Remembering Tanizaki Jun’ichiro and Matsuko: Diary Entries, Interview Notes, and Letters, 1954-1989 (Volume 82)

by Anthony H. Chambers

Remembering Tanizaki Jun’ichirō and Matsuko provides previously unpublished memories, anecdotes, and insights into the lives, opinions, personalities, and writings of the great novelist Tanizaki Jun’ichirō (1886 – 1965) and his wife Matsuko (1903 – 1991), gleaned from the diaries of Edward Seidensticker and two decades of Anthony Chambers’s conversations with Mrs. Tanizaki and others who were close to the Tanizaki family.
 

118 pages, Paperback

Published September 26, 2017

Reviews

[Nicky Neko]

3.5. Very interesting, but weirdly laid out, without any sense of narrative thread. Fragmented?

[David]

As some reviews have noted, this book isn't laid out in ways you might expect. But the content is always fascinating – a mix of backstory to developed anecdotes about Jun'ichiro and Matsuko Tanizaki; interesting snippets of information about both people; excerpts from interviews with members of the Tanizaki family and various people associated with them over the years; keen observations about Jun'ichiro and Matsuko; and accounts of important people from the bundan whom Tanizaki knew well (i.e., Kyoka, Mishima, Kawabata, Toson, Endo, etc.). For anyone interested in Tanizaki both as a writer and a person, this book is an excellent addition to what's available in English. The author became especially close to Tanizaki's wife, Matsuko, which gave him unique access to the Tanizakis' lives and wonderful perspective as to who they were.

[Ioana Nica]

Enjoyable to read even as a collection of bits and pieces of life. I was especially interested to know more about Matsuko as I could not find much in translation. Given the close friendship the author had with Tanizaki's widow, I wish these notes were developed into a proper biography.

[Omar]

Enjoyable read, but unreliable.

"If the overall impression is one of hagiography, this is due in part to the affection and gratitude I felt toward Mrs.Tanizaki, and in part to the fact that almost everyone I met was well disposed toward Matsuko and Jun'ichirō. The principal exception was Tanizaki’s newphew Akio, who urged me to read a short screed by Jun'ichirō titled "On the Occasion of the Fall of Singapore" (March 1942) because, he said, it demonstrated his uncle's support for Japanese aggression in World War II." He goes on to say, "I failed to take notes during my dinner with Akio and his son Kan (a student of mine), and I confess that I didn't seek out other negative perspectives.”

Since he included his wife’s claim that Jun'ichirō was “indifferent to politics” and that he did not vote before the war, or after. Would it not be of interest to go back and read “On the Occasion of the Fall of Singapore”, and inform the reader of the views espoused by Tanizaki?

If you deliberately stay clear of those who held a negative view of him, showing no interest in presenting an accurate picture of the man to a English-speaking audience, then I have to ask; what is the point of the book?

Bumping it up to a 3 for the amusing diary entries by Edward Seidenstecker.
I’ll be reading Donald Keene’s “Chronicles of My Life”, and I am excited to see if Seidenstecker’s diary entry on the day of Tanizaki’s funeral where Donald “looked perfectly awful, wild-haired and drawn” is mentioned.

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This is a collection of notes and diary entries about Japanese 20th c. author Tanizaki Junichiro, made by Tanizaki scholar and translator Anthony Chambers, via interviews with Tanizaki's widow Matsuko. It reads like material for a book (for example a biography), but is not itself a book. In fact, as there is no Tanizaki biography in English yet, it is regrettable that the author did not accept the larger challenge. For a Tanizaki completist like myself, it is possible to cull some interesting information from this book, but the overall impression remains one of disappointment.