Some Prefer Nettles (1929/1959)

I had never heard of Junichiro Tanizaki until I came upon the Berkeley edition of his Some Prefer Nettles (1929; trans. Edward G. Seidensticker, 1959) at AA Furniture & Appliance last week. What a find!

The story is focused on the disintegrating marriage of a bourgeois Osaka couple, as told by an omniscient narrator. Of course it is more than that, as oppositional themes abound. Hard to read this book and believe that it is set in 1928-29 (it was originally serialized) and not the 1950s, the 1970s, the 1990s or today.

On the topic of today, the characters in Some Prefer Nettles express some disturbing attitudes towards China, whom the Imperial Japan Army invaded in the decade that followed (1930s).

Here's a typically triangulated if not sarcastic exchange between between Misako and her husband Kaname's cousin, Takanatsu, who is visiting from Shanghai, where he is employed:

"Would you care for a bath, madame?" asked Takanatsu. "The lady of the house does nothing for her guests, but the maids are wonderful. They got up early this morning and heated the bath specially. If you don't mind going in after me, why don't you have a bath yourself?"

"I've had one -- I didn't realize it was after you, of course."

"It must have been a quick one."

"Do you suppose it's all right?"

"What?"

"Going in after you. I won't catch any dreadful Chinese diseases?"

"You're joking. It would be better to worry about what you might catch from Kaname here."

"I stay quietly at home." Kaname looked up from his book again. "It's you foreigners we need to watch."