Two Novels: The Secret History of the Lord of Musashi and Arrowroot [Paperback]

Junichiro Tanizaki (Author), Anthony H. Chambers (Translator)

Book Description

Publication Date: May 1991

From a Japanese master of romantic and sexual obsession come two novels that treat traditional themes with sly wit and startling psychological sophistication. In The Secret History of the Lord of Musashi, Junichir Tanizaki reimagines the exploits of a legendary samurai as a sadomasochistic dance between the hero and the wife of his enemy. Arrowroot, though set in the twentieth century, views an adult orphan’s search for his mother’s past through the translucent shoji screen of ancient literature and myth.

Both works are replete with shocking juxtapositions. Severed heads become objects of erotic fixation. Foxes take on human shape. An aristocratic lady loves and pities the man she is conspiring to destroy. This supple translation reveals the full scope of Tanizaki’s gift: his confident storytelling, luminous detail, and astonishingly vital female characters.

--This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

A lord is perversely fascinated with severed heads in "The Secret History . . . " while a legend-haunted village near Kyoto is explored in the nostalgic "Arrowroot." According to PW, "These novellas, albeit very different in stamp, richly exhibit . . . stylistic grace, humor, a fascination with feminine psychology and masterly storytelling."
Copyright 1991 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Review

“These fictions, subversive and self-referential, join the already dazzling canon of Tanizaki’s work. They are masterpieces.” --The Nation

“Japan's great modern novelist...[Tanizaki] created a lifelong series of ingenious variations on a dominant theme: the power of love to energize and destroy.” --Chicago Tribune

“Junichiro Tanizaki may well prove to be the outstanding Japanese novelist of this century.”--Edmund White, The New York Times Book Review

“Arrowroot is related with a delightful deftness, in the blunt easy tone of a born writer.” --John Updike, The New Yorker

“With the publication of these two novellas one of the major lacunae in Tanizaki’s English translation . . . has been filled. (And with great grace and elegance–the translation is first-rate.) Tanizaki, with his wonderful imagination, his complete artistry, his honesty . . . his classical aesthetic restraint, is one of the great Japanese writers of this century.” --Donald Richie

"[A] master of death and eros. . . . The unthinkable is made breathtakingly real by Tanizaki's eye for detail, which can operate clinically . . . or like that of a primal shaman artist who knows how to turn an ordinary object into a fetish." --L.A. Weekly

“Tanizaki transforms the page into the ritual of Kabuki theater." --Newsday

"One of Japan's most prized novelists of this century." --The Wall Street Journal

"Tanizaki's spare and elegant prose draws us into a society at once familiar . . . and exotic. The disjunction, the remoteness are . . . entrancing." --New York Magazine

--This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 199 pages
• Publisher: North Point Pr (May 1991)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0865474702
• ISBN-13: 978-0865474703
• Product Dimensions: 8 x 5.4 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12.8 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #3,906,398 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A perverse Samurai Lord and a nostalgic trip to a mountain village, September 11, 2005

By 

Zack Davisson "japanreviewed" (Seattle, WA, USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Secret History of the Lord of Musashi and Arrowroot: Two Novels (Paperback)

Junichiro Tanizaki is often a complicated, perverse author. He delves into the mysterious realm of sexual fetishism and body horror, presenting grotesqueries in a uniquely straight-forward writing style that is itself neither fetishistic nor perverse, lending an air of normalcy to the bizarre figures that populate his tales. At the same time, he can write sensitive, beautiful stories without a hint of sexual exploration.

Taking a similar theme in two very different directions, "The Secret History of the Lord of Musashi/Arrowroot" showcases these two sides of Tanizaki's talent. Both deal with "books within a book," using this device as a launching point for the narrative. One is a dark tale of body horror and sexual perversion, and the other is a simple piece of nostalgia. The two stories were said to be the author's favorites.

"The Secret History of the Lord of Musashi" revolves around a fictional Samurai lord, and two fictional "re-discovered texts" that detail the secret sexual life of the Lord of Musashi. From the two books, The Dream of a Night and Memiors of Doamai, the narrator pieces together the cruel pleasures of a man obsessed with nose-less severed heads. In his young boyhood, he watched the women washing the severed heads of defeated Samurai and experienced his first sexual desire while watching their beautiful fingers manipulating the grotesque objects. Unquenched bye the passing years, his fetish leads him to an affair with the passionately cruel Lady Kikyo, who's father's nose he severed as a boy. Finally, his own marriage is encountered, and the abuse of his servant Doamai.

The writing style, using an almost lectural tone of one giving a class on the life of the Lord of Musashi, softens the impact of the horror of using severed heads as sexual aids. It is a very interesting story, in the true Tanizaki style.

"Arrowroot" is much shorter, and is set in the hidden mountains of Yoshino, in Nara prefecture. Two friends take a trip to the mountains, under the premise of going to see a fabled drum in the possession of a small village family. The author thinks of the trip as research into a possible historical novel detailing the Southern Court, while his friend has a secret motive. The story is very beautifully written, sensitive and nostalgic. It is a complete reversal from "The Secret History of the Lord of Musashi" and yet is somehow a perfect companion.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Two of Tanizaki's best!, April 24, 2009

By 

M. Karr - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Secret History of the Lord of Musashi and Arrowroot: Two Novels (Paperback)

This book pairs together two stories that while at first may seem quite different are very similar in style. That style is Junichero Tanizaki's unique way of letting a psychological undercurrent build-up slowly, sometimes almost imperceptibly until you realize that something extremely weird was sitting out amongst the banal truths without notice all along.

Other reviewers have said that the Secret History of Lord Musashi was one of Tanizaki's bloodiest novels. Perhaps that may be true in the sense of Tanizaki's usual subtlety. Readers of modern day horror stories might be bored by the lack of gory details, the lack of splashes of buckets of blood; but people who have learned to relish the wistful macabre of Edgar Allen Poe should definitely enjoy it. The style is unique among what little I've read by Tanizaki as a more historically flavoured narrative at times, yet it still contains the profound sense of psychological depth of all his works.

The second story Arrowroot (which according to the liner notes was not originally published with the first one), is said to have been one of Junichero's personal favourites. Having met his style before makes it easy to see why. Without giving away too much of the plot ... what seems as a nice uneventful stroll through the countryside somehow just isn't. He ever so subtly weaves in bits and pieces of the decidedly Japanese connotation of foxes and drums throughout the narrative until the end of the tale reveals a detail that could seem mundane ... ONLY IT ISN'T!!!

Both of these stories are highly recommended to all readers of Junichero Tanizaki, as well as anyone wanting to explore the subtle style of Japanese literature. This book, along with his "Seven Japanese Tales", now ranks among my favourites.

MDK

2 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Remember, these are novels..., June 23, 2000

By 

M. A. Ramos (Florida USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The secret history of the Lord of Musashi ; and, Arrowroot (Hardcover)

This books contains two novellas by Junichiro Tanizaki and tranlated by Anthony Chambers. Tanizaki wrote these in 1930 and they are suppose to be his favorite.

The Secret History of the Lord of Musashi is filled with scandel. The subject is of a great lord whose sexual fixations includes a sick obsession in severed heads, espcially those without noses. This is more of a horror story of old.

Arrowroot is meditative, poetic, it describes the journey of two friends traveling together. One is looking for information about a lost imperial court from the 15th centuary, the other is trying to understand his dead mother.