📚: In Praise of Shadows, Jun’ichirƍ Tanizaki

Peculiar essay about the clash of the Western culture of light —of its determination to always better its condition— and the Oriental preference for the beauty and subtlety of shadow, of the hidden, of the mysterious, of the grime and the patina, the sheen and texture. Very brief read which I found somewhat insightful.

Among other things, documents dispositions of Japanese intellectuals towards Western culture in the nineteen-thirties, which I found interesting.

With its meandering, it gives us a nice example of the follow-the-brush zuihitsu style; it is, itself, full of shadows.

I would possibly have enjoyed a more detailed analysis of the implications on the world of literature; the bridge to literature is made explicit (ref) but not explored in this essay. But perhaps that’s the biases of my Western mind.

A few things were a bit too distant for me to gain value from them. Specifically, the explanations around different types of Japanese theater. Obviously, that’s no fault of the author. I also didn’t follow too closely the racial and gendered observations.

I read the English translation by Thomas J. Harper and Edward G. Seidensticker.

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