Ancak Metin üzerinden, o dönemde Osmanlı toplumundan farklı olarak Japon toplumunun, sarı ırka mensup olmalarından kaynaklanan sorunları da olduğunu düşündüm.
Diğer taraftan, bir çocuk yetiştirmenin hiç de kolay birşey olmadığını, bir alt metin olarak okumak mümkün.
Bence başarılı bir psikolojik analiz.
February 7, 2017
3.5/5
If one wishes to render a portrait of an egotistical tantrum, one simply needs to tell a grown man no, and only no. Various demographical and self-reflexive factors interact with this situation, of course, but the gist of it for a long time now has been that normality is artificial, and the obsession with demonizing the used stems from nothing more than said calcified reality of whose word becomes law. Men gave rights to women; men never should have been in the position to give rights in the first place.
I said in a status that this book is a great litmus test, and this holds true because in the end, who takes Jōji seriously? By seriously, I mean his spoiled insecurity wherein he refuses to converse with his peers of equal social status, instead of obsessing over someone whose station in life entails she is as literally trapped by him as he pathetically pretends to be by her. Fetishism is the art of the powerful imagining they are anything but in control of every aspect of the fetishized, and building up an underage girl, whom society would not mind seeing raped and/or murdered and/or swallowed whole, as a goddess of temptation is nothing more than a self-absorbed dictator obscenely taking their power for granted. Education is the stuff of the rest of one's life, so why all the bafflement when a girl-child shut up in a cage of dehumanizing lust, made to perform for financial security, quickly learns it is always good to have a back-up life, or two, or three? And why would someone keep to the truth when the truth is enforced isolation with a slavering patriarch in a life that acts out Ibsen's 'A Doll's House' from a different angle and, in a sense, higher stakes?
I make it a rule to never pity the person in power, for the fact that Naomi isn't beaten or (successfully) caged and doesn't end up in some back alley with her throat slit doesn't make Jōji anything worth humanizing, for he merely refuses (on one level, at least) to do various things that society would love to let him get away with. Until that changes, what is bred in the powerless cannot be blamed on the individual alone, for it is not absolute powerlessness that corrupts absolutely.
I equivocate about the rating between the positive remembrance of The Makioka Sisters, a facile time of fitting the words to my purposes, and some truly vicious status quo upholding reviews that find easy purchase in this rather noncommittal piece of work. Much as what happened in On Beauty, The Age of Innocence, and what I hope, upon rereading, to happen in Lolita, the obsessed over with no voice speaks clearly enough to make a person of flesh and blood, however much the audience-constructed saint/whore dichotomy mewls and pukes otherwise. As such, the book is useful enough for my purposes, but the same cannot be said about its other readers. What with the mainstream enamorment with noncritical adulation of the machine of the state and recent events fated to make that state an even more efficiently murderous contraption, I'll be needing my energy for activities other than wasting it on sea lions playing pretend, denying what they have been artificially rendered as capable of on the grounds that they haven't done it: yet. The US is the only country in the world that doesn't have a bill of rights for those under eighteen, and the fact that Naomi is received with hatred and objectification simply ensures her real life descendants will continue to be bought and sold on the market of might makes right. Poor Jōji, having his pedophilic purchase backfire on him. Poor Jōji should never have been in the position to purchase.
If one wishes to render a portrait of an egotistical tantrum, one simply needs to tell a grown man no, and only no. Various demographical and self-reflexive factors interact with this situation, of course, but the gist of it for a long time now has been that normality is artificial, and the obsession with demonizing the used stems from nothing more than said calcified reality of whose word becomes law. Men gave rights to women; men never should have been in the position to give rights in the first place.
I said in a status that this book is a great litmus test, and this holds true because in the end, who takes Jōji seriously? By seriously, I mean his spoiled insecurity wherein he refuses to converse with his peers of equal social status, instead of obsessing over someone whose station in life entails she is as literally trapped by him as he pathetically pretends to be by her. Fetishism is the art of the powerful imagining they are anything but in control of every aspect of the fetishized, and building up an underage girl, whom society would not mind seeing raped and/or murdered and/or swallowed whole, as a goddess of temptation is nothing more than a self-absorbed dictator obscenely taking their power for granted. Education is the stuff of the rest of one's life, so why all the bafflement when a girl-child shut up in a cage of dehumanizing lust, made to perform for financial security, quickly learns it is always good to have a back-up life, or two, or three? And why would someone keep to the truth when the truth is enforced isolation with a slavering patriarch in a life that acts out Ibsen's 'A Doll's House' from a different angle and, in a sense, higher stakes?
I make it a rule to never pity the person in power, for the fact that Naomi isn't beaten or (successfully) caged and doesn't end up in some back alley with her throat slit doesn't make Jōji anything worth humanizing, for he merely refuses (on one level, at least) to do various things that society would love to let him get away with. Until that changes, what is bred in the powerless cannot be blamed on the individual alone, for it is not absolute powerlessness that corrupts absolutely.
I equivocate about the rating between the positive remembrance of The Makioka Sisters, a facile time of fitting the words to my purposes, and some truly vicious status quo upholding reviews that find easy purchase in this rather noncommittal piece of work. Much as what happened in On Beauty, The Age of Innocence, and what I hope, upon rereading, to happen in Lolita, the obsessed over with no voice speaks clearly enough to make a person of flesh and blood, however much the audience-constructed saint/whore dichotomy mewls and pukes otherwise. As such, the book is useful enough for my purposes, but the same cannot be said about its other readers. What with the mainstream enamorment with noncritical adulation of the machine of the state and recent events fated to make that state an even more efficiently murderous contraption, I'll be needing my energy for activities other than wasting it on sea lions playing pretend, denying what they have been artificially rendered as capable of on the grounds that they haven't done it: yet. The US is the only country in the world that doesn't have a bill of rights for those under eighteen, and the fact that Naomi is received with hatred and objectification simply ensures her real life descendants will continue to be bought and sold on the market of might makes right. Poor Jōji, having his pedophilic purchase backfire on him. Poor Jōji should never have been in the position to purchase.
Jōji , you have no right to be angry, however cold I may be. You're taking everything you can from me. Aren't you satisfied with that?
February 15, 2018
Hikâyenin kahramanı Joji'nin aptallığa varan tutkusu aşırı derecede hastalıklı. Çok zavallı ve zayıf bir karakter yaratmış Tanizaki burada. Kadın karakter Naomi ise kelimenin tam anlamıyla "melek görünümlü şeytan".
Joji'ye çok acısam da bir o kadar kızdım. Ne erkek ne kadın, kimse bu kadar aciz ve duygularının, daha doğrusu arzularının esiri olmamalı.
Naomi, tüm Tanizaki eserleri gibi akıcı insanın kendini kaptırarak okuyacağı türden bir hikâye.
Enteresan... Gerçekten de "bir budalanın aşkı" ve Naomi "ete kemiğe bürünmüş şeytani kötülük"ten başka bir şey değil.
Joji'ye çok acısam da bir o kadar kızdım. Ne erkek ne kadın, kimse bu kadar aciz ve duygularının, daha doğrusu arzularının esiri olmamalı.
Naomi, tüm Tanizaki eserleri gibi akıcı insanın kendini kaptırarak okuyacağı türden bir hikâye.
Enteresan... Gerçekten de "bir budalanın aşkı" ve Naomi "ete kemiğe bürünmüş şeytani kötülük"ten başka bir şey değil.
November 14, 2018
ถ้าพูดถึงผลงานที่ดังสุดๆ ของทานิซากิ จุนอิจิโร ก็ต้องเรื่อง รักของคนเขลา(1924) นี่ล่ะนะคะ ดีใจจริงๆ ที่ JLit แปลเป็นภาษาไทยแล้ว
คุณพรพิรุณ กิจสมเจตน์ แปลดีมาก ขอบคุณทีมงาน JLit ด้วยค่ะ หนังสืออ่านง่ายจริงๆ สุดยอด
ปกติเราจะบอกคนอื่นว่างานของทานิซากิเป็นอีโรติกดราม่า แต่ "รักของคนเขลา" เรียกว่าเป็นแนวตลกร้ายน่าจะเหมาะกว่า
เป็นตลกร้ายของเกมการช่วงชิงอำนาจระหว่างชายหญิง ใครจะอยู่เหนือใคร ใครจะเป็นฝ่ายถูกกำราบ และเขาทำอะไรใส่กันบ้าง
อ่านจนจบแล้วก็ได้แต่ย้อนนึกว่า ไหนตอนต้นคุณโจจิตั้งใจจะชุบเลี้ยงนาโอมิจังให้เป็นเลดี้ไง นี่มันเลดี้ชนิดไหนกันคะ?
จะเรียกเป็นฝันหวานหรือเทพนิยายสำหรับชายหนุ่มดี เพราะดูเหมือนนาโอมิคือฝันดีชนิดที่หนุ่มๆ ไม่อยากจะตื่น ถึงจะรู้ทั้งรู้ว่านางเป็นฝันร้ายชัดๆ
แต่ก็นะ... ตัวละครชายของทานิซากิเป็นพวกชอบตำแยนี่นา และพอแปะยี่ห้อทานิซากิเข้าไป ก็คาดการณ์ได้ว่าไม่มีอะไรฟีลกู้ดรออยู่ข้างหน้าแน่นอน
เราลองพยายามวิเค��าะห์สาเหตุที่ทำให้เรื่องนี้เป็นที่กล่าวขวัญ เป็นหมุดหมายหนึ่งในวงวรรณกรรมญี่ปุ่นดู ก็พบว่ามันมีองค์ประกอบที่ส่งเสริมเรื่องนี้อยู่มากจริงๆ ค่ะ
๑. ในแง่ประวัติศาสตร์
อันนี้ไม่แปลกใจ ถ้าเทียบกับนิยายเรื่องอื่นของทานิซากิ เรื่องรักของคนเขลาฉายสภาพสังคมยุคไทโชไว้มากจริงๆ ขนาดไม่ใช่คนญี่ปุ่นยังนึกตามได้ไม่ยาก
กลุ่มชาวต่างชาติในโยโกฮาม่า ไปเรียนภ���ษาอังกฤษกับแหม่ม แต่งตัวอย่างฝรั่ง เต้นรำที่แดนซ์ฮอลล์ นั่งรถไฟเดินทางไปทำงาน พักร้อนตากอากาศ ดื่มน้ำผึ้งพระจันทร์ สถานบันเทิงในยุคนั้น ฯลฯ
ในเรื่อง Some Prefer Nettles(1929) ก็ฉายภาพสังคมไว้มาก แต่เล่มนั้นเน้นเรื่องละครหุ่น ซึ่งมันเฉพาะทางไปหน่อย สภาพสังคมในเล่มรักของคนเขลาดูชัดเจนและเข้าใจง่ายกว่าเยอะเลย
๒. ถูกเปรียบเทียบกับโลลิต้าของนาโบคอฟ
ที่ชื่อภาษาอังกฤษของเรื่องนี้คือ Naomi ส่วนนึง ทีมทำต้นฉบับภ.อังกฤษก็คงอยากล้อกับโลลิต้าด้วยล่ะมั้งคะ
เพราะมันเล่าเรื่องราวของชายหนุ่มที่อุปถัมป์เด็กสาวหน้าตาสะสวย และสะท้อนความลุ่มหลงของชายหนุ่มที่มีต่อเรือนร่างของเด็กสาว
องค์ประกอบเดียวกันเลย อยู่ที่ว่าใครจะเล่ายังไง แล้วเรื่องจะคลี่คลายออกมาแบบไหน
๓. พล็อตสามัญกับชั้นเชิงการเล่าไม่ธรรมดา
พล็อตแบบนี้ เดาเรื่องไม่ยาก ซึ่งมันต่างจากทุกเรื่องของทานิซากิที่พล็อตหวือหวาและคาดเดาอะไรไม่ได้ทั้งนั้น
ดังนั้น ในการขับเคลื่อนเรื่องราวที่รู้ๆ กันอยู่ว่ามันจะเดินไปในทิศทางไหน คนอ่านจึงได้เห็นทานิซากิแสดงฝีไม้ลายมือเต็มๆ ที่ว่า HOW สำคัญกว่า WHAT เค้าทำกันอย่างไร
และเพราะเรื่องนี้เล่าจากปลายปากกาทานิซากิ เนื้อเรื่องที่น่าจะดูทั้งรุนแรงและล่อแหลม แต่ตัวหนังสือกลับยังคงความสุภาพเรียบร้อยไว้ครบถ้วน
ขนาดคุณโจจิจะด่านาโอมิ... ยังเรียบร้อยเลย (แต่ส่วนตัวแล้ว เราก็ยังคิดว่า The Key(1956) มีชั้นเชิงการเล่าที่สูงกว่าเรื่องนี้ค่ะ เพราะเล่มนี้เรายังเห็นสภาวะอารมณ์และความคิดในใจของคุณโจจิ แต่เรื่อง The Key เราไม่เห็นอะไรเลยและทิ้งอิมแพ็คไว้แรงกว่าด้วย)
๔. ตัวละครหญิงจัดจ้านอย่าง���าโอมิ
นาโอมิจังของคุณโจจิ ปรากฎตัวมาเกือบจะร้อยปีแล้ว ในยุคนั้น ตัวละครหญิงที่เปิดเผยขนาดนี้ คนจะฮือฮาก็คงไม่แปลกหรอกค่ะ
แต่เป็นความผิดเราเองที่คาดหวังกับนาโอมิมากไปหน่อย (นึกว่าจะร้ายกว่านี้ 555) ออกแนวเซ็งนาโอมิด้วย เพราะนางมีกิริยาวาจาไม่น่ารักเลยสักนิด
ตัวละครหญิงของทานิซากิปกติจะไหวพริบดีและวางตัวดีงามเวลาอยู่นอกบ้าน ดังนั้น พออ่านเจอกิริยาวาจาอย่างนาโอมิเข้าไป เราเลยอึ้งอยู่นาน
บางมุม นาโอมิทำให้เรานึกถึงลำยอง ณ ทองเนื้อเก้า แต่นาโอมิสาวกว่าและนาโอมิดูแลตัวเองดีกว่า
บางมุม นาโอมิก็ยิ่งกว่าคุณลำยอง แต่ในอีกหลายๆ มุม นาโอมิก็ยังดีกว่าคุณลำยองนะ (ไม่ต้องห่วง ทานิซากิไม่ได้เขียนเรื่องแนวสะท้อนสังคม ทานิซากิก็แค่ชอบเล่าเรื่องราวของสาวงามเท่านั้นเอง)
๕."โจจิ" กับความซับซ้อนในจิตใจ
ถ้าเรื่องนี้ถูกสร้างเป็นหนังเป็นละคร ตัวที่เล่นยากที่สุดในเรื่องเห็นจะเป็นโจจิ
คุณโจจิเนียะ ซับซ้อนหลายชั้นและอารมณ์พี่แกเปลี่ยนไวมหัศจรรย์
แค่เปิดเรื่องมาสักสามหน้า ก็ชวนตะหงิดใจแล้วว่าจะเชื่อสิ่งที่ narrator คนนี้เล่าได้มากน้อยแค่ไหน
ยิ่งอ่านไปก็ยิ่งรู้สึกว่า... ที่นิยายเรื่องนี้โด่งดัง มันน่าจะดังเพราะ "คุณโจจิ" นี่ล่ะ
การติดตามสภาวะที่คุณโจจิเคลื่อนผ่าน... โอโห มันละเอียดมาก สุดยอด เขียนมาได้ยังไงก็ไม่รู้
ตัวละครอีกตัวที่อาการหนักพอกันคือชายชราใน Diary of a Mad Old Man(1961)
สมควรพบจิตแพทย์ทั้งคู่ค่ะ และนักศึกษาสายจิตวิทยาน่าจะระบุอาการสองตัวละครนี้กันได้สนุกสนานมาก เพราะมีเพียบเลย
มีความคาดหวังว่า JLit จะใจดีแปล The Makioka Sisters และเรื่องอื่นๆ ของทานิซากิเป็นภาษาไทยอีก อยากอ่านจังเลยค่ะ :-)
ถ้าใครยังไม่เคยอ่านงานเขียนของทานิซากิ เริ่มที่ "รักของคนเขลา" ก็ได้ค่ะ อ่านไม่ยาก แปลดี หาซื้อง่ายด้วย
แต่อ่านเล่มนี้เล่มเดียวจะเห็นพลังของทานิซากิไม่ครบถ้วน ควรหาอ่านอย่างน้อยอีกสามเล่มค่ะ คือ เยิรเงาสลัว(สนพ. openbooks) รักแสร้ง แรงเสน่หา Quicksand(สนพ.บ้านหนังสือ) และ เดอะคีย์ The Key(สนพ. บ้านหนังสือ)
ควรอ่านสามเล่มที่ว่ามานี้ก่อนจะตัดสินใจว่าชอบหรือไม่ชอบงานของทานิซากิค่ะ :-)
คุณพรพิรุณ กิจสมเจตน์ แปลดีมาก ขอบคุณทีมงาน JLit ด้วยค่ะ หนังสืออ่านง่ายจริงๆ สุดยอด
ปกติเราจะบอกคนอื่นว่างานของทานิซากิเป็นอีโรติกดราม่า แต่ "รักของคนเขลา" เรียกว่าเป็นแนวตลกร้ายน่าจะเหมาะกว่า
เป็นตลกร้ายของเกมการช่วงชิงอำนาจระหว่างชายหญิง ใครจะอยู่เหนือใคร ใครจะเป็นฝ่ายถูกกำราบ และเขาทำอะไรใส่กันบ้าง
อ่านจนจบแล้วก็ได้แต่ย้อนนึกว่า ไหนตอนต้นคุณโจจิตั้งใจจะชุบเลี้ยงนาโอมิจังให้เป็นเลดี้ไง นี่มันเลดี้ชนิดไหนกันคะ?
จะเรียกเป็นฝันหวานหรือเทพนิยายสำหรับชายหนุ่มดี เพราะดูเหมือนนาโอมิคือฝันดีชนิดที่หนุ่มๆ ไม่อยากจะตื่น ถึงจะรู้ทั้งรู้ว่านางเป็นฝันร้ายชัดๆ
แต่ก็นะ... ตัวละครชายของทานิซากิเป็นพวกชอบตำแยนี่นา และพอแปะยี่ห้อทานิซากิเข้าไป ก็คาดการณ์ได้ว่าไม่มีอะไรฟีลกู้ดรออยู่ข้างหน้าแน่นอน
เราลองพยายามวิเค��าะห์สาเหตุที่ทำให้เรื่องนี้เป็นที่กล่าวขวัญ เป็นหมุดหมายหนึ่งในวงวรรณกรรมญี่ปุ่นดู ก็พบว่ามันมีองค์ประกอบที่ส่งเสริมเรื่องนี้อยู่มากจริงๆ ค่ะ
๑. ในแง่ประวัติศาสตร์
อันนี้ไม่แปลกใจ ถ้าเทียบกับนิยายเรื่องอื่นของทานิซากิ เรื่องรักของคนเขลาฉายสภาพสังคมยุคไทโชไว้มากจริงๆ ขนาดไม่ใช่คนญี่ปุ่นยังนึกตามได้ไม่ยาก
กลุ่มชาวต่างชาติในโยโกฮาม่า ไปเรียนภ���ษาอังกฤษกับแหม่ม แต่งตัวอย่างฝรั่ง เต้นรำที่แดนซ์ฮอลล์ นั่งรถไฟเดินทางไปทำงาน พักร้อนตากอากาศ ดื่มน้ำผึ้งพระจันทร์ สถานบันเทิงในยุคนั้น ฯลฯ
ในเรื่อง Some Prefer Nettles(1929) ก็ฉายภาพสังคมไว้มาก แต่เล่มนั้นเน้นเรื่องละครหุ่น ซึ่งมันเฉพาะทางไปหน่อย สภาพสังคมในเล่มรักของคนเขลาดูชัดเจนและเข้าใจง่ายกว่าเยอะเลย
๒. ถูกเปรียบเทียบกับโลลิต้าของนาโบคอฟ
ที่ชื่อภาษาอังกฤษของเรื่องนี้คือ Naomi ส่วนนึง ทีมทำต้นฉบับภ.อังกฤษก็คงอยากล้อกับโลลิต้าด้วยล่ะมั้งคะ
เพราะมันเล่าเรื่องราวของชายหนุ่มที่อุปถัมป์เด็กสาวหน้าตาสะสวย และสะท้อนความลุ่มหลงของชายหนุ่มที่มีต่อเรือนร่างของเด็กสาว
องค์ประกอบเดียวกันเลย อยู่ที่ว่าใครจะเล่ายังไง แล้วเรื่องจะคลี่คลายออกมาแบบไหน
๓. พล็อตสามัญกับชั้นเชิงการเล่าไม่ธรรมดา
พล็อตแบบนี้ เดาเรื่องไม่ยาก ซึ่งมันต่างจากทุกเรื่องของทานิซากิที่พล็อตหวือหวาและคาดเดาอะไรไม่ได้ทั้งนั้น
ดังนั้น ในการขับเคลื่อนเรื่องราวที่รู้ๆ กันอยู่ว่ามันจะเดินไปในทิศทางไหน คนอ่านจึงได้เห็นทานิซากิแสดงฝีไม้ลายมือเต็มๆ ที่ว่า HOW สำคัญกว่า WHAT เค้าทำกันอย่างไร
และเพราะเรื่องนี้เล่าจากปลายปากกาทานิซากิ เนื้อเรื่องที่น่าจะดูทั้งรุนแรงและล่อแหลม แต่ตัวหนังสือกลับยังคงความสุภาพเรียบร้อยไว้ครบถ้วน
ขนาดคุณโจจิจะด่านาโอมิ... ยังเรียบร้อยเลย (แต่ส่วนตัวแล้ว เราก็ยังคิดว่า The Key(1956) มีชั้นเชิงการเล่าที่สูงกว่าเรื่องนี้ค่ะ เพราะเล่มนี้เรายังเห็นสภาวะอารมณ์และความคิดในใจของคุณโจจิ แต่เรื่อง The Key เราไม่เห็นอะไรเลยและทิ้งอิมแพ็คไว้แรงกว่าด้วย)
๔. ตัวละครหญิงจัดจ้านอย่าง���าโอมิ
นาโอมิจังของคุณโจจิ ปรากฎตัวมาเกือบจะร้อยปีแล้ว ในยุคนั้น ตัวละครหญิงที่เปิดเผยขนาดนี้ คนจะฮือฮาก็คงไม่แปลกหรอกค่ะ
แต่เป็นความผิดเราเองที่คาดหวังกับนาโอมิมากไปหน่อย (นึกว่าจะร้ายกว่านี้ 555) ออกแนวเซ็งนาโอมิด้วย เพราะนางมีกิริยาวาจาไม่น่ารักเลยสักนิด
ตัวละครหญิงของทานิซากิปกติจะไหวพริบดีและวางตัวดีงามเวลาอยู่นอกบ้าน ดังนั้น พออ่านเจอกิริยาวาจาอย่างนาโอมิเข้าไป เราเลยอึ้งอยู่นาน
บางมุม นาโอมิทำให้เรานึกถึงลำยอง ณ ทองเนื้อเก้า แต่นาโอมิสาวกว่าและนาโอมิดูแลตัวเองดีกว่า
บางมุม นาโอมิก็ยิ่งกว่าคุณลำยอง แต่ในอีกหลายๆ มุม นาโอมิก็ยังดีกว่าคุณลำยองนะ (ไม่ต้องห่วง ทานิซากิไม่ได้เขียนเรื่องแนวสะท้อนสังคม ทานิซากิก็แค่ชอบเล่าเรื่องราวของสาวงามเท่านั้นเอง)
๕."โจจิ" กับความซับซ้อนในจิตใจ
ถ้าเรื่องนี้ถูกสร้างเป็นหนังเป็นละคร ตัวที่เล่นยากที่สุดในเรื่องเห็นจะเป็นโจจิ
คุณโจจิเนียะ ซับซ้อนหลายชั้นและอารมณ์พี่แกเปลี่ยนไวมหัศจรรย์
แค่เปิดเรื่องมาสักสามหน้า ก็ชวนตะหงิดใจแล้วว่าจะเชื่อสิ่งที่ narrator คนนี้เล่าได้มากน้อยแค่ไหน
ยิ่งอ่านไปก็ยิ่งรู้สึกว่า... ที่นิยายเรื่องนี้โด่งดัง มันน่าจะดังเพราะ "คุณโจจิ" นี่ล่ะ
การติดตามสภาวะที่คุณโจจิเคลื่อนผ่าน... โอโห มันละเอียดมาก สุดยอด เขียนมาได้ยังไงก็ไม่รู้
ตัวละครอีกตัวที่อาการหนักพอกันคือชายชราใน Diary of a Mad Old Man(1961)
สมควรพบจิตแพทย์ทั้งคู่ค่ะ และนักศึกษาสายจิตวิทยาน่าจะระบุอาการสองตัวละครนี้กันได้สนุกสนานมาก เพราะมีเพียบเลย
มีความคาดหวังว่า JLit จะใจดีแปล The Makioka Sisters และเรื่องอื่นๆ ของทานิซากิเป็นภาษาไทยอีก อยากอ่านจังเลยค่ะ :-)
ถ้าใครยังไม่เคยอ่านงานเขียนของทานิซากิ เริ่มที่ "รักของคนเขลา" ก็ได้ค่ะ อ่านไม่ยาก แปลดี หาซื้อง่ายด้วย
แต่อ่านเล่มนี้เล่มเดียวจะเห็นพลังของทานิซากิไม่ครบถ้วน ควรหาอ่านอย่างน้อยอีกสามเล่มค่ะ คือ เยิรเงาสลัว(สนพ. openbooks) รักแสร้ง แรงเสน่หา Quicksand(สนพ.บ้านหนังสือ) และ เดอะคีย์ The Key(สนพ. บ้านหนังสือ)
ควรอ่านสามเล่มที่ว่ามานี้ก่อนจะตัดสินใจว่าชอบหรือไม่ชอบงานของทานิซากิค่ะ :-)
October 9, 2014
Two of the last few novels I’ve read revolve around a man in his 30’s becoming erotically obsessed with a much younger woman - obsessed to the point of self-destruction: Boredom by Moravia and Naomi by Tanizaki; so I can’t help but compare the two.
Boredom, as I mentioned, thrilled me. Naomi bored me somewhat. Both are of course predictable in their larger strokes; you know the men will get further and further enthralled in the languid chaos of their consorts’ sex, and that they will be effectively ruined by the end. But Naomi’s predictability bored me, and it wasn’t just the predictability that caused my interest to wane, but the utter lack of interiority. While the action of the novel was very interesting, the characters were not. Neither was given an interior life. Both were defined completely by their actions. This isn’t a fatal flaw, and was an obvious aesthetic strategy, but it reminded me of just so many contrived designs upon a blankness, and possibly a lack of authenticity. Boredom rang true and authentic to me, the product of a deep internal wrestling, while Naomi was just so much artificial theater.
But then I like artificial theater, so what’s the problem?
I guess I like artificial theater that has a hidden element, a trap door in the stage as it were that leads to a nest of snake-like psyches entangled in thought processes. Boredom offered this up to me in spades, but Naomi’s stage set, however elaborately colorful, had a hollow ring, a hollow pounding of costumed feet on pine planks.
But I just know that that trap door exists in Naomi, so maybe it’s either repressed beyond detection, or else folded completely into the surface action and thus robbed of some of its power; power that depends on this door being the entry to a hidden place. This by the way, this “folding” of the unseen (and unspoken) into the surface design, is something I detect in much of the Japanese aesthetic; just don’t ask me to explain what the fuck I’m talking about. I just know that this quality is not inherent in the Kawabata I’ve read, and so Kawabata has a tremendous ineffable power lacking in the Tanizaki I’ve read. A filmic parallel of this dichotomy might be Ozu as compared to Mizoguchi, but that would only go so far; or maybe Noh theater as compared to Kabuki is a better comparison.
But the bigger question is why have I recently been drawn to two books dealing with essentially the same rather perverted theme – old flesh enthralled by young flesh? Is this my backhanded booknerd way of entering into a mid-life crisis of my own? a vicarious mid-life crisis no less? Should I chuck my books and step into “real” life and start chasing some taut young tail of my own, damn the consequences?
Or should I remain supine on my trap door, book in hand?
Boredom, as I mentioned, thrilled me. Naomi bored me somewhat. Both are of course predictable in their larger strokes; you know the men will get further and further enthralled in the languid chaos of their consorts’ sex, and that they will be effectively ruined by the end. But Naomi’s predictability bored me, and it wasn’t just the predictability that caused my interest to wane, but the utter lack of interiority. While the action of the novel was very interesting, the characters were not. Neither was given an interior life. Both were defined completely by their actions. This isn’t a fatal flaw, and was an obvious aesthetic strategy, but it reminded me of just so many contrived designs upon a blankness, and possibly a lack of authenticity. Boredom rang true and authentic to me, the product of a deep internal wrestling, while Naomi was just so much artificial theater.
But then I like artificial theater, so what’s the problem?
I guess I like artificial theater that has a hidden element, a trap door in the stage as it were that leads to a nest of snake-like psyches entangled in thought processes. Boredom offered this up to me in spades, but Naomi’s stage set, however elaborately colorful, had a hollow ring, a hollow pounding of costumed feet on pine planks.
But I just know that that trap door exists in Naomi, so maybe it’s either repressed beyond detection, or else folded completely into the surface action and thus robbed of some of its power; power that depends on this door being the entry to a hidden place. This by the way, this “folding” of the unseen (and unspoken) into the surface design, is something I detect in much of the Japanese aesthetic; just don’t ask me to explain what the fuck I’m talking about. I just know that this quality is not inherent in the Kawabata I’ve read, and so Kawabata has a tremendous ineffable power lacking in the Tanizaki I’ve read. A filmic parallel of this dichotomy might be Ozu as compared to Mizoguchi, but that would only go so far; or maybe Noh theater as compared to Kabuki is a better comparison.
But the bigger question is why have I recently been drawn to two books dealing with essentially the same rather perverted theme – old flesh enthralled by young flesh? Is this my backhanded booknerd way of entering into a mid-life crisis of my own? a vicarious mid-life crisis no less? Should I chuck my books and step into “real” life and start chasing some taut young tail of my own, damn the consequences?
Or should I remain supine on my trap door, book in hand?
March 26, 2021
"Bazen zamanın akışı, hayretlere düşürecek denli yavaştır; tek bir dakika bile bitmeyecek denli uzun görünür."
November 19, 2011
Joji is a 28-year-old salaryman, a former country gentleman now in Tokyo, who becomes smitten with a 15-year-old "Eurasian"-looking cafe waitress, Naomi, a girl from the wrong side of the tracks whose neglectful parents seem to be involved in shady dealings. Her "western" features draw him. As it happens -- and like a lot of their contemporaries in 1920s urban Japan -- the two find themselves under the spell of western cultural influences; the clothes, the movies, the products and the mores and habits, including freer sexual expression and expanded possibilities for women. Joji, with the blase consent of Naomi and her family, marries Naomi and takes charge for her care and upbringing and the two set up a household that is chaste (though not without sexual tension) in which the two more or less "play house" rather than assume the traditional Japanese roles expected of husband and wife. There seems to be an emphasis on western-style conspicuous consumption, and the more Joji spoils Naomi with clothes and such the more difficult she becomes.
I won't spoil the story by telling you what happens to Joji and Naomi other than to say that Naomi becomes a bit of a nightmare, and Joji a bit of a wimp whose strong hand becomes weaker as the story progresses. There are elements of other books in this story, Leopold Sacher-Masoch's Venus in Furs, Pierre Louys' The Woman and the Puppet, the movie The Blue Angel, etc., at least in terms of Joji's "downfall" as a pussy-whipped male. Joji ends up creating the monster that he wants, in the "be careful what you wish for" vein.
The book is written in fairly simple terms, and I wouldn't exactly agree with Booklists's testimonial on the back of the Vintage edition that the book is "in a class with Lady Chatterley's Lover and Lolita", certainly not in terms of literary skill, but the comparison to Lolita is sometimes apt in spots. I never was sure if Joji and Naomi ever actually had sex. It's kept pretty vague. I would have liked that to have been stated a little more directly.
The book kept my attention the whole way, though, and its insights into the changing culture of Japan were fascinating to me. I loved the description of Joji's nervousness and the environs of the dance studio as he approached his first dance lesson with Naomi.
Overall I found this odd romance and cautionary tale very satisfying, though I liked Tanizaki's more sexually explicit and complex story of kink and marital misunderstandings, The Key, far more. This novel is pretty commendable for a first effort.
I won't spoil the story by telling you what happens to Joji and Naomi other than to say that Naomi becomes a bit of a nightmare, and Joji a bit of a wimp whose strong hand becomes weaker as the story progresses. There are elements of other books in this story, Leopold Sacher-Masoch's Venus in Furs, Pierre Louys' The Woman and the Puppet, the movie The Blue Angel, etc., at least in terms of Joji's "downfall" as a pussy-whipped male. Joji ends up creating the monster that he wants, in the "be careful what you wish for" vein.
The book is written in fairly simple terms, and I wouldn't exactly agree with Booklists's testimonial on the back of the Vintage edition that the book is "in a class with Lady Chatterley's Lover and Lolita", certainly not in terms of literary skill, but the comparison to Lolita is sometimes apt in spots. I never was sure if Joji and Naomi ever actually had sex. It's kept pretty vague. I would have liked that to have been stated a little more directly.
The book kept my attention the whole way, though, and its insights into the changing culture of Japan were fascinating to me. I loved the description of Joji's nervousness and the environs of the dance studio as he approached his first dance lesson with Naomi.
Overall I found this odd romance and cautionary tale very satisfying, though I liked Tanizaki's more sexually explicit and complex story of kink and marital misunderstandings, The Key, far more. This novel is pretty commendable for a first effort.
July 29, 2021
"Naomi, Naomi... Bilmiyorum kaç kez tekrarlanmıştı bu isim aramızda. Sakemizin mezesiydi bu isim. Sanki kırmızı etten daha leziz bir nefasetmişçesine çıkan sesteki yumuşaklığın tadına varıp, ağzımızın suyuyla bu tadı yalayıp sonra da dudaklarımıza götürüyorduk."
Hadi şunu normalleştirelim: Naomi ile Lolita zannettiğimiz kadar aynı değil.
Her ne kadar Joji’nin Naomi’ye olan aşkı Lolita’ya duyulanki gibi bir lolita aşkı gibi görülebilecek olsa da kitapların akışında durum çok farklı. “Lolita’yı çok sevmiştim” gibi bir niyetle başlanacaksa, hata olacaktır.
Naomi, çocuk sayılabilecek yaşta bir kıza âşık olup kızın ve ailesinin rızasıyla onu yanına alarak eğitimini üstlenmiş yirmilerinin sonunda Batı kültürünü kendi kültüründen üstün gören bir Japon adamın kızla geçirdiği yılların andacı tadında bir kitap.
Ben daha çok Yakup Kadri’nin Sodom ve Gomore’sindeydim Naomi ile balo salonlarındayken, o kadar aynıydı ki verdiği hissiyat, yozlaşmanın o ağır kekremsi tadı…
Tanizaki’nin alameti farikası benim için hep Japon çevrelerini tanımak, mekanların betimlerinde o odalarda dolaşmak ve neyi neden yaptıklarını anlamak üzerinedir. Ben yine bu düsturla okudum, Batı’ya özenen Japonlar nasıl yaşarmış onu gördüm, Joji’nin aşkını özümsemeye çalışmadım ama diğer Japonlarda uyandırdığı hissiyatı bilebilmeyi keyifli buldum, insanın coğrafya değişse de genellikle aynı olduklarını bir kez daha okumayı bütünleyici buldum.
.
3,5/5
Hadi şunu normalleştirelim: Naomi ile Lolita zannettiğimiz kadar aynı değil.
Her ne kadar Joji’nin Naomi’ye olan aşkı Lolita’ya duyulanki gibi bir lolita aşkı gibi görülebilecek olsa da kitapların akışında durum çok farklı. “Lolita’yı çok sevmiştim” gibi bir niyetle başlanacaksa, hata olacaktır.
Naomi, çocuk sayılabilecek yaşta bir kıza âşık olup kızın ve ailesinin rızasıyla onu yanına alarak eğitimini üstlenmiş yirmilerinin sonunda Batı kültürünü kendi kültüründen üstün gören bir Japon adamın kızla geçirdiği yılların andacı tadında bir kitap.
Ben daha çok Yakup Kadri’nin Sodom ve Gomore’sindeydim Naomi ile balo salonlarındayken, o kadar aynıydı ki verdiği hissiyat, yozlaşmanın o ağır kekremsi tadı…
Tanizaki’nin alameti farikası benim için hep Japon çevrelerini tanımak, mekanların betimlerinde o odalarda dolaşmak ve neyi neden yaptıklarını anlamak üzerinedir. Ben yine bu düsturla okudum, Batı’ya özenen Japonlar nasıl yaşarmış onu gördüm, Joji’nin aşkını özümsemeye çalışmadım ama diğer Japonlarda uyandırdığı hissiyatı bilebilmeyi keyifli buldum, insanın coğrafya değişse de genellikle aynı olduklarını bir kez daha okumayı bütünleyici buldum.
.
3,5/5
January 19, 2017
Aslında 3,5. Yine sado-mazo ilişkinin anlatıldığı bir Tanizaki romanı bu. Tuhaf bir şekilde şu ana kadar okuduğum tüm Tanizaki romanlarında erkekler haddinden fazla acı çekiyor. Yıllar yıllar önce Tanizaki'nin Anahtar romanından aldığım tadı aldım bundan da. Peki neden beş yıldız veremiyorum? Yazarın böyle bir karakter yaratabilme yeteneği aslında takdire şayan ama ben Naomi'den daha fazla Joji'den nefret ettim. Joji'nin bu derece acı çekme arzusu midemi bulandırdığı gibi uzun zamandır bir roman karakterinden bu kadar etkilenmediğimi de itiraf etmem lazım. Yine de acı çektim kitabı okurken. Joji'nin aptallığı, mazoşistliği acı verdi.
September 24, 2021
çok akıcı bir okuam oldu. nasıl başladı bitti anlamadım. zira sade bir anlatım seçilmiş. doğa tasvirleri yok denecek kadar az. ben japonya merakl��sı olmuştum, mishimadan sonra. ama tanizaki o yolu seçmemiş.
kitabın başından sonuna kadar jojiye bir kızdım bir üzüldüm. naomiye bir acıdım bir hayran oldum. duygusal geçişler, ihtiras , aşktaki bağımlılık hali daha güzel anlatılamazdı sanırım.
bir lolita hikayesi...kızarsınız, tepki gösterirsiniz ama okursunuz. hatta kimi yerde kendinize şaşırarak erkek kahramana hak verirsiniz. edebiyatın gücü sanırım.
kitabın başından sonuna kadar jojiye bir kızdım bir üzüldüm. naomiye bir acıdım bir hayran oldum. duygusal geçişler, ihtiras , aşktaki bağımlılık hali daha güzel anlatılamazdı sanırım.
bir lolita hikayesi...kızarsınız, tepki gösterirsiniz ama okursunuz. hatta kimi yerde kendinize şaşırarak erkek kahramana hak verirsiniz. edebiyatın gücü sanırım.
May 1, 2018
Điều duy nhất khiến mình còn nhận ra Tanizaki là đam mê "khổ dâm" luôn biến các nhân vật của mình thành kẻ hèn hạ hết mức như chó lợn, không còn chút tự trọng. Anw, cái mình say mê Tanizaki là thói hài hước hóm hỉnh mà mình tưởng là bẩm sinh và những cái twist rất sốc mà mình tin là tài năng thì không còn tí gì trong "Tình khờ". Thật sự phải đọc trong cảnh mong nó nhanh hết để đổi sang cuốn khác. Chán quá đê!
February 17, 2014
4+ stars. This is, indeed, a charming book. Told in a straightforward naturalistic style, it translates well, and reads easily, effortlessly. A story of sexual obsession, but a tender story. This is early Tanizaki (1925). A very nice book.
December 29, 2021
A 28 year old man finds a diamond in the rough (Naomi) age 15 marry's her, cultivates, and raises her into womanhood. But when the diamond is ready to shine its not on him. He looses his mind.
August 16, 2018
The literal translation of the original 痴人の愛 would be "Idiot's Love" but this might not sound very attractive to English-speaking people; "Idiotic Love" or "Foolish Love" might work, but using the main female character's name is an acceptable alternative.
I read this in Japanese, and I am not familiar with any of the English translation. It looks like there are several translations, but I don't see translator's name on some editions here on GR, so it's hard to tell.
I guess it's hard to appreciate a book that was written almost a century ago in another country. I see the book intro says "hilarious" story ... but the book is not meant to be funny. At least, back when this was written, the story was completely serious. Silly, foolish, yes. But not hilarious, not comical. Obsessive, yes. And sad.
Readers might benefit from reading the same author's In Praise of Shadows to better understand the background culture of this novel.
I read this in Japanese, and I am not familiar with any of the English translation. It looks like there are several translations, but I don't see translator's name on some editions here on GR, so it's hard to tell.
I guess it's hard to appreciate a book that was written almost a century ago in another country. I see the book intro says "hilarious" story ... but the book is not meant to be funny. At least, back when this was written, the story was completely serious. Silly, foolish, yes. But not hilarious, not comical. Obsessive, yes. And sad.
Readers might benefit from reading the same author's In Praise of Shadows to better understand the background culture of this novel.
January 7, 2019
Naomi,henüz 15 yaşında. Sessiz sakin,garson olarak çalışıyor. Ve güzel. Dikkat çekecek kadar güzel. Bu durumda Kawai Joji’nin ona aşık olmaması için bir sebep yok ortada. Ancak aşık olmak sizi her daim bulutların üstüne çıkaracak bir duygu değildir. Joji’ye olan da tam tersi. Acı çektirecek, kendine güvenini yok edecek, onu içten içe parçalayacak bir aşk bu. Adına aşk denilebilirse.
.
Tanizaki yine yapıyor yapacağını. Saplantıyı, erkeklerin kendi hazlarıyla sınavını öyle bir anlatıyor ki. Naomi’nin yaptıklarını okuyup bu kadarına da göz yumulmaz derken Joji yine soluğu Naomi’nin yanında alıyor.
.
Batı hayranlığı (takıntısı), bireysel çıkarlar için tüm ahlaki kuralları yok sayma, farkında olarak aynı hataları tekrarlama,komik duruma düşmeler..Hepsi arka planda. Ne Naomi ne Joji idi beni şaşırtan. Tanizaki’yi çılgın bir ihtiyarın güncesi ile tanımıştım. Oradaki ihtiyarın şekil değiştirmiş tutkusunun bu denli çıplak anlatılması gözlerimi kör etmişti. Bu eserinde de yazar kendini soyuyor aslında.
.
Tanizaki yine yapıyor yapacağını. Saplantıyı, erkeklerin kendi hazlarıyla sınavını öyle bir anlatıyor ki. Naomi’nin yaptıklarını okuyup bu kadarına da göz yumulmaz derken Joji yine soluğu Naomi’nin yanında alıyor.
.
Batı hayranlığı (takıntısı), bireysel çıkarlar için tüm ahlaki kuralları yok sayma, farkında olarak aynı hataları tekrarlama,komik duruma düşmeler..Hepsi arka planda. Ne Naomi ne Joji idi beni şaşırtan. Tanizaki’yi çılgın bir ihtiyarın güncesi ile tanımıştım. Oradaki ihtiyarın şekil değiştirmiş tutkusunun bu denli çıplak anlatılması gözlerimi kör etmişti. Bu eserinde de yazar kendini soyuyor aslında.
March 21, 2024
Moraleja: "cría cuervos y te sacarán los ojos"
June 7, 2018
Whoever said that strong female characters were not a concept in older pieces of literature needs to read this book.
Naomi is a fantastic novel that shows manipulation to its full extent. It infuriates you as the reader but you also can't help but be in awe at the magnitude that makes up this character. What the real teaser is that you never see anything from Naomi's pov.
So what is this novel about? What is Tanizaki trying to say? Beats me. I have a few theories but these are based on my own interpretations.
There are 2 interpretations I made on this book and they can go hand in hand. The first is on role reversal. Showing the irony in how the repression put on women is somehow not applicable to men. In Naomi, we meet a female lead who refuses to take no for an answer. Who refuses to bow down to the expectations of a woman in her time period and is instead fascinated by the Western influence brought to Japan. In other words, the story of a woman who breaks herself away from Japanese expectations of the women and the man who can't help himself from falling for her.
The second interpretation is in showing how ruthless a woman can be. A women is equally capable of manipulation as a man is, if not more. This novel could be a stinging rebuke on the femme fatale trope we often see. It could be Tanizaki's way of pushing Japanese women to step out of their boundaries and explore what life has to offer. A push to tell women to say "No".
Regardless of your views on this book you have to admit that Naomi might just be one of the best manipulative characters. She knows what she's doing. Joji (the man in love with her), also knows but still finds himself falling for her schemes despite unraveling her intentions beforehand. You might wonder why she is like this. Why is she hurting someone who truly loves her? But does Joji really see her or just the image he made of her? Naomi's own family background gives insight to her thoughts. Instability and a lack of care makes one search for it whether they are aware of it or not.
It's a good novel to show the psychology behind people and relationships. How relationships fail and people get hurt because they fail to see what's really there.
Naomi is a fantastic novel that shows manipulation to its full extent. It infuriates you as the reader but you also can't help but be in awe at the magnitude that makes up this character. What the real teaser is that you never see anything from Naomi's pov.
So what is this novel about? What is Tanizaki trying to say? Beats me. I have a few theories but these are based on my own interpretations.
There are 2 interpretations I made on this book and they can go hand in hand. The first is on role reversal. Showing the irony in how the repression put on women is somehow not applicable to men. In Naomi, we meet a female lead who refuses to take no for an answer. Who refuses to bow down to the expectations of a woman in her time period and is instead fascinated by the Western influence brought to Japan. In other words, the story of a woman who breaks herself away from Japanese expectations of the women and the man who can't help himself from falling for her.
The second interpretation is in showing how ruthless a woman can be. A women is equally capable of manipulation as a man is, if not more. This novel could be a stinging rebuke on the femme fatale trope we often see. It could be Tanizaki's way of pushing Japanese women to step out of their boundaries and explore what life has to offer. A push to tell women to say "No".
Regardless of your views on this book you have to admit that Naomi might just be one of the best manipulative characters. She knows what she's doing. Joji (the man in love with her), also knows but still finds himself falling for her schemes despite unraveling her intentions beforehand. You might wonder why she is like this. Why is she hurting someone who truly loves her? But does Joji really see her or just the image he made of her? Naomi's own family background gives insight to her thoughts. Instability and a lack of care makes one search for it whether they are aware of it or not.
It's a good novel to show the psychology behind people and relationships. How relationships fail and people get hurt because they fail to see what's really there.
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