Aguri

by Jun'ichirō Tanizaki

Buku ini berisi tiga cerita yang dipilih dari cerpennya yang berjudul Seven Japanese Tales terjemahan Howard Hibbett. Tiga cerita itu adalah Aguri; Teror; dan Potret Shunkin. Ketiganya memiliki warna yang hampir identik yaitu penghambaan dan ketakutan.

Dalam racikan khas prosa Tanizaki, di sini kita dapat menemukan bagaimana tokoh seperti Okada ataupun Sasuke begitu terikat pada sosok wanita dan rela menderitra dan menganggapnya kenikmatan — sebagaimana cerita-cerita terkenal Tanizaki lainnya seperti Naomi dan The Key. Buku ini cocok dinikmati sebagai cerminan diri sendiri yang mencintai atau dicinta.

Genres: Japanese Literature

Unknown Binding

About the author

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.

Reviews

[Ikuya]

Whenever I read Tanizaki’s prose in Japanese, I find it very distinctive. Yukio Mishima once praised Tanizaki’s writing as the best form of the mixture of the Japanese literature tradition with the Western literature structure. “Aguri” is an original version of the more famous “Naomi” and was written in 1922 before he moved to Kyoto.

1923 was a watershed year for Tanizaki because he moved to Kyoto after the Great Kanto earthquake occurred. It is said that Tanizaki often distinguished his works written before 1923 from those written after. He seems to have been dissatisfied with his earlier works which were written before his Kyoto age. After he settled in Kyoto, he translated “The Tale of Genji” and wrote his most representative novel “The Makioka Sisters” and his most noted essay “In Praise of Shadows”.

Still, in “Aguri”, you could noticeably find one of his most important themes of his literary life, which was “cultural identity”. Tanizaki probably had a dilemma in which he had a reverence for the West and fear of the Japanese traditional culture being eroded at the same time. However, when it comes to his voice and style, he succeeded in blending the two and creating one of the most elegant and beautiful prose. He is definitely one of the unparalleled Japanese authors.

There are two film adaptations of Tanizaki’s works I would recommend. One is “Oyusan” directed by Kenji Mizoguchi. It is black and white, but Mizoguchi’s pictures and cinematography are just stunning. The other one is “The Makioka Sisters” directed by Kon Ichikawa.

Lastly, if you haven’t read “In Praise of Shadows”, I would strongly recommend you to read it. It is about the Japanese aesthetics and I’ve heard that it is a must-read especially for architecture students. This essay gave me a clear answer to the reason why I like “Yokan” (Japanese sweets) this much.

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[Mourning_elf · Rating 3 out of 5]

Aguri, cerpen yang agak vulgar. Lebih parah dari Ogai Mori menurutku.
Teror, nenceritakan fobia naik kereta. Lumayan sih tapi pendek banget.
Potret Shuskin, sebuah novella tentang perjalanan pemain koto dan Samisen yang buta.

[deedee megadoodoo · Rating 4 out of 5]

read for my JPT women in love graduate level course