Status Updates From Pochwała cienia

“Light is used not for reading or writing or sewing but for dispelling the shadows in the farthest corners, and this runs against the basic idea of the Japanese room. Something is salvaged when a person turns off the lights at home to save money, but at inns and restaurants there is inevitably too much light in the halls, on the stairs, in the doorway, the gate, the garden.”

Tanizaki writes in such an enchanting way about the past women of Japan, I’m enthralled by this new way of perceiving he has opened my eyes to!