Obsession, passion and illusion.
A book full of Junichirō Tanizaki typical descriptions.
Naomi.
White skin, fascinating feet and atrocious sensuality.
This is the woman who bewitches Jōji.
Jōji is 28 when he sees Naomi with only 15. His goal? Westernize Naomi and make her the perfect woman. He does not look at the expenses to achieve the ultimate end and is ridiculed during most of the process.
Used and humiliated. This is how I see Jōji. This is how I interpret him.
I could not write about this book without agreeing that "people who see faces do not see hearts". The purity of Naomi's white skin does not reflect her true essence.
The descriptions of the spaces and characters are fluid and, although regular and long, do not cut the rhythm of reading in any way. I have several times yearn to the next paragraph, to the next page, for the author's next deviant thought.
In the story, ballroom dancing, which flourished in Japan after World War I, plays a prominent role in the description of Western customs. The dance, the sensuality and the ostentation described brilliantly.
Throughout the novel is visible the obsession of Jōji with Naomi's feet. His attraction to Naomi and the way her girl's body turns into an elegant female body is a recurring theme.
Naomi's plot takes us, sometimes, to the depraved side of Jōji's mind. Immorality is portrayed by the author grossly and directly.
The end is not surprising but it is sad and it transports us to the human frailty and the manipulation of the other.
No doubt the reading of Naomi flows more easily than the Diário de um Velho Louco.
Common points: Junichirō Tanizaki's sexual mind.
About the author (part of the note taken from the book): Tanizaki was born in Tokyo in 1886. Going to the theater was a regular habit in his education. He studied Japanese Literature in Tokyo and was expelled from the University because of the bohemian life he led. In 1915 he married an ancient geisha and was involved in a love triangle with Satô Haruo, a writer his friend. He divorced and married three more times. Always with women younger than him. Naomi was written in 1923 and was her first major novel. A work that is worth reading and rereading. Tanizaki died on July 30, 1965.