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The Key & Diary of a Mad Old Man
These two modern classics by the great Japanese novelist Junichiro Tanizaki, both utilize the diary form to explore the authority that love and sex have over all.
In The Key, a middle-aged professor plies his wife of thirty years with any number of stimulants, from brandy to a handsome young lover, in order to reach new heights of pleasure. Their alternating diaries record their separate adventures, but whether for themselvess or each other becomes the question. Diary of a Mad Old Man records, with alternating humor and sadness, seventy-seven-year-old Utsugi’s discovery that even his stroke-ravaged body still contains a raging libido, especially in the unwitting presence of his chic, mysterious daughter-in-law.
In The Key, a middle-aged professor plies his wife of thirty years with any number of stimulants, from brandy to a handsome young lover, in order to reach new heights of pleasure. Their alternating diaries record their separate adventures, but whether for themselvess or each other becomes the question. Diary of a Mad Old Man records, with alternating humor and sadness, seventy-seven-year-old Utsugi’s discovery that even his stroke-ravaged body still contains a raging libido, especially in the unwitting presence of his chic, mysterious daughter-in-law.
368 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1961
About the author
Jun'ichirō Tanizaki
455 books1,933 followersJun'ichirō Tanizaki (谷崎 潤一郎) was a Japanese author, and one of the major writers of modern Japanese literature, perhaps the most popular Japanese novelist after Natsume Sōseki.
Some of his works present a rather shocking world of sexuality and destructive erotic obsessions; others, less sensational, subtly portray the dynamics of family life in the context of the rapid changes in 20th-century Japanese society.
Frequently his stories are narrated in the context of a search for cultural identity in which constructions of "the West" and "Japanese tradition" are juxtaposed. The results are complex, ironic, demure, and provocative.
Some of his works present a rather shocking world of sexuality and destructive erotic obsessions; others, less sensational, subtly portray the dynamics of family life in the context of the rapid changes in 20th-century Japanese society.
Frequently his stories are narrated in the context of a search for cultural identity in which constructions of "the West" and "Japanese tradition" are juxtaposed. The results are complex, ironic, demure, and provocative.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 51 reviews
August 26, 2020
El presente volúmen se compone de dos libros de Tanizaki.
“La llave” (1956) y “Diario de un viejo loco” (1961). En ambos, la estructura es similar, se desarrolla en forma de diario. El primero en realidad son dos diarios en donde se van alternando las descripciones diarias de los dos protagonistas. En el segundo, conocemos el punto de vista de viejo loco más unos apéndices que dan fin a la historia.
En los dos, están presenten el tema del erotismo, la belleza femenina que nubla la mente de los hombres y el pulso de vida. Vivir hasta el último aliento para satisfacer los deseos íntimos.
Interesante lectura sobre lo que somos y seremos. Animales racionales con instintos.
“La llave” (1956) y “Diario de un viejo loco” (1961). En ambos, la estructura es similar, se desarrolla en forma de diario. El primero en realidad son dos diarios en donde se van alternando las descripciones diarias de los dos protagonistas. En el segundo, conocemos el punto de vista de viejo loco más unos apéndices que dan fin a la historia.
En los dos, están presenten el tema del erotismo, la belleza femenina que nubla la mente de los hombres y el pulso de vida. Vivir hasta el último aliento para satisfacer los deseos íntimos.
Interesante lectura sobre lo que somos y seremos. Animales racionales con instintos.
Read
September 18, 2019I had a Japanese day the other day. I decided that sashimi would be an excellent post-workout meal (it was), and that I should curl up with some Tanizaki and a shochu, and watch Nagisa Oshima's "In the Realm of the Senses" (which is brilliant, but I legit wanted to claw out my eyes at some of the imagery in there, Jesus fuck). This makes Tanizaki's grotesque, intimately told stories about dirty old men with laundry lists of fetishes were the second-most disturbing piece of art about social decline in mid-century Japan viewed through the lens of sexual deviancy I encountered.
Why doesn't the rest of the world do shit on this level? The French have a few stellar representatives -- Bataille, Mirbeau, Huysmans -- but it's nowhere near the standard. In Japan it seems awfully close to mainstream.
Why doesn't the rest of the world do shit on this level? The French have a few stellar representatives -- Bataille, Mirbeau, Huysmans -- but it's nowhere near the standard. In Japan it seems awfully close to mainstream.
October 21, 2009
Longing and desire are at the heart of these two short novels, each utilizing a diary format in which the characters write their deepest, darkest & yes, kinkiest yearnings. This is nothing if not a sexy book in a perverse Tanizaki way (i.e. not for everyone). There is a great deal of pathos here (a 77 year old man obsessively longing for his beautiful daughter-in-law, a long-married couple who seem to have no true intimacy - in bed or elsewhere) but there are also several strong doses of dark humor to keep things in check. In Tanizaki's obsessive world, longing can destroy you but also keeps you alive with its perpetual hope.
But before I get myself into too much trouble, I would like to draw a parallel between Tanizaki and Prince as I believe they have much in common:
http://www.livevideo.com/video/DA74EA...
But before I get myself into too much trouble, I would like to draw a parallel between Tanizaki and Prince as I believe they have much in common:
http://www.livevideo.com/video/DA74EA...
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January 5, 2024Dos novelas del japonés Junichiro Tanizaki, las que, mediante el formato del diario de vida, desarrollan historias en dónde la presencia del erotismo, la enfermedad, la atracción y la vejez permean las experiencias de los personajes involucrados, los que se encuentran en permanente estado de sospecha por parte de los lectores, debido a las intenciones que ocultan tras cada entrada que conforman sus diarios personales.
Dos diarios de vida de una pareja que experimenta un acentuado declive en su matrimonio, son las piezas que constituyen la novela La llave. En un intrincado juego de conjeturas, secretos y señales asolapadas, ambos diarios revelan los deseos y anhelos eróticos de personajes que no dudan en llevar sus propias vidas a los límites de la muerte.
En el Diario de un viejo loco, un cabeza de familia de 77 años, enfermo e impotente, vuelca su atención en Satsuko, esposa de su hijo mayor. El viejo Utsugi, consiente de la inminencia de su muerte, dispone sus escasas energías en lograr satisfacer sus cada vez más desbocados e hilarantes apetencias, los que lo orillan a alarmantes estados de enfermedad física y mental a medida que corren los días en su diario personal.
Me quedo con La llave, sin desmerecer al Diario de un viejo loco, que mantiene un tono jocoso permanente en su desarrollo. Sin embargo, uno de los aspectos que me dejaron con interrogantes acerca del uso del formato del diario de vida, es acerca del uso de los diálogos que se encuentran al interior de las entradas por día en cada diario personal, los que, en su utilización, se acercan mucho más, quizás, a los utilizados en novelas en dónde no se encuentre este formato. Me daba la impresión de que en un diario de vida no se escribirían los diálogos de forma tan estructurada, o estaría su contenido incluido en reflexiones personales en cada diario.
Dos diarios de vida de una pareja que experimenta un acentuado declive en su matrimonio, son las piezas que constituyen la novela La llave. En un intrincado juego de conjeturas, secretos y señales asolapadas, ambos diarios revelan los deseos y anhelos eróticos de personajes que no dudan en llevar sus propias vidas a los límites de la muerte.
En el Diario de un viejo loco, un cabeza de familia de 77 años, enfermo e impotente, vuelca su atención en Satsuko, esposa de su hijo mayor. El viejo Utsugi, consiente de la inminencia de su muerte, dispone sus escasas energías en lograr satisfacer sus cada vez más desbocados e hilarantes apetencias, los que lo orillan a alarmantes estados de enfermedad física y mental a medida que corren los días en su diario personal.
Me quedo con La llave, sin desmerecer al Diario de un viejo loco, que mantiene un tono jocoso permanente en su desarrollo. Sin embargo, uno de los aspectos que me dejaron con interrogantes acerca del uso del formato del diario de vida, es acerca del uso de los diálogos que se encuentran al interior de las entradas por día en cada diario personal, los que, en su utilización, se acercan mucho más, quizás, a los utilizados en novelas en dónde no se encuentre este formato. Me daba la impresión de que en un diario de vida no se escribirían los diálogos de forma tan estructurada, o estaría su contenido incluido en reflexiones personales en cada diario.
September 11, 2022
Yo creo que el libro de Kawabata no me hubiera resultado tan aburrido si no hubiera leído primero estas dos pequeñas obras maestras de Tanizaki. La llave es mi novela favorita, en ella una esposa y un esposo escriben sus diarios y escriben confiados en que su cónyuge lee sus pensamientos privados a escondidas. Lo curioso es que ninguno lee el diario del otro; es un matrimonio que se desmorona y que está plagado de incomunicación. Ninguno de los dos adivina lo que el otro piensa. Así como el lenguaje puede construir puentes, también puede levantar trampas insondables. En el Diario de un viejo loco, está mi viejo degenerado favorito, esta vez obsesionado con la esposa de su hijo. Ambas novelas tienen un erotismo muy sutil. La verdad que hasta ahora mi japonés favorito es Tanizaki (me falta leer a Mishima.)
¿Acaso el deseo que nos asesina no es el mismo que nos mantiene vivos?
¿Acaso el deseo que nos asesina no es el mismo que nos mantiene vivos?
September 12, 2023
En el diario de un viejo loco, con sutil erotismo, Tanizaki despliega ante el lector las páginas íntimas de los últimos días de un hombre obsesionado con su nuera y el juego de seducción que se desarrolla entre ellos. A veces perturbador e incómodo, este diario consigna el declive y la decrepitud que contrastan con el deseo y la pulsión de vida que despierta una ilusión.
La literatura japonesa tiene una cadencia tan particular, tan propia, que es inconfundible.
La literatura japonesa tiene una cadencia tan particular, tan propia, que es inconfundible.
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September 16, 2007The Key is perhaps the ideal point of entry to the world of Tanizaki; the perfect encapsulation of his themes and style. Employing a twin diary format, The Key oscillates between the private diaries of a middle-aged man (Kenmochi) and his beautiful wife (Ikuko), revealing the perverse relationship they share, along with that of their comparatively unattractive adult daughter (Toshiko) and her would-be lover (Kimura), the true love interest of Ikuko. Kenmochi is getting on in years and no longer has what it takes to satisfy his wife; consequently he finds himself subtly creating situations where she is liable to cheat on him. He doesn’t believe she actually will, being a self-described traditional woman who abides by traditional values, but the very prospect of it excites him. The more jealous he becomes, the higher his libido rises – as does his blood pressure. The perversity is both obvious (e.g., Kenmochi takes nude photographs of his unconscious wife and then asks Kimura to develop them) and subtle (e.g., Ikuko slyly exposes the bare toes on her feet, arousing her husband’s foot fetish), but the complexity of these entangled relationships is by and large handled subtly, with the layers of deception piling into their respective diaries, each of which they suspect the other to be secretly reading, thus making the veracity of the contents extremely suspect, forcing the reader to ponder the truth right along with the characters.
Tanizaki’s characters are mostly masochists, and The Key exemplifies this. A quote from the novel suggests how convoluted these masochistic feelings and actions become in his work:
“I’m the one who lent your husband the Polaroid camera,” he told me. “I suppose he wanted to search out every detail of your body – but more than that, I think he wanted to make me suffer. I think he likes having me develop the films; he likes exciting me, and making me fight a terrible temptation. And he relishes the thought that my own feelings are reflected in you, till you’re as tormented as I am. It’s cruel of him to do this to us, but I still don’t want to betray him. I see how you are suffering, and I want to suffer with you – I want to suffer more and more deeply.”
The mother and daughter are essentially vying for the same man, and here Tanizaki adds a common theme in his work: the tension between the traditional and the modern. The mother wears traditional Japanese garb, kimonos and such, while the daughter wears strictly western clothes. Interestingly, as Ikuko begins to see Kimura, she, too, begins to dress in western clothes – thus the corruption of her fidelity is linked to the modern, western culture. Tanizaki, like many of his contemporary writers, held a nostalgic longing for traditional Japanese culture, and as such I believe this reading is consistent with his worldview.
I would be all set to proclaim The Key one of Tanizaki’s very greatest novels, were it not for the final 15 pages. For reasons I won’t begin to fathom, he decided to explain everything away, in extreme detail, thus destroying the mysterious tone he had created through the many layers of deceptions. Certainly, some of the conclusions are fascinating, but they were already implicit in what he had previously written. By comparison, Ichikawa’s film adaptation, Odd Obsession, changes the ending drastically, or to be more precise, it looks past the ending of the novel and imagines what might happen to these characters. It’s a devilish finale in keeping with the layered deceptions found elsewhere in the novel, and a more satisfying conclusion to the story than the one Tanizaki has supplied. Nevertheless, the film never gets into the psychologies of its characters with the same relish that Tanizaki’s diary form allows, but that is in keeping with Ichikawa’s mode of adaptation, which relies more on the concrete and external than the psychological.
Tanizaki’s characters are mostly masochists, and The Key exemplifies this. A quote from the novel suggests how convoluted these masochistic feelings and actions become in his work:
“I’m the one who lent your husband the Polaroid camera,” he told me. “I suppose he wanted to search out every detail of your body – but more than that, I think he wanted to make me suffer. I think he likes having me develop the films; he likes exciting me, and making me fight a terrible temptation. And he relishes the thought that my own feelings are reflected in you, till you’re as tormented as I am. It’s cruel of him to do this to us, but I still don’t want to betray him. I see how you are suffering, and I want to suffer with you – I want to suffer more and more deeply.”
The mother and daughter are essentially vying for the same man, and here Tanizaki adds a common theme in his work: the tension between the traditional and the modern. The mother wears traditional Japanese garb, kimonos and such, while the daughter wears strictly western clothes. Interestingly, as Ikuko begins to see Kimura, she, too, begins to dress in western clothes – thus the corruption of her fidelity is linked to the modern, western culture. Tanizaki, like many of his contemporary writers, held a nostalgic longing for traditional Japanese culture, and as such I believe this reading is consistent with his worldview.
I would be all set to proclaim The Key one of Tanizaki’s very greatest novels, were it not for the final 15 pages. For reasons I won’t begin to fathom, he decided to explain everything away, in extreme detail, thus destroying the mysterious tone he had created through the many layers of deceptions. Certainly, some of the conclusions are fascinating, but they were already implicit in what he had previously written. By comparison, Ichikawa’s film adaptation, Odd Obsession, changes the ending drastically, or to be more precise, it looks past the ending of the novel and imagines what might happen to these characters. It’s a devilish finale in keeping with the layered deceptions found elsewhere in the novel, and a more satisfying conclusion to the story than the one Tanizaki has supplied. Nevertheless, the film never gets into the psychologies of its characters with the same relish that Tanizaki’s diary form allows, but that is in keeping with Ichikawa’s mode of adaptation, which relies more on the concrete and external than the psychological.
February 16, 2021
Excelentes novelas cortas, las dos en forma de diario. El primero, creo, es el más impresionante: La Llave, un juego de dos voces, un marido y una mujer, a través de sus diarios. Este juego no es solamente entre ellos, narrativamente, sino a su vez con el lector/espectador, que hace como escudriñador de estos diarios. Los diarios son parte de un juego macabro y lleno filias del marido para con su mujer, aunque finalmente el juego se da la vuelta. En medio de este juego, están su hija y un amigo de la pareja que provoca los celos y los deseos oscuros del marido, que llega hasta la violación de la mujer. Al igual que el siguiente, el marido sufre de problemas cardiacos y le hacen decidirse por el erotismo y el sexo en vez de la salud.
La segunda novela es similar, erótica, aunque en este caso es un viejo enamorado de la cariñosa y caprichosa mujer del hijo. También es excelente, aunque no como La Llave.
La segunda novela es similar, erótica, aunque en este caso es un viejo enamorado de la cariñosa y caprichosa mujer del hijo. También es excelente, aunque no como La Llave.
July 28, 2014
The usual Tanizaki bag of tricks—unreliable, bumbling narrators with unusual fetishes obsessing over women who play them for fools—told through a diary frame. "The Key" has the advantage of being told by two unreliable narrators on opposite ends of the relationship—something similar to what he did in "A Man, A Cat, and Two Women"—but loses something by having a coda that explains everything ambiguous, all the tensions that were deliciously implied. The Mad Old Man only has half the ambiguity, yet benefits from its clinical objectivity at the end. Companion pieces, yes, and not without their charms, but never quite as tense and nervy as some of Tanizaki's earlier work; one gets the sense of having read this before, just with different names, and without the bittersweet, tragic implications of "Some Prefer Nettles."
March 26, 2022
Tanizaki is a master of the playfully erotic fetish novel. In these two thematically linked short novels, older men seek dirty, perverse, forbidden gratification in a swiftly changing Japan. Lots of foot fetishism, masochism, and voyeurism. Tanizaki was truely ahead of his time. Even contemporary erotic novels dont reach this level of sleaze and beauty. Like cuckolding? Like lecherous old men? Like feet? Like laughing your ass off at scheming men who are powerless before the women they desire? These are the novels for you.
March 20, 2018
What a brilliant book! Tanizaki is a master psychologist.He explores human nature and our inner most desires like no other.His prose style seems visceral yet it is so pellucid and moving.On a more jocular vein I think all married couples ought to read this.
November 27, 2022
One of the most nauseating and male gazey books I have ever read. From the obsession over skin peach fuzz to the foot fetishes, the women aren't allowed to exist without being sexual objects motivated by a twisted desire to appeal to men and their voyeuristic, masochistic desires. I thought at the start the book, that it was a self aware reflection on the male psyche and cultural expressions of sexuality, but both the plot and writing style (discounting the fact it actually changes into another book in the middle) spiralled into an epistolary, boring mess with dead, repetitive prose. I only reason I persisted with the boring pages explaining medical dosages, apart from it being my only book on a no WiFi trip, was to (spoiler) celebrate the old man's death and gleefully plan to use the paper as kindling. Uncomfortable sensuality (which to its credence, was probably it's aim), a lack of self awareness, and the most ick inducing reflection of the male gaze in its most naked form, and the fact that the sexualising of female characters (and their apparent passive enjoyment in this) are not freed from their objectification even with the distance of a grave all contributes to my vehement hatred of the book. The 'diary' theme is more an excuse for the author to voice their weird fantasies through a lens of deniability and 'internal exploration' makes me want to give the book a - 5/10. It gets points for being good potential backup kindling and making me feel such extreme dislike and repulsion for it.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
April 9, 2019
Sin duda Tanizaki encabeza mi lista de escritores japoneses favoritos, su prosa cautiva y mantiene la atención. En este relato, se exploran los deseos delirantes de un viejo ante su nuera, una mujer joven y bella que logra mantener esos deseos en la justa medida para atender también sus lujosos caprichos.
Disfruté el estilo de la narración y, como buen ejemplar de literatura japonesa, el final te deja expectante por su simplicidad.
Disfruté el estilo de la narración y, como buen ejemplar de literatura japonesa, el final te deja expectante por su simplicidad.
April 9, 2016
Sorry...I just don't like the old man and his weird and disgusting thoughts.
Shelved as 'fic-guided'
June 26, 2020Most of us read novels most intensely at two stages of life. First in early adolescence – when one lives with one’s nose in a book. Secondly late in life, when one has time to ‘get round’ to the books one has always promised oneself to read. With reference to ‘sunset reading’, much interesting fiction nowadays seems directed to the question ‘how to live old’. I am struck in bookshops by racks, newly erected in the last decade, offering ‘teen fiction’. If walk-in bookshops survive (not a certainty) I shall expect soon to see racks spring up labelled ‘old guys’ novels’. Prominent among such fiction’s themes is how should the old male – ‘old devils’, as Kingsley Amis called them – deal with their inconvenient sexual desire? Amis gives one (English) answer; Philip Roth another (American) answer (see THE DYING ANIMAL); Tanizaki offers a third, distinctively Japanese, answer. The Diary of a Mad Old Man is a fascinating mid-to-late-life read. It was published when the author was seventy-five – three years before his death, and already inexorably on the way there. The ‘Mad Old Man’ of the title, ‘Mr Utsugi’, a couple of years older than his author, keeps a diary in which he records his (very) private thoughts.
He lives prosperously in 1950s Tokyo, a rebuilt city he loathes, in a house which he shares with his wife, who is never named and does not much matter. His son Jokichi is a busy businessman – rarely at home. His daughter-in-law Satsuko is a former cabaret performer. The marriage was not initially pleasing to the Utsugi family. The young couple have an eight-year-old son whose occasional intrusions infuriate his grandfather. The diary records visits to the Kabuki theatre, afternoons in a tea-house, evening meals (‘I have been hungry for eel recently’ – he particularly relishes the viscera). The diary records in meticulous detail his ailments – due to a growing debility, neuralgia, he can now barely walk to his pavilion with his snakewood stick, and he requires a night nurse, whose very occasional nights off provoke intense irritation. He is a prescription drug addict (he knows more about pharmaceuticals, one of his doctors observes, than any intern). He is physically decayed and brutally honest with himself on the subject:
I know very well that I am an ugly, wrinkled old man. When I look in the mirror at bedtime after taking out my false teeth, the face I see is really weird . . . not even monkeys have such hideous faces.
He is wholly impotent, but sexually alive – it is the only thing in him, in fact, which is not dying:
I haven’t the slightest desire to cling to life, yet as long as I live I cannot help feeling attracted to the opposite sex . . . I can enjoy sexual stimulation in all kinds of distorted indirect ways. At present I am living for that pleasure.
His desire – obsessional in its intensity – is directed at his flighty daughter-in-law, who lives for American movies and good times. But she has beautiful feet – Utsugi’s fetish (necks he also rather likes). Seeing her advantage, Satsuko cunningly teases her ‘father’, allowing him to dry her feet after a shower. For a cat’s eye ring – costing a cool three million yen (around $40,000 dollars in current value) – she intimates, he may have even more exciting privileges. He stumps up and she allows him some ‘heavy petting’. His systolic blood pressure count soars to 240.
The second half of the diary recounts a visit to Kyoto (an unspoiled city Utsugi loves) to arrange his tombstone and final resting place. He intends to have casts of Satsuko’s feet (anonymously) carved into the stone which will accompany him through eternity. The Totentanz comes to its inevitable climax and Mr Utsugi has a second stroke. The novel tails off with bleak medical reports on his near-vegetative condition. The story is wonderfully whittled down to an obsession – what Hardy (echoing Dido) called veteris vestigia flammae – ‘the last flames’. There is not a single mention of the Second World War in the novel.
He lives prosperously in 1950s Tokyo, a rebuilt city he loathes, in a house which he shares with his wife, who is never named and does not much matter. His son Jokichi is a busy businessman – rarely at home. His daughter-in-law Satsuko is a former cabaret performer. The marriage was not initially pleasing to the Utsugi family. The young couple have an eight-year-old son whose occasional intrusions infuriate his grandfather. The diary records visits to the Kabuki theatre, afternoons in a tea-house, evening meals (‘I have been hungry for eel recently’ – he particularly relishes the viscera). The diary records in meticulous detail his ailments – due to a growing debility, neuralgia, he can now barely walk to his pavilion with his snakewood stick, and he requires a night nurse, whose very occasional nights off provoke intense irritation. He is a prescription drug addict (he knows more about pharmaceuticals, one of his doctors observes, than any intern). He is physically decayed and brutally honest with himself on the subject:
I know very well that I am an ugly, wrinkled old man. When I look in the mirror at bedtime after taking out my false teeth, the face I see is really weird . . . not even monkeys have such hideous faces.
He is wholly impotent, but sexually alive – it is the only thing in him, in fact, which is not dying:
I haven’t the slightest desire to cling to life, yet as long as I live I cannot help feeling attracted to the opposite sex . . . I can enjoy sexual stimulation in all kinds of distorted indirect ways. At present I am living for that pleasure.
His desire – obsessional in its intensity – is directed at his flighty daughter-in-law, who lives for American movies and good times. But she has beautiful feet – Utsugi’s fetish (necks he also rather likes). Seeing her advantage, Satsuko cunningly teases her ‘father’, allowing him to dry her feet after a shower. For a cat’s eye ring – costing a cool three million yen (around $40,000 dollars in current value) – she intimates, he may have even more exciting privileges. He stumps up and she allows him some ‘heavy petting’. His systolic blood pressure count soars to 240.
The second half of the diary recounts a visit to Kyoto (an unspoiled city Utsugi loves) to arrange his tombstone and final resting place. He intends to have casts of Satsuko’s feet (anonymously) carved into the stone which will accompany him through eternity. The Totentanz comes to its inevitable climax and Mr Utsugi has a second stroke. The novel tails off with bleak medical reports on his near-vegetative condition. The story is wonderfully whittled down to an obsession – what Hardy (echoing Dido) called veteris vestigia flammae – ‘the last flames’. There is not a single mention of the Second World War in the novel.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
March 20, 2020
It makes sense that the publisher put these two novels together. Both are written in diary format, though "The Key" has dueling writers. Both articulate sexual deviant thoughts and fantasies of an old Japanese man with a proclivity toward foot fetish.
In "The Key" a 50-something husband and his 40-something wife are both writing diaries. Many events are describes from the two vantage points. The entries are written over a half year period. The wife, encouraged by the husband and their 20-something daughter, engages in an extramarital affair with a man who initially dates the daughter. This man brings new vigor and excitement into the couple's sex life. The husband has odd fetishes and perversions and the wife tolerates his behavior. She finds many of her husband's behavior disgusting but also grudgingly appreciates his love and worship of her body. The back and forth entries are interesting. The husband and the daughter's tacit acceptance of the extramarital liaison is surprising and a bit disturbing. Besides his sexual deviance, the husband has high-blood pressure and poor health and his excited state in his sexual acts put him at risk.
"The Diary of a Mad Old Man" describes the relation between an 77-year-old man and his son's estranged wife. She is a beautiful young woman named Satsuko who previously worked as a dancer. She is aware of her power over her perverted father-in-law and openly manipulates him. She tempts him and gives him small indulgences such as watching her bathing. He is impotent and in poor health. Mentally he is afire with lust for her. He realizes she is manipulating him for money and favors. He is a masochistic and enjoys the humiliation and torment. The more she takes advantage and treats him with disdain, the more he obsesses with her. She understands the game and we are witness to this twisted relationship.
Tanizaki bravely bares his soul with these unflattering accounts. The stories are sad, poignant and original. The diary format works well. We see how these unhealthy relationships and obsessions form over a short period of time and quickly envelop the players in these sexual fantasies and farces. A curious set of books that show the thoughts of polite and vulnerable sexual deviants and how they are slaves to their sexual obsessions.
In "The Key" a 50-something husband and his 40-something wife are both writing diaries. Many events are describes from the two vantage points. The entries are written over a half year period. The wife, encouraged by the husband and their 20-something daughter, engages in an extramarital affair with a man who initially dates the daughter. This man brings new vigor and excitement into the couple's sex life. The husband has odd fetishes and perversions and the wife tolerates his behavior. She finds many of her husband's behavior disgusting but also grudgingly appreciates his love and worship of her body. The back and forth entries are interesting. The husband and the daughter's tacit acceptance of the extramarital liaison is surprising and a bit disturbing. Besides his sexual deviance, the husband has high-blood pressure and poor health and his excited state in his sexual acts put him at risk.
"The Diary of a Mad Old Man" describes the relation between an 77-year-old man and his son's estranged wife. She is a beautiful young woman named Satsuko who previously worked as a dancer. She is aware of her power over her perverted father-in-law and openly manipulates him. She tempts him and gives him small indulgences such as watching her bathing. He is impotent and in poor health. Mentally he is afire with lust for her. He realizes she is manipulating him for money and favors. He is a masochistic and enjoys the humiliation and torment. The more she takes advantage and treats him with disdain, the more he obsesses with her. She understands the game and we are witness to this twisted relationship.
Tanizaki bravely bares his soul with these unflattering accounts. The stories are sad, poignant and original. The diary format works well. We see how these unhealthy relationships and obsessions form over a short period of time and quickly envelop the players in these sexual fantasies and farces. A curious set of books that show the thoughts of polite and vulnerable sexual deviants and how they are slaves to their sexual obsessions.
January 17, 2021
Two stories about horny old men. HORNY! That’s it. That is the review.
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Joke. They are still about horny old men but also a commentary on how sexually expressive people could be living in a conservative postwar Japanese society. The novels are not erotic at all (it is a bit in the most disgusting manner). Instead, they are super funny and humorous. My heart, people, was tickled.
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The Key is about a middle-aged couple writing about their sexual desires in their diaries. The husband is physically weak but super obsessed with the wife. She is vigorous but too proper for her own good. There is the daughter who is basically revolted by the whole thing. Ugh. Very icky, I tell you. The whole thing just screams male-gaze. Women are objects of desire etc etc. Ugh.
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Diary of A Mad Old Man is literally about a mad old HORNY man who is lusting over the daughter-in-law. Again, ughhh. His heart is weak so he finds this obsession a good reason to live. She plays him well too, asking him to buy things and give her power to run the household. There are a few disgusting shower scenes involving foot-kissing. Ughhhh. I felt like vomiting and laughing at the same time.
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4/5. I must say, the novels are highly entertaining. It speaks a lot about dynamics in a marriage and how propriety limits expression. I wonder though why the main characters are old men. Do they represent how male-dominated the idea of authority in Japan is? Is it a commentary on power and greed? Perhaps. I love Junichiro Tanizaki - his novel The Makioka Sisters is amazing. I may not love these icky stories but damn I had a great time reading them.
.
Joke. They are still about horny old men but also a commentary on how sexually expressive people could be living in a conservative postwar Japanese society. The novels are not erotic at all (it is a bit in the most disgusting manner). Instead, they are super funny and humorous. My heart, people, was tickled.
.
The Key is about a middle-aged couple writing about their sexual desires in their diaries. The husband is physically weak but super obsessed with the wife. She is vigorous but too proper for her own good. There is the daughter who is basically revolted by the whole thing. Ugh. Very icky, I tell you. The whole thing just screams male-gaze. Women are objects of desire etc etc. Ugh.
.
Diary of A Mad Old Man is literally about a mad old HORNY man who is lusting over the daughter-in-law. Again, ughhh. His heart is weak so he finds this obsession a good reason to live. She plays him well too, asking him to buy things and give her power to run the household. There are a few disgusting shower scenes involving foot-kissing. Ughhhh. I felt like vomiting and laughing at the same time.
.
4/5. I must say, the novels are highly entertaining. It speaks a lot about dynamics in a marriage and how propriety limits expression. I wonder though why the main characters are old men. Do they represent how male-dominated the idea of authority in Japan is? Is it a commentary on power and greed? Perhaps. I love Junichiro Tanizaki - his novel The Makioka Sisters is amazing. I may not love these icky stories but damn I had a great time reading them.
July 14, 2017
Tanizaki is absolutely mesmerizing. Every time I read one of his novels, I walk away feeling as though I have been bewitched by his work. These works were no different. This book is definitely worth a look. It will most assuredly change your outlook on getting older.
The Key - This story of a married couple documenting their intimacy in their own diaries was amazing. While the couple wrote their own feelings down, they never actually spoke to each other regarding their desires. Rather, they assumed that the other read their diary so they must have known. It was interesting to watch this couple throw themselves into destruction all in the name of satisfying their seemingly ravenous sexual appetites. The twist at the end made me ill but it made the story all the more interesting.
Diary of a Mad Old Man - This was an enlightening look at an Utsugi Tokusuke as he documented the desires of his libido in his twilight years. Most of his focus was on his daughter-in-law, Satsuko. It was rather sad too as Tokusuke couldn't do what he used to, he would do anything just for a little bit of satisfaction (a kiss, spending time with Satsuko, etc). I think that this may have been a reflection of Tanizaki's own life. At the time that this was written, he was in his twilight years and passed a few years after the story was published. It probably surprised him at that age he would still have those desires. Just because someone is older, doesn't mean they are dead to the world.
The Key - This story of a married couple documenting their intimacy in their own diaries was amazing. While the couple wrote their own feelings down, they never actually spoke to each other regarding their desires. Rather, they assumed that the other read their diary so they must have known. It was interesting to watch this couple throw themselves into destruction all in the name of satisfying their seemingly ravenous sexual appetites. The twist at the end made me ill but it made the story all the more interesting.
Diary of a Mad Old Man - This was an enlightening look at an Utsugi Tokusuke as he documented the desires of his libido in his twilight years. Most of his focus was on his daughter-in-law, Satsuko. It was rather sad too as Tokusuke couldn't do what he used to, he would do anything just for a little bit of satisfaction (a kiss, spending time with Satsuko, etc). I think that this may have been a reflection of Tanizaki's own life. At the time that this was written, he was in his twilight years and passed a few years after the story was published. It probably surprised him at that age he would still have those desires. Just because someone is older, doesn't mean they are dead to the world.
April 27, 2021
The Key was quite enjoyable. I’d consider it a very Tanizaki type of work. I love how the author made the dynamic between the husband and wife come to life with their diary entries.
The Diary of a Mad Old Man was honestly distasteful. Satsuko (the main girl in the story) really had no character depth unlike Tanizaki’s Naomi. The narrator is an old man with a foot fetish and a weird sexual desire for his daughter in law. Honestly, I’m not sure how this was suppose to represent an aging person and their appetite for life/pleasure. He just seems like a creepy old man to me. Maybe that was the point of the story? Nonetheless, I didn’t vibe with it.
The Diary of a Mad Old Man was honestly distasteful. Satsuko (the main girl in the story) really had no character depth unlike Tanizaki’s Naomi. The narrator is an old man with a foot fetish and a weird sexual desire for his daughter in law. Honestly, I’m not sure how this was suppose to represent an aging person and their appetite for life/pleasure. He just seems like a creepy old man to me. Maybe that was the point of the story? Nonetheless, I didn’t vibe with it.
November 26, 2022
- WEIRD AFFFF
- both stories had like such elements of non-con i was actually uncomfortable
- murakami has an ear fetish, tanizaki has a foot fetish, bruh what is next????
- i got the role of sex in the first story, but i couldn’t really figure it out in the second? it really just made me feel like the old man was pretty pathetic and trying to leech off of satsuko’s youth or re-experience his own youth but it just came off as overall creepy
- i get that sex is supposed to be a central theme in these stories but it was just way too weird and explicit and r*pey, maybe i’m just not intelligent enough to appreciate the meaning but it was so off to me
- both stories had like such elements of non-con i was actually uncomfortable
- murakami has an ear fetish, tanizaki has a foot fetish, bruh what is next????
- i got the role of sex in the first story, but i couldn’t really figure it out in the second? it really just made me feel like the old man was pretty pathetic and trying to leech off of satsuko’s youth or re-experience his own youth but it just came off as overall creepy
- i get that sex is supposed to be a central theme in these stories but it was just way too weird and explicit and r*pey, maybe i’m just not intelligent enough to appreciate the meaning but it was so off to me
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
December 1, 2019
2.5 stars. Personally, i prefer the key over the diary of a mad old man. For me, it is more interesting to read on the key as it plays more on the dynamics of a married couple and it is twistedly heartwarming to see a married man trying to ignite passion in a very unconventional way. The diary of a mad old man on the other hand, is plain perverse. There is nothing to like or relatable for me in it.
January 25, 2019
Jun'ichiro Tanizaki was, for me, a writer who diminished the more of his books I've read.
Of the two novellas in this collection, The Key is more interesting because of how it plays with perception. But both are just super horny and repetitive in the way all Tanizaki, outside of The Makioka Sisters, sort of erotically puddles and pools together repetitively.
Of the two novellas in this collection, The Key is more interesting because of how it plays with perception. But both are just super horny and repetitive in the way all Tanizaki, outside of The Makioka Sisters, sort of erotically puddles and pools together repetitively.
July 11, 2022
I just read the key, but bro that it made me so uncomfortable I almost stopped twice. This author must've been one of the horniest, weirdest dudes or he just happens to be really good at writing from fucked up perspectives. The writing style was actually pretty solid and the mini-twist type thing at the end was kind of interesting but I genuinely wouldn't recommend this to anyone.
Read
May 1, 2022The Key - Two ships passing in the night, but going in the same direction. Two lovers who love each other but are impenetrable to each other, groping faithlessly in the darkness. Very existential stuff.
Diary of a Mad Old Man - Honestly I prefer Naomi.
Diary of a Mad Old Man - Honestly I prefer Naomi.
September 21, 2021
there is prolly some weird psychology here about lust and hidden desires but I could not care less. I do not want to read such things. DTFed
January 6, 2022
The Key : 5 stars
Diary of a Mad Old Man: 3 stars
Diary of a Mad Old Man: 3 stars
February 14, 2022
Two stories about older men. Both keep diaries, play masochistic sexual mind games and are obsessed with a beautiful woman
January 1, 2024
Even though I may be old and my skin is no longer smooth,
I have these uncontrollable desires of my youth.
Silence, my body!
Be still, my heart!
If I do not master my passions,
They will soon master me.
I have these uncontrollable desires of my youth.
Silence, my body!
Be still, my heart!
If I do not master my passions,
They will soon master me.
November 18, 2014
One book, two novellas. Certainly not a unique format, but finding two equally powerful novellas in the same volume is a little out of the ordinary. Junichiro Tanizaki's "The Key and "Diary of a Mad Old Man" are subtlety disturbing psychological portraits of two separate, postwar Japanese families in the throes of sexual metamorphosis and strange, complicit betrayals. The key word here is "complicit."
In “The Key,” Ikuko and her husband (unnamed) keep diaries that they suspect each other to be reading, though neither is. Both novellas are written in diary form, with “The Key” masterfully narrated as alternating entries between husband and wife. In one of Ikuko's entries she reveals: “I violently dislike my husband and just as violently love him.” This should give you an idea of the complex psychology that unfolds as the story eases its way toward more delicately nuanced, yet equally startling revelations.
After 30 years of marriage, Ikuko's much older husband has lost his desire for his over-sexed wife. Though, that is only the pretext of this bizarrely beautiful story that evolves into voyeurism, foot fetishism, with the husband plying his wife nightly with alcohol (which she willingly agrees to) until she passes out, then stripping her and photographing her nude in various positions – photos usually focused on her delicate feet. This newly discovered sexual frontier excites him, and eventually he pimps Ikuko out to a family friend, hoping for more voyeuristic thrills.
“Diary of a Mad Old Man” is the late in life journal of 77 year old Mr. Utsugi, whose body may be falling apart, but whose libido rages on. Again, as in “The Key,” this story is a startling psychological portrait of the undiminished power of sex. Utsugi is obsessed with his daughter-in-law, Satsuko, who lives in the same Japanese mansion with him, his equally aging wife, along with their son, and grandson, a maid and Utsugi's live-in nurse, Miss Sasaki.
The relationship between Utsugi (whom Satsuko refers to as “Father”) and his young daughter-in-law is a sparring match, with the septuagenarian “Mad Old Man” ever on the attack. His comic, masochistic desires are fatefully, if not fatally, countered by Satsuko's greed and barely concealed ulterior motives. Again, with both parties complicit in the others degeneracy. Though is it ever degenerate if each is aware of and agreeable to the others convoluted want?
Here is a typical exchange between the two, allowing a glimpse into each of their psyches. After much pleading and bribing, Satsuko allows her father-in-law to kiss her in the shower, but...
“I'm asking you again: If you won't have it on your neck, where will you have it?”
“You can do it once if it's below the knee – only once, mind you! And just your lips, don't touch me with your tongue!”
“She was completely hidden behind the shower curtain, except for one of her legs below the knee.”
“You look as if you're going to be examined by a gynecologist.”
“Silly!”
“You're being very unreasonable, telling me to kiss you without using my tongue.”
“I'm not telling you to kiss me – I'm just letting you touch me with your lips! That's enough for an old man like you.”
“You might at least turn off the shower.”
“Certainly not. It'll make my skin crawl unless I wash off immediately.”
The writing in both short, fascinating novels is sparse and understated in typical Japanese fashion. No stiff, boxy translation, either, the narration flows like water. The best Japanese authors, like Yasunari Kawabata, or Shusaku Endo, to name only two, don't beat you over the head with a literary hammer, but slice you with an acutely honed psychological katana. You don't even realize you've been decapitated until you discover yourself looking up at the collapse of your own knees.
“Probably you could call it a masochistic tendency,” says Utsugi, further on in the book, “I don't think I've always had it – something I've developed in my old age.
Suppose there are two women equally beautiful, equally pleasing to my aesthetic tastes. A is kind and honest and sympathetic; B is unkind, a clever liar. If you ask which would be more attractive to me, I'm quite sure that these days I would prefer B.”
In “The Key,” Ikuko and her husband (unnamed) keep diaries that they suspect each other to be reading, though neither is. Both novellas are written in diary form, with “The Key” masterfully narrated as alternating entries between husband and wife. In one of Ikuko's entries she reveals: “I violently dislike my husband and just as violently love him.” This should give you an idea of the complex psychology that unfolds as the story eases its way toward more delicately nuanced, yet equally startling revelations.
After 30 years of marriage, Ikuko's much older husband has lost his desire for his over-sexed wife. Though, that is only the pretext of this bizarrely beautiful story that evolves into voyeurism, foot fetishism, with the husband plying his wife nightly with alcohol (which she willingly agrees to) until she passes out, then stripping her and photographing her nude in various positions – photos usually focused on her delicate feet. This newly discovered sexual frontier excites him, and eventually he pimps Ikuko out to a family friend, hoping for more voyeuristic thrills.
“Diary of a Mad Old Man” is the late in life journal of 77 year old Mr. Utsugi, whose body may be falling apart, but whose libido rages on. Again, as in “The Key,” this story is a startling psychological portrait of the undiminished power of sex. Utsugi is obsessed with his daughter-in-law, Satsuko, who lives in the same Japanese mansion with him, his equally aging wife, along with their son, and grandson, a maid and Utsugi's live-in nurse, Miss Sasaki.
The relationship between Utsugi (whom Satsuko refers to as “Father”) and his young daughter-in-law is a sparring match, with the septuagenarian “Mad Old Man” ever on the attack. His comic, masochistic desires are fatefully, if not fatally, countered by Satsuko's greed and barely concealed ulterior motives. Again, with both parties complicit in the others degeneracy. Though is it ever degenerate if each is aware of and agreeable to the others convoluted want?
Here is a typical exchange between the two, allowing a glimpse into each of their psyches. After much pleading and bribing, Satsuko allows her father-in-law to kiss her in the shower, but...
“I'm asking you again: If you won't have it on your neck, where will you have it?”
“You can do it once if it's below the knee – only once, mind you! And just your lips, don't touch me with your tongue!”
“She was completely hidden behind the shower curtain, except for one of her legs below the knee.”
“You look as if you're going to be examined by a gynecologist.”
“Silly!”
“You're being very unreasonable, telling me to kiss you without using my tongue.”
“I'm not telling you to kiss me – I'm just letting you touch me with your lips! That's enough for an old man like you.”
“You might at least turn off the shower.”
“Certainly not. It'll make my skin crawl unless I wash off immediately.”
The writing in both short, fascinating novels is sparse and understated in typical Japanese fashion. No stiff, boxy translation, either, the narration flows like water. The best Japanese authors, like Yasunari Kawabata, or Shusaku Endo, to name only two, don't beat you over the head with a literary hammer, but slice you with an acutely honed psychological katana. You don't even realize you've been decapitated until you discover yourself looking up at the collapse of your own knees.
“Probably you could call it a masochistic tendency,” says Utsugi, further on in the book, “I don't think I've always had it – something I've developed in my old age.
Suppose there are two women equally beautiful, equally pleasing to my aesthetic tastes. A is kind and honest and sympathetic; B is unkind, a clever liar. If you ask which would be more attractive to me, I'm quite sure that these days I would prefer B.”
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