Translated into about twenty languages and regarded as a masterpiece that helps readers decipher the Japanese culture, Junichiro Tanizaki’s essay ‘In Praise of Shadows’ examines the cultural differences between the East and West, primarily standing on the appreciation of minimalism. It does so, not with an old man’s voice who wants things back as they were in his times, but with a modern awareness mindful of its pessimism.
The second and third decades of the 20th century saw the rapid westernization of Japan. Consumer culture flourished, and Tanizaki wasn’t immune to that. His life changed at 37 when he witnessed the cataclysmic Kanto earthquake of 1923. Retreating into Western Japan, he opened himself up to the quiet beauty of traditional Japanese culture. It was after 10 years of that incident that he began writing the Setsuyo Essays (1935), of which this one is a part.
Once out of the sparkling convenience of Tokyo, Tanizaki found himself stationed in a slow flow of time, in close proximity with nature. In Praise of Shadows examines Japan’s living environment, food, beauty, and its distinct sensibilities. Tanizaki’s descriptions of observing lacquerware in the flickering glow of candle nudged at my acute sensitivity and love towards old architecture and shadowy rooms lit up by candles without stipulating the condition of cooling darkness. As Baudelaire said in one of his poems, ‘In that black or luminous square life lives, life dreams, life suffers’.
‘It’s not the dichotomy of bright and dark, light and shadow that concerns him but the borders between them’, says Dr. Robert Campbell. Japanese aesthetics and beauty bloom to the fullest in the folds of shadows, in the caress of a darkness impregnated by profound mystery.
‘We are already losing the world of shadows. But I hope to call it back, at least in the realms of literature. In the wake of urbanization and a looming climate crisis, Tanizaki’s essay addresses our self-awareness as living beings as individual thinkers. His ideas live on. An astoundingly unique piece of work that deserves your attention.
One Response
This sounds like an amazing book, I will be checking it out! Thanks