Naomi by Jun'ichirō Tanizaki
"Naomi" by Jun'ichirō Tanizaki is a novel that delves into the complexities of a tumultuous relationship between a man named Joji Kawai and a young woman named Naomi, whom he becomes infatuated with. Set in early 20th-century Japan, the narrative unfolds through Joji's perspective, presenting his attempts to mold Naomi into an ideal partner, reminiscent of Western influences. Initially captivated by her beauty and Westernized charm, Joji soon finds himself ensnared in a web of her manipulation and extravagance, which leads to his emotional and financial downfall.
The story critiques societal expectations and explores themes of love, desire, and the clash between traditional Japanese values and Western ideals. Naomi embodies a modern, self-assertive flapper, while Joji's character reflects the struggles of a man caught between his cultural heritage and aspirations for a different kind of life. As their relationship deteriorates, the narrative exposes Joji's delusions and the harsh reality of his situation, ultimately portraying a profound commentary on the nature of desire and identity. "Naomi" is considered Tanizaki's first significant success, marking the beginning of his exploration of cultural and erotic themes that would permeate his later works.
Naomi by Jun'ichirō Tanizaki
First published:Chijin no ai, 1924-1925, serial; 1925, book (English translation, 1985)
Type of work: Comedy of manners
Time of work: The 1920’s
Locale: Tokyo and surrounding areas
Principal Characters:
Joji Kawai , a young company employeeNaomi , a cafe waitress; later Joji’s mistress and wifeKumagai , Naomi’s loverHamada , Naomi’s rejected lover
The Novel
Naomi is an ironic account of a seemingly proper gentleman in his mid-twenties who meets a young girl named Naomi, who is working as a waitress in a cafe. The story is told by its protagonist, Joji Kawai. Fascinated by her Western-sounding name and her sensuous beauty, which reminds him of American silent film star Mary Pickford (highly popular in Japan in the 1920’s), Joji decides that he intends to marry Naomi; soon he falls into a Pygmalion-like relationship as he attempts to tame this selfish and willful creature. Joji gives Naomi money for English and voice lessons, only to learn that she is less talented than he had first supposed. She refuses to do any work in the house, buys extravagant clothes, and manipulates Joji into borrowing money under false pretenses from his doting mother, who lives in the country.
Naomi next takes up Western dancing and forces Joji to accompany her to her lessons and to Tokyo dance halls. There he realizes that she has developed a whole coterie of younger male friends unknown to him. The young student Kumagai in particular speaks with Naomi in a fashion which suggests that they have been intimate. Joji’s illusions shatter; his work suffers, and he begins to lose control of himself.
At Naomi’s suggestion, Joji decides to rent a cottage for the summer in the resort town of Kamakura, south of Tokyo. He commutes from there to his job in Tokyo. Naomi seems happy with this arrangement, but Joji learns one evening that she has been carrying on an affair with Kumagai, abetted by Hamada and her other student friends. Horrified, Joji finally manages to demand that Naomi leave him, which she does. Later, talking with Hamada, Joji realizes that Naomi has duped that young man as well; together, they set out to locate her. Naomi, it appears, now goes from lover to lover, some of them Japanese, some Westerners. When she eventually does return to Joji, he is so glad to see her that he easily gives in to her demands that they now live only as “friends,” and he endures as well her sexual and psychological titillations. A slave to her outrageous desires, Joji disposes of his family property, buys a huge Western-style house in the foreign community south of Tokyo in Yokohama, and lives on the periphery of his egotistical wife’s existence, fully aware that his own life is now ruined.
The Characters
Joji is a surprisingly complex creation and hardly a reliable narrator of the story he sets out to tell. Although he prefers to see himself as an upright young Japanese gentleman of the old school, he is prone to unrealistic fantasies concerning Naomi in which she is at least outwardly a docile and fashionable wife, and he attempts to manipulate both her and his mother. That Joji fails to achieve any control over Naomi in line with those fantasies is certainly not from any want of trying. Naomi represents for Joji a kind of Westernized, ideal figure who can fulfill his yearning for the sort of emotional relationship which is actually impossible for him to find in real life. Joji provides a running commentary on all of his rueful adventures, revealing all too clearly how he distorts the truth, both to the reader and himself. Joji reveals some of the same human weaknesses that appear in many of the young heroes of seventeenth and eighteenth century Kabuki plays and popular novels, men who throw themselves away on wild romantic flings. In attempting to break out of his staid life, Joji, like his literary predecessors, leaves behind the prison of convention only to achieve a more private and personal hell.
Naomi, who has been described as a kind of Japanese “Carmen,” is a perfect 1920’s flapper. Beautiful, narcissistic, self-indulgent, she knows exactly what she wants and she gets it. However dubious her behavior, at least as described by Joji, Naomi has the courage of her convictions, the very thing that he lacks. She leads him on because he wants to be led, and her teasing, however thoughtless and cynical, can occur only because Joji foolishly worships her in all the wrong ways.
Kumagai, Hamada (who is also infatuated with Naomi), and a host of other incidental characters are nicely and satirically sketched, but they exist only to fill in the edges of Jun’ichirō Tanizaki’s central cartoon, the battle between Joji and Naomi.
Critical Context
Naomi was Tanizaki’s first popular success, which he soon followed with another highly regarded novel, Tade kuu mushi (1936; Some Prefer Nettles, 1955). In his works, he examined with trenchant irony the mixed cultural values that he detected in his contemporaries, caught between Eastern and Western ideals of behavior and morality. Later, Tanizaki explored traditional Japanese culture in his brilliant 1939-1941 translation into modern Japanese of the eleventh century classic Genji monogatari, by Murasaki Shikibu. Tanizaki then went on to write his own elegy to more traditional Japanese values in his majestic Sasame-yuki (1949; The Makioka Sisters, 1957). Tanizaki’s postwar writings continued to explore cultural and erotic themes in both modern and historical settings, often revealing a profound understanding of traditional Japanese cultural and aesthetic values. Although Naomi is an early work, set in the twentieth century, in it the author first revealed his skill at dealing with themes that were to occupy him for the rest of his creative life. Naomi can thus be seen as a highly suggestive, and altogether successful, prelude to a long, insightful writing career focused on the ultimately mysterious relationships between men, women, and the cultures to which they owe allegiance.
Bibliography
Booklist. LXXXII, October 1, 1985, p. 193.
Kato, Shuichi. “Tanizaki Jun’ichirō and Other Novelists,” in A History of Japanese Literature. Vol. 3, The Modern Years, 1983.
Keene, Donald. “Tanizaki Jun’ichirō,” in Dawn to the West: Japanese Literature of the Modern Era, 1984.
Kirkus Reviews. LIII, September 1, 1985, p. 904.
Library Journal. CX, October 1, 1985, p. 117.
The New Republic. CXCIII, November 11, 1985, p. 36.
The New York Review of Books. XXXII, November 21, 1985, p. 23.
The New York Times Book Review. XC, October 20, 1985, p. 12.
The New Yorker. LXI, November 18, 1985, p. 171.
Petersen, Gwenn Boardman. The Moon in the Water: Understanding Tanizaki, Kawabata, and Mishima, 1979.
Publishers Weekly. CCXXVIII, August 9, 1985, p. 63.
Rimer, J. Thomas. “Tanizaki Jun’ichirō: The Past as Homage,” in Modern Japanese Fiction and Its Traditions, 1978.
Seidensticker, Edward. “Tanizaki Jun’ichirō,” in Monumenta Nipponica. XXI, nos. 3/4 (1966), pp. 249-265.
Ueda, Makoto. “Tanizaki Jun’ichirō,” in Modern Japanese Writers and the Nature of Literature, 1976.
Vogue. CLXXV, September, 1985, p. 498.