Jun'ichirō Tanizaki

The Makioka sisters

I absolutely loved this. The English translation, having been translated by Edward G. Seidensticker in the 1950s, seems slightly old-fashioned, but I actually think this works really well as the story is set in the late 1930s. Also funny to see how he felt the need to add footnotes to terms like "sushi" which would nowadays be considered common knowledge.

And the final sentence, after 562 pages, must be one of the best final sentences ever 😂:

"Yukiko's diarrhea persisted through the twenty-sixth, and was a problem on the train to Tokyo." 

Mario Menti 

I absolutely loved this. The English translation, having been translated by Edward G. Seidensticker in the 1950s, seems slightly old-fashioned, but I actually think this works really well as the story is set in the late 1930s. Also funny to see how he felt the need to add footnotes to terms like "sushi" which would nowadays be considered common knowledge.

And the final sentence, after 562 pages, must be one of the best final sentences ever 😂:

"Yukiko's diarrhea persisted through the twenty-sixth, and was a problem on the train to Tokyo." 

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 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

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

Reviews