An important work for the understanding of Eastern aesthetic philosophy. I've read Tanizaki Runichiro's erotic novel before, which is so elegant that even hardly call that erotic. The shortcoming is that he always reviews and describes the details tirelessly, which makes reading a little boring. But this style of writing is perfect for cultural essays.
The gloomy aesthetics of Oriental Minor are thankfully alive in Japan. As a Chinese, reading this kind of aesthetic theory is familiar and strange. Perhaps the beauties in their twilight old age still have some vague recollections of youth, which we are left with after one great misfortune after another.
After all, beauty and elegance and decency are too strange to the Chinese people today. Thank God Japanese learnt from our ancestors well. Cause i'm so willing to believe this kind of beauty is very important and meaningful, which to what Nietzsche called 'Dionysian art'.