Jun'ichirō Tanizaki

The Makioka sisters

'An exquisite novel about four sisters living though a turbulent decade...I'd put it in the 10 greatest books of the 20th century' David Mitchell 'A near-perfect novel' Hanya Yanagihara In the years leading up to the Second World War, four sisters live in dilapidated houses in Osaka and Ashiya, and each navigate their own complex, personal relationship to the fading lustre of the Makioka family name. Rich with breathtaking descriptions of ancient customs and an ever-changing natural world, Junichiro Tanizaki evokes in loving detail a long-lost way of life even as it withers under the harsh glare of modernity. TRANSLATED BY EDWARD SEIDENSTICKER Part of the VINTAGE JAPANESE CLASSICS - five masterpieces of Japanese fiction in gorgeous new gift editions.

Vintage Classics Japanese Series

The Makioka Sisters

Forget about memorable opening lines. This book right here has the most out of pocket and unexpected ending sentences I have read in a good long while.

I seem to have subconsciously dedicated 2024 to reading more Japanese literature, as I am consistently and rapidly going through the Japanese books on my list in the last few months. And it has been a very rewarding journey, thanks to books like this one. There are so many classics like this that should NOT be missed.

 is an interesting story caught between modernism and tradition, reminiscent of Jane Austen and Tolstoy in a way, but with a very authentic Japanese feel and is abundant in its culture, history, and tradition. Throughout the book, not much happens, really. The relentless obsession the story has about marriage almost completely overshadows anything else; the start of the second world war and the rapidly changing social and political conditions almost disappear in the background of proposals, set ups, and gossip.

But it is so easy to get carried away with the dynamics between the four sisters, each with her particular personality and faults of her own, each judging the other three while loving them fiercely. The story flows effortlessly, melancholic and vivid in its depictions.

A very slow burning, wistful, deliberate kind of book.

“The night of the full moon.
Here, one shadow is missing.”

---------------------------------

Forget about memorable opening lines. This book right here has the most out of pocket and unexpected ending sentences I have read in a good long while.

I seem to have subconsciously dedicated 2024 to reading more Japanese literature, as I am consistently and rapidly going through the Japanese books on my list in the last few months. And it has been a very rewarding journey, thanks to books like this one. There are so many classics like this that should NOT be missed.

The Makioka Sisters is an interesting story caught between modernism and tradition, reminiscent of Jane Austen and Tolstoy in a way, but with a very authentic Japanese feel and is abundant in its culture, history, and tradition. Throughout the book, not much happens, really. The relentless obsession the story has about marriage almost completely overshadows anything else; the start of the second world war and the rapidly changing social and political conditions almost disappear in the background of proposals, set ups, and gossip.
But it is so easy to get carried away with the dynamics between the four sisters, each with her particular personality and faults of her own, each judging the other three while loving them fiercely. The story flows effortlessly, melancholic and vivid in its depictions.

A very slow burning, wistful, deliberate kind of book.

charisa

bruh i CANNOT with the last line of this book. 530 pages of intense family drama and politics and tanizaki chooses to end with “Yukiko’s diarrhea persisted through the twenty-sixth, and was a problem on the train to Tokyo.” thank you. that’s great. 

anyway, this book was extremely long-winded and filled with unemotional prose, but i also somehow enjoyed it? i feel like a lot of contemporary japanese literature focuses on the proletariat, so this afforded an interesting window into the upper-class life, especially at the edge of WW2. it was fascinating to detect glimpses of modernity breaking through (through dress, speech, european relations, etc.), even as the sisters clung to the decorum and traditions that had helped establish their family in the first place. 

in some ways, i sensed an internal pressure towards change as well, through taeko’s escapades and refusal to yield to marriage customs. not to mention the sisters’ reluctant understanding that tradition had perhaps precipitated yukiko’s own wilting marriage prospects. truly a different time and one full of cultural growing pains. 

an interesting fact i unearthed: the original title in japanese (細雪) actually means “lightly falling snow”, alluding to both the impermanence of life/status/wealth, as well as yukiko’s principal position in the book (samiyuki : yukiko).

An immaculate presentation of life, bewitching and intriguing as each vicissitude delicately explored, each thread of investigation woven for a gorgeous tapestry displaying a magnificent legacy. The ineffably graceful, the wilfully reckless, the inept and the recalcitrant.

Anas A

Jade Flynn

We follow four sisters over four years in 1940s Japan. Tanizaki's writing is serene and harmonious, as is the story itself. You feel the authors nostalgia and wistful yearning for a society that has always been fated to change, it permeates every page. Maybe it would smell of cherry blossoms. The Makioka Sisters isn't just a novel complied of moments of great beauty, it is beauty itself.

The Makioka sisters

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