The Gourmet Club: A Sextet by Jun'ichirō TanizakiMy rating: 4 of 5 stars
Tanizaki Junichiro is my favorite modern Japanese writer. Although I have learned to plow through his often difficult (but very beautiful) Japanese, new translations are always a feast. And of the large number of short stories he wrote, mainly in the Taisho period, only the tip of the iceberg has been revealed in English. So, this was a very welcome book, and the translations by Anthony Chambers and Paul McCarthy, two Tanizaki specialists, are very fine.
Why then am I not completely satisfied? Just out of greed (like the insatiable members of the Gourmet Club), because there are so many other interesting morsels out there which were not included, and which I would like to see in English...
Here is an overview of the stories included, mixed with my wishes for more translations:
1. The Children***** ("Shonen", written in 1911). A very strong story. Three mischievous friends play sadomasochistic games in a mysterious Western-style mansion. It is the girl who dominates and "enslaves" the two boys, her brother and his friend. This story won Tanizaki critical recognition from Mori Ogai and others.
2. The Secret***** ("Himitsu", 1911). The best story in this anthology. The world-weary, hedonistic narrator, who lives a secluded life in the annex to a temple in an old part of Tokyo, experiments with cross-dressing. Guess what happens when in that state he meets the woman who used to be his mistress, and she leads him, blindfolded, to her house?
In the years from 1910 to 1915, when Tanizaki also wrote his canonical "Tattoo" (1910), which has been translated by Howard Hibbett in Seven Japanese Tales, Tanizaki made a flying start as a new writer. In my insatiable greed I am also waiting for translations of such stories as:
- "Devil" (Akuma). The story which earned Tanizaki the sobriquet "Akumashugi" or "Diabolist." A young man, captivated by a certain lady, steals her handkerchief to savor its odor. She has a bad cold and the handkerchief is dirty, but even so the young man "licks it like a dog." Not very appetizing, but this is an important story in the Tanizaki canon.
- "The Whirlwind" (Hyofu). A young artist is exhausted after a bout of debauchery with a Yoshiwara geisha and decides to travel to Northern Japan to recuperate. But the call of the blood remains strong... This story was banned by the censor and the issue of the magazine Mita Bungaku in which it had appeared was taken out of circulation by the authorities.
- "The Kylin." Confucius visits the State of Wei, where Duke Ling has been enslaved by his beautiful consort Nanzi, a typical Tanizaki-type cruel woman, who even threatens Confucius' state of mind. As the philosopher leaves Wei in defeat, he declares: "I have never yet met a man who loved virtue as much as he loved sex" (an authentic quote from the Master!).
- "The Jester" (Hokan). About a traditional Jester (hokan), who has to play the fool in order to be laughed at by people, his relation with his rich patron and with the geisha he is secretly in love with. It is also the tragedy of a man who is too susceptible to the thinking of others. (I just now found a translation on the web by Edilberto Alegre, see https://asj.upd.edu.ph/mediabox/archive/ASJ-04-01-1966/alegre-translation-of-hokan-04-01-66.pdf).
- "A Golden Death" (Konjiki no shi). Although Tanizaki himself considered this longer story a failure, it is interesting for two reasons: it foreshadows Edogawa Ranpo's Strange Tale of Panorama Island - in other words, Ranpo got his inspiration partly from Tanizaki - , and it was appreciated by Mishima Yukio for the reason that Tanizaki's protagonist aimed at a "unity of life and art" that would end in his "golden death" in a paradise he creates for himself - an idea close to Mishima's own philosophy (and death).
- "The Tumor with a Human Face" (Jinmenso). Features a haunted film that drives the viewers mad, like the videotape in The Ring. I just now discovered this has been translated by Thomas LaMarre in Shadows on the Screen: Tanizaki Junʼichirō on Cinema and "Oriental" Aesthetics, an interesting study about Tanizaki and cinema.
We continue with the contens of The Gourmet Club:
3. The Two Acolytes**** ("Futari no chigo", 1918). Set in medieval Kyoto, this is the story of two young monks who follow different paths: one leaves the sacred mountain for a life devoted to earthly passion while the other remains faithful to his vows.
4. The Gourmet Club**** ("Bishoku Kurabu", 1919). About a group of fat men whose quest for new tastes leads them in ever weirder directions. In the end we see them (blindfolded) nibbling on the seductive hands that proffer them the exotic foods.
Other great stories from this period (1916-1920) are:
-"Fumiko's Feet" (Fumiko no ashi, 1919). An old man, infatuated with the beautiful feet of his young mistress, asks a painter to paint her portrait in such a way that her feet are displayed to advantage. When the old man lies dying, he obtains bliss by having Fumiko's foot press against his forehead. Foreshadows Tanizaki's Diary of a Mad Old Man.
- "On the Road" (Tojo, 1920). The story of an almost perfect crime. A man's wife dies of apparently natural causes, but a suspicious detective succeeds in tracing step by step how the man plotted to get rid of his wife so that he could marry a more attractive woman.
Happily, other interesting stories from these years have already been translated:
- "Devils in Daylight", translated by Keith Vincent in Devils in Daylight, about a writer and his friend who stake out a secret location where through peepholes in the knotted wood they become voyeurs at the scene of a shocking crime... or so it seems.
- "The Little Kingdom", translated by Paul McCarthy in A Cat, a Man, and Two Women. A seemingly quiet new student has a penchant for shrewd power politics and discipline, and in the end realizes authoritarian control over his fellow students and even the adults. A chilling story that foreshadows Lord of the Flies.
We continue with the contens of The Gourmet Club:
5. Mr Bluemound*** ("Aozuka-shi no hanashi", 1926). A degenerate admirer is obsessed with the relationship between an actress and her image on celluloid. In the early 1920s Tanizaki wrote several film scenarios.
6. Manganese Dioxide Dreams*** ("Kasankamangansui no yume", 1955). A story with autobiographical elements, a bit like The Maids. In the end the narrator's activities - eating in famous Chinese and Japanese restaurants in Tokyo, watching the film "Diabolique" with Simone Signoret, dabbling in Chinese history - mingle in a feverish dream only to end in his toilet bowl.
Other great stories from this period (1921 and after - from the Showa period on, Tanizaki almost stopped writing short stories, but concentrated in longer work) are:
- "Aguri" and "The Thief", translated by Howard Hibbett in Seven Japanese Tales. The first story concerns a vampirish young mistress who is a precursor of Naomi;
- The Strange Case of Tomoda and Matsunaga, translated by Paul McCarthy in Red Roofs and Other Stories. A farcical story in which Tanizaki creates a man who (like The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde) alternates between his thin, quiet and retreating Japanese personality (Matsunaga) and his robust Western and cosmopolitan self (Tomoda), who gregariously travels the world under various aliases. Also "Red Roofs," in the same volume, again about a Naomi-type femme fatale.
- "Professor Rado," translated by Paul McCarthy in A Cat, a Man, and Two Women. A reporter attempts to penetrate the life of a secretive professor.
The writing of this review has somewhat satisfied my appetite, for I notice that the later period (second half of Taisho) has been reasobaly well served. It is only the early Taisho period in which many delicious dishes are still waiting for translators... (And as everything is rather scattered, it would be great to have Tanizaki's "collected short stories" in a few nicely bound volumes, but that is probably an impossible wish.)
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