The Story of Tomoda and Matsunaga
1926
First Published
3.96
Average Rating
104
Number of Pages
The Story of Tomoda and Matsunaga (first published in Japanese in 1926, later in Italian, then in English in 2018 in The Penguin Book of Japanese Short Stories) is a Tanizaki novella which explores the dichotomy between aspects of Eastern culture (specifically Japanese) and Western culture (specifically European) through the use and eyes of a doppelgänger, a Jekyll and Hyde sort who vacillates in his desires and attitudes toward provincial, traditional Asia and a dissolute, gluttonous Europe.
Avg Rating
3.96
Number of Ratings
154
5 STARS
25%
4 STARS
51%
3 STARS
21%
2 STARS
3%
1 STARS
1%
goodreads
Author
Junichiro Tanizaki
Author · 36 books
Jun'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.
