The Makioka Sisters

I finished The Makioka Sisters this afternoon, sitting on the banks of the Nigawa River as the sun went down. (I was half tanning the top of my head) Having devoured Norwegian Wood in a day and a half, I'd been slogging my way through the Makioka Sisters for upwards of two weeks. It's a dense, dense book, mostly dialogue and long, sinuous contemplation. Very little actually happens in terms of plot, but it's a fair task trying to keep track of what everybody is thinking, which, ends up being more important than the plot anyway.

It's a kind of plutocratic family drama, set in Kobe and Osaka, the kind of thing Jane Austen would have written if her name had been Tanizaki Jun'ichiro. Its themes are about what you would expect - declining fortunes, pride, face, irresponsible younger daughters, scandal, dashing young scapegraces, and a good deal of visiting and being visited by friends and acquaintances. In typical Japanese fashion the whole book is suffused with a sublime melancholy, which paints a thin lacquer of nostalgia over the entire piece and makes the scarce moments of serenity more pregnant. The characters are skillfully evoked, and a complex web of social relationships and past social relationships along with them.

But it's dreadfully slow, more so than Jane Austen, less so than Murakami Shikibu. This is partially due to the aforementioned viscosity, which belies swallowing the whole thing, let alone several chapters, in one sitting, but really it has more to do with the ponderous pace of aristocratic life in Taisho-era Japan. The sisters, there are four of them, often take an entire morning simply to get dressed, two or three days to make a decision, and several weeks to a month to write a letter. It is dolorous reading, though perhaps this is more a blessing than a curse, given the amount of time it takes to require merely two or three chapters.

In the final analysis it's difficult reading. I enjoyed it, and have gained an immense amount of respect for Tanizaki as an author. It is unfortunate, however, that we were given only two weeks to read it, and that there were not enough copies to go around to all the students.