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hero—no doubt Tanizaki himself—gradually rediscover his own past. A decade later Tanizaki’s love for the classic literature was to lead him to devote years to a translation into modern Japanese of The Tale of Genji. He has recently completed a second, completely revised translation of the same work. His longest original novel, The Makioka Sisters (1944–47), has been likened to The Tale of Genji, and is an elegy for the passing of the traditional Japan—not the pristine Japan before European influence had changed the face of the country, but the world Tanizaki knew before 1941.
Mori Ōgai’s rejection of the West did not eradicate the Western influence in his novels; Tanizaki Jun’ichirô’s was expressed almost in Western terms. When Tanizaki’s nostalgia led him to exalt the traditional ways—as, for example, when he praised the solid, dignified architecture of the old cities, so unlike the flimsy structures of today—he was hardly different from a European expressing delight at picturesque Japan. Tanizaki was charmed by the dark, musty rooms of a traditional house, mainly because he knew also the concrete and glass of contemporary architecture. His rediscovery of the old literature was in some ways an exoticism directed at his own country.
