If you like: George Eliot, A True Novel, The Elegance of the Hedgehog.
The Makioka Sisters by Junichiro Tanizaki was written during World War II, and (according to Wikipedia) the government halted printing because it was about “the soft, effeminate, and grossly individualistic lives of women.”
But that’s what makes it so fascinating. These women have to adjust to a changing world, while finding what makes them happy. It’s also about the bonds of family, and what you owe the people who share your life.
The novel reminded me of British authors, such as George Eliot and Elizabeth Gaskell and Jane Austen. It has a lot of what appeals to me in those kinds of novels: relationships that reflect the private and public, an exploration of defining a certain time and place while finding more universal themes and some humor.
Tanizaki wrote a well-known essay on Japanese aesthetics called In Praise of Shadows that’s a little bit old-man-telling-the-kids-to-get-off-his-lawn but also an appreciation of silence among the noise of modern living.
I’d say that aesthetic comes into Makioka Sisters, and not only because the sisters are losing prestige as they transition into a modern, more Westernized world. In some ways they’re held back by past expectations, while trying to get sister Yukiko married. And while Yukiko can’t find a suitable husband, youngest sister Taeko is forced into a holding pattern since she’s not allowed to move on with her life until her sister is married. At the same time, the novel is written with the grace of Japanese arts, like a traditional dance.
“The ancients waited for cherry blossoms, grieved when they were gone, and lamented their passing in countless poems. How very ordinary the poems had seemed to Sachiko when she read them as a girl, but now she knew, as well as one could know, that grieving over fallen cherry blossoms was more than a fad or convention.”
While written at a sedate pace, there are more thrills than the average novel of manners. There’s the threat of social ruin, of course, but there are also things such as a flood that literally changes the landscape, even as the shadow of war looms ahead, threatening to change it in other ways. There is a tension in how the sisters do not comprehend the enormity of what is coming.
The book was an elegant, complex read that I took my time to enjoy.
Side note: While looking up this book, I came across Jane Smiley's 13 Ways of Looking at a Novel. While it's been a long time since I've read it (I remember being impressed with her views on Jane Austen as a psychological novelist) her list of 100 novels is pretty good, too. They're all listed in the table of contents and you can get a preview here.
"The Makioka Sisters" by Junichiro Tanizaki; Vintage International; originally published in English in 1957.
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