Matthew’s Reviews > Childhood Years: A Memoir > Status Update

I was coming home from a screening of Ichi the Killer when I happened upon Tanizaki's memories of his favorite childhood kagura group, who reenacted onstage the sensational murders of the day. Some things never change.

Lively, earthy memories of childhood told from the perspective of a dirty old man. Ranges from the idyllic (eating bean paste and shaved ice in your father's house) to the seedy (being momentarily abducted by a drunk soldier on a parade day). Above all, you get a sense of life in the old world for an especially imaginative child-- all the simple pleasures, all the imagined nasties, and some real ones too.