The Secret Window: Ideal Worlds in Tanizaki's Fiction

Harvard East Asian Monographs #167

by Anthony H. Chambers

At the time of his death in 1965 at the age of seventy-nine, Tanizaki Jun'ichiro had been writing fiction, plays, essays, poems, and translations almost without interruption for more than fifty-five years. In this series of meditations on seven of Tanizaki's novels and novellas, the renowned translator Anthony Chambers explores the attempt by Tanizaki's characters to construct ideal worlds: fantasies that were far removed from the concerns of everyday life and were, for the most part, unattainable. Chambers focuses on the thread of fantasy that Tanizaki weaves throughout his work; he examines the writer's subtle use of storytelling devices to evoke his characters' alternate sense of reality and encourage the reader's participation in their fantasies. Using his intimate knowledge of Tanizaki's works, Chambers superbly evokes the beauty and truth Tanizaki's characters find in their ideal worlds.

140 pages, Hardcover

First published December 1, 1994