The last novel by one of the best-known Japanese writers, Junichiro Tanizaki who died in 1965 at the age of 79. Tanizaki studied Japanese literature at Tokyo Imperial University and in his youth he was strongly influenced by Poe, Baudelaire and Oscar Wilde, but after the earthquake of 1923 he moved to the gentler, more cultured Kyoto region and there became absorbed in the Japanese past and abandoned his superficial Westernization. By 1930 he had gained such recognition that his "Complete works" were published. In spite of illness in the last years of his life, his mind remained as alert as ever, and during this period he wrote of unusual sexual and psychological problems in "The key" (published in this country in 1961) and "Diary of a mad old man". This book has been accepted in the Japanese Translations Series of the United Nations Education, Scientific and Cultural Organization. Tanizaki was awarded the Imperial Award for Cultural Merit in 1949 and was elected an Honorary Member of the American Academy and the National Institute of Arts and Letters in 1964.
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Book Description
Editorial Reviews
Review
"The diarist [is] an absolutely convincing creation ... funny and ultimately appealing." -- The Atlantic
"[A] lean, taut book ... excellently put into English."
-- Saturday Review --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
"[A] lean, taut book ... excellently put into English."
-- Saturday Review --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
Language Notes
Text: English, Japanese (translation)
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
14 of 14 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
An entertaining comedy about sex and old age,
By kfrazier@hotmail.com (Helsinki, Finland) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Diary of a Mad Old Man (Paperback)
Diary of a Mad Old Man is one of the best of Tanizaki's later works. It takes up where earlier Tanizaki novels such as Naomi and Whirlpool left off. Like them, it is a book about absurd sexual obsessions, and like them it is subtle and intelligent and lacks the heavy-breathing solemnity of much modern literary porn. In the Diary, the narrator is an aging man who is apparently impotent yet who nurses a wildly extravagant set of sexual fantasies. His fantasies end up making a mess of his life--as the characters' fantasies always do in Tanizaki's books--and they give us a vision of geriatric sexuality that is almost unique in literature. As usual, Tanizaki is at his most insightful when he is also at his funniest, and the novel is full of the usual Tanizaki complexities that become both more interesting and more amusing the longer you think about them. Tanizaki called himself a feminist (though he is the least polemical of novelists), and his work remains by far the best examination of the way that male sexual obsessions wreck the lives of the men and women who become involved in them.
7 of 8 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Very Entertaining,
By Donald Ford (dford@midrivers.com) (Lavina, Montana United States) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Diary of a Mad Old Man (Paperback)
Like I've said before, one of the things the world lacks is a good supply of well-written, funny books. This fits the bill. The diary is being kept by a tiny, dying old man. The old man finds that bizarre sexual encounters with his daughter-in-law bring him a strangely pleasing vitality. His enjoyment of life increases with his bizarre sexual deviations. One of the funniest parts is where the old man goes around town buying supplies so he can have Bhudda-like cement footprints made of his daughter-in-law so they can hover over his grave for all eternity. This old dude's got himself quite a foot fetish! Mingled in with his sexual thoughts & encounters are listings of medications he's taking & reports of doctor exams. The book balances the sex & the details of his deteriorating condition well. A very interesting juxtapositioning of concepts & actions. Sex being linked to man's vitality is a recurring theme in Tanizaki's works & is the central theme of this very entertaining & well-written book. Get it. You'll love it!
6 of 7 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
A good story,
By Robert Ortiz (The Southwest) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Diary of a Mad Old Man (Paperback)
This is an interesting book about an elderly man named Utsugi who's in poor health; however, his sexual urges are pretty strong. He's infatuated with his daughter-in-law Satsuko, a former dancer with a murky past. He shares his thoughts about her with us in his diary along with his health afflictions, the various medications he takes and the different treatments he undergoes. This is a pretty good book that will hold your attention. While it is a good book, it isn't one of Junichiro Tanizaki's best. I recommend you start elsewhere with one of his other novels first like "The Key", then move on to some of his other works if you decide you like his writing.
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