NAOMI is one of Junichiro Tanizaki’s early works. It was originally serialized in 1924 and published as a full novel in 1925. It seethes with secrets,NAOMI is one of Junichiro Tanizaki’s early works. It was originally serialized in 1924 and published as a full novel in 1925. It seethes with secrets, love triangles and sexual obsession that explore the ebb and flow of power in relationships. It has elements of Shaw’s PYGMALION and whispers anticipating Nabokov’s LOLITA.Yet the novel is firmly rooted in its own culture and time, portraying a specific period of Japanese history while examining universal themes of passion, objectification and gender dynamics.
Only one voice tells this story of attraction, deception and erotic allure. That voice belongs to Joji. He is a twenty eight year old electrical engineer who grew up on a prosperous farm before migrating to the city.He fashions himself a modern man who eschews the rural and embraces the urban lifestyle. Central to his self image is his reverence for Western culture and norms. One day he encounters a fifteen year old cafe hostess.Naomi is shy and quiet and possesses Eurasian features that cast her as a budding beauty in Joji’s eyes. He is color struck. He is smitten.
Joji launches a plan to move Naomi into his home in order to mold her into his perfect companion and eventual wife. He sets her up with English lessons and music lessons hoping to transform her into a modern woman who embodies the Western values that were making inroads into Japanese life. Thus begins a voyage of development and exploration that is punctuated by contentiousness and desire.Joji is buffeted about by physical attraction that exerts a gravitational pull and obliterates rational thought. While Joji initially was the dominant partner, Naomi blossoms into an emotionally cunning adversary with more social and physical capital than Joji.The couple finds themselves in an intense tug of war fueled by Joji’s desire and Naomi’s erotic manipulation. Joji becomes locked in a repetitive cycle of betrayals, humiliation, obsession and reconciliation.
The couple’s struggles with the social and emotional vicissitudes in their relationship highlight the themes present throughout the novel. Their interactions highlight the psychology of sexual obsession and power dynamics in a period of social transition.The novel takes place during Japan’s Taisho era, when the country was modernizing and open to influences outside of Japanese traditional thought. Japanese women were transitioning from subservience and docility to a more self actualizing stance. Naomi displays the characteristics of a modern woman previously not seen in Japanese society. She is part of a group of women who were independent, had jobs and lovers and dressed in a Western style. In a broad sense this group is similar in spirit to the American flappers of the roaring twenties.
For me, the novel functions on several levels. It titillates in its chronicling of power, sex and domination. On another level, the novel is a portrait of Japan in a transitional period when the nation was becoming more receptive to outside cultures and influences. I also thought that the novel worked as an allegorical tale questioning the enthusiasm for Western culture at the expense of Japanese traditions. By novel end, Joji is still struggling to disentangle himself from the destructive cycles of his obsession. I left the novel wondering if Joji’s struggles were fueled by Naomi’s allure or if they were driven by an irrational attraction to Western ideals....more
A shot is fired in the opening scenes of “ The Dry Heart.” From the moment the bullet meets its target, a mystery unfolds that introspectively seeks tA shot is fired in the opening scenes of “ The Dry Heart.” From the moment the bullet meets its target, a mystery unfolds that introspectively seeks to discover why the trigger was pulled. The person in quest of this answer is an unnamed narrator who fired the gun that killed her husband. She had asked him to tell her the truth. When his answer did not satisfy, she shot him between the eyes. Her next actions provide a clue to the narrator’s emotional underpinnings.
“I put on my raincoat and gloves and went out. I drank a cup of coffee at the counter of a cafe and walked haphazardly about the city….I sat down on a bench in the park, took off my gloves and looked at my hands. Then I slipped off my wedding ring and put it in my pocket.”
Our narrator then begins a restrained, emotionally detached monologue that delves into her past and seeks to uncover the mysteries and heretofore unarticulated truths surrounding her marriage. She has been trapped in a loveless marriage to Alberto, an older man of short stature who is emotionally manipulative and self serving. He has been mired in a long term relationship with Giovanna, his married lover. His marriage to the narrator is a palliative intended to mitigate the frustrations of his illicit relationship with Giovanna. He has been courtly and attentive during the pursuit of his quarry. The narrator, who has never felt loved, does not realize that she is a salve for Alberto’s wounded pride. Once the couple has settled into marriage, reality begins to intrude on any previously held illusions.
The narrator deflects reality through fantasy and imagination. The result is a relationship fraught with misunderstandings and unfulfilled yearnings. They are locked in a quest for validation and intimacy that can not be achieved in their mutual relationship. Neither is the true object of the other’s desire. Both live in a state of quiet despair,reliving the frustrations of Tantalus while reaching for the unattainable fruits of satisfaction.
Natalia Ginzburg has taken the reader on a journey of frustration and yearning told in spare economical prose that conveys complex emotions in visceral form shrouded in ellipsis. The simplicity of the narrator’s monologue belies the cauldron of emotions seething below her exterior. She is a modern woman living in an age where the vistas of freedom seem much greater than those of her mother and grandmother. Yet they remain frustratingly out of reach because the vise of patriarchy has not weakened.As she reviews her sudden violent actions, she also glimpses a sliver of empowerment that solves the mystery of how she came to pull the trigger....more
“ When everyone saw the scarlet ibis perched atop the oncenotorious house of ill repute near the edge of the vHarbingers of doom lurk in New Felicity.
“ When everyone saw the scarlet ibis perched atop the oncenotorious house of ill repute near the edge of the village, there was a collective shiver, although no one would admit it. At first, no one thought anything of the roosting bird. The village was a mile from the tributary….where fifty or sixty ibises nested and fed.This ibis had lost his way, we figured. But the Ibis stood on the top of the house where Catherine the Great Disembowler had once ruined the village’s reputation…tearing men asunder, and so this ibis unsettled us. It suggested a gravestone marking a glum future.
It tightened anuses.”
Birds hover, spirits float and voices are raised with a discordant, cacophonous lilt.The novel is populated with curses, charms, shape shifting and magic.We meet characters named Hospedales, Miki, You-We, Catherine the Great Disembowler, Hany and Mama Bint. They are part of a chorus that recalls and initiates events which set off ripples in time, creating currents and eddies.They tell a multigenerational story of history, family and migration in Trinidad and Tobago.
The aforementioned scarlet ibis has settled on a roof in New Felicity, a fishing village located about five miles from Venezuela.The village is percolating with tension and mystery.There has been an influx of Venezuelan refugees seeking asylum and the Trinidadian government is not pleased.The villagers are sheltering an eleven year old girl refugee. A foreign reporter has come looking for a sensational story before he suddenly disappears. Trinidadian fishermen have been captured in Venezuela and their body parts are showing up in the village when ransom demands are not met.The villagers cast a wary eye at the ibis on the roof and wonder if they are beset by a curse reaching back over a century when a slaveholding sugar cane plantation dominated the land.
These undercurrents of uncertainty and foreboding funnel into a series of interlocking whispers and stories.They are narrated in diverse tonalities that move backward and forward in time without regard to linear constraint. They create a musical cadence that gives voice to the ravages, depredations and triumphs of Caribbean history. Brutality and mangled bodies litter the landscape as the voices rise and recede. Their song explores the consequences of colonialism, sexual slavery and modern day human trafficking.
The novel is both aural and visual, employing lush, descriptive patois laced language that creates a picture of time and place.It transports the reader into realms of magic intermixed with narratives rooted in history that demand reckoning for racial and gender injustices.The strands of the voices ultimately connect into a single thread spanning more than a century. The novel has lingered in my consciousness, reminding me of a freeform jazz quartet sounding more like Ornette Coleman than John Coltrane. Imaginative and exquisite....more