Status Updates From El elogio de la sombra

Me gusta ir descubriendo cómo el autor ve la luz y la sombra en diferentes espacios y situaciones, va desde las distintas habitaciones de una casa a obras de teatro japonesas clásicas.

"From candle to oil lamp, oil lamp to gaslight, gaslight to electric light—his quest for a brighter light never ceases, he spares no pains to eradicate even the minutest shadow."

An interesting non-figurative metaphor for progression.

I do think, in his praise of darkness, Tanizaki has failed to appreciate light. In that I mean, he has such strong disdain for Western things without coming to appreciate why those things might be appealing from the other end.

The question at the hart of this is really just, "Why did we change? Why did we give up?" The answer is quite obvious, but coming off the back of Camp Damascus, it does remind of conversion therapy. Suppressing parts of yourself to fit into a greater society. Fit into the machine, build your own, or die. Simple as. Terrible too.

Tanizaki's points do ring of nationalism, which makes sense of the era, but I do not think they are incongruous with a cosmopolitan view of things either. His tone drips with a bias towards all things Japanese to an almost absurd degree, but how could he not? It is early 20th century Japan, when things were changing like the wind. It is hardly a wonder he clings on so hard.

"If this is true even when identical equipment, chemicals, and film are used, how much better our own photographic technology might have suited our complexion, our facial features, our climate, our land. And had we invented the phonograph and the radio, how much more faithfully they would reproduce the special character of our voices and our music."

Truth to power, Tanizaki.

Then there is the colonial/westernization aspect of it. Modern convenience is particularly Western European in its aesthetic. Cultures have adapted over time, but why should they have? Why should they have had to build themselves, like a creeping vine on a tree, around western design? Why can we not have a forest?

Consider architecture. Cookie cutter homes build in months in suburbs. Blocky apartments with shabby rooms. Boxy mobile homes parked in circles. Convenient. Better. But lacking in human aesthetic. Lacking in choice. I've never cared about interior decoration before, but it makes a little more sense to me now. Exerting one's own self over that which they cannot normally decide. I should buy a lamp.