Study Guide Tanizaki in Praise of Shadows
Study Guide Tanizaki in Praise of Shadows
Study Guide Tanizaki in Praise of Shadows
2. Who is the narrator? Why does he refer to himself as an old man (Tanizaki himself
was only in his mid-40s when he wrote this)? Is the narrator the author? How does he
resemble the old man in Tanizakis novel Tade kuu mushi (Some Prefer Nettles; 1929)?
3. Describe the tone of the essay. Where is the narrator joking/being ironic? Where is he
serious? How can you tell?
4. Among the topics Tanizaki discusses are: traditional architecture, electric lights, fans,
candles, screen doors (shji), electric stoves, gas stoves, fireplaces (danro), bathrooms,
tile roofs, wood, radios, films, oil paintings, traditional lacquer (urushi), ceramics, roofs
in traditional Japanese architecture, uses/value of gold, Japanese food, ykan
confectionary, walls, study bays, alcoves (toko no ma), hanging scrolls (kakejiku),
flower arrangement (ikebana), traditional Japanese rooms, the importance of
silence/quietude/pauses, temple architecture, priests robes, Noh costumes, the skin of
Noh performers, Kabuki, puppet theater (bunraku), teeth blackening (o-haguro), etc.
Discuss each of these and their relation to the essays main theme (the importance of
shadows). How do they each illustrate the magic of shadows?
5. Discuss the narrators remarks on the toilets in the East. Is he being ironic? What is
he parodying? Explain.
6. What value does the narrator place on dirt, grime, stains, impurity, uncleanliness,
oldness, rusticity, patina, etc.? What does he mean by elegance is filthy? Can these
remarks be read as a challenge to the discourses of Japanese purity that were
prevalent at the time? Is his insistence on the importance/beauty of grime dirt
impurity a challenge to cultural nationalists of day?
7. Make a list of all binaries that appear in the work (e.g. East/West, country/city,
Kyoto/Tokyo, night/day, light/shadows, vulgar/elegant, etc.). Are these binaries
problematized/collapsed at any point? Explain.
8. Discuss the narrators description of the Japanese national character (kokuminsei)?
What examples does he give to illustrate this character? What is a national character?
Is there such a thing? What is Japans/your national character?
9. Explain the narrators comments about the possibility of an alternative modernity, of
Watsuji Tetsur wrote Fdo ningenteki ksatsu from 1928-1935; its main theme:
climate, in a broad sense, determines national character. Traces of work can be seen here,
perhaps in parodized form.
complaints we may have, Japan has chosen to follow the West, and there is nothing
for her to do but move bravely ahead and leave us old ones behind. But we must be
resigned to the fact that as long as our skin is the color it is the loss we have
suffered cannot be remedied. I have written all this because I have thought that
there might still be somewhere, possibly in literature or the arts, where something
could be saved. I would call back at least for literature this world of shadows we are
losing. In the mansion called literature I would have the eaves deep and the walls
dark, I would push back into the shadows the things that came forward to clearly, I
would strip away the useless decoration. I do not ask that this be done everywhere,
but perhaps we may be allowed at least one mansion where we can turn off the
electric lights and see what it is like without them. (42).
Further Reading
1. Margherita Long. This Perversion Called Love: Reading Tanizaki, Feminist Theory,
and Freud.