The Makioka Sisters by Junichiro Tanizaki: A review

The Makioka Sisters by Jun'ichirō Tanizaki
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

The four Makioka sisters are a Japanese family living in Osaka in the late 1930s. They are members of a once prominent and powerful family now fallen upon hard times. The parents of the family are long deceased but their adult daughters continue to cling obstinately to the prestige of their family name and to pursue lives that are essentially unchanged from their aristocratic past.

As we meet the sisters, the two older ones are married and established with families of their own. Both of their husbands have taken the Makioka name.

The oldest sister, Tsuruko, is the mistress of the "main" house in Osaka, which by Japanese tradition wields authority over the collateral branches of the family. Her husband, Tatsuo, a bank employee, is now the acknowledged head of the family according to Japanese custom.

Sachiko is the second sister and she is mistress of a branch house in Ashiya, a small city just outside of Osaka. Her devoted husband is Teinosuke, an accountant with literary inclinations and a deep well of patience and empathy. He needs it with this family!

The two younger daughters are Yukiko and Taeko (also called Koi-san). They are technically attached to the "main" house in Osaka, but in reality they spend most of their time with Sachiko and her family as they find that household much more amenable and pleasant.

Yukiko is thirty years old and still unmarried when we meet her, and the main focus of the entire family during the years covered by this novel is the need to find an acceptable husband for her. This is made difficult by the fact that she is so shy and retiring that she finds it hard to even speak in the presence of strangers. Moreover, she has already refused - or her family has refused at her behest - many proposals over the years which has now given the family a reputation for haughtiness. A haughtiness that is not warranted considering their declining fortunes.

The youngest daughter is Taeko who is a bit of a free spirit at twenty-five. She is willful and sophisticated and is waiting impatiently for the family to find a husband for Yukiko so that she can get on with her own life. As a teenager, Taeko had eloped with a young man from a wealthy family who was just as pampered and spoiled as she. But the families had found them and brought them home before they could be married. However, Taeko still seems to be carrying on some kind of relationship with him. In fact, over the years that we come to know her, she carries on secret liaisons with various men, scandalizing her conservative family and eventually causing a breech in their relationship with her.

Over the years, friends of the family recommend various men as a husband for Yukiko, but always either Yukiko or the family find some fault with each candidate and the matchmaking efforts come to naught. The years pass and still Yukiko hasn't married and as she hasn't married, Taeko cannot marry, since the custom is that children should be married in the order of their births. And this is a society that is securely bound by custom.

As told by Junichiro Tanizaki, this book that was written in the late 1940s tells a poignant but unsparing tale of a close-knit family, and indeed an entire close-knit society, sliding into the abyss of societal chaos and change as the government takes a war-like stance in the world and the whole society is dragged protesting into modern life. Tanizaki creates a vivid picture of this changing society through his portraits of the four sisters and other family members and close associates.

I found it interesting that the author referred somewhat obliquely on several occasions to the "China Incident," which was actually the Japanese invasion of Manchuria in 1937. He also referenced, through the lives of some of the Makiokas' European friends, the Sudeten crisis of 1938 when Nazi Germany annexed parts of Czechoslovakia where German-speaking citizens lived. The world is sliding into war but the Makiokas and their friends seem generally unaware of and uninterested in what is happening. The "China Incident" does not affect them personally and so it doesn't really register on their radar.

I am not well-read in Japanese literature. I first heard of this book through my blogging friend, Judy Krueger, who read and reviewed the book several weeks ago. From what I understand, this book is considered a classic of international literature and one of the greatest Japanese novels (some say the greatest) of the twentieth century. I found it to be quite a mesmerizing read that kept me turning those pages to find out what catastrophe would befall the Makiokas next. It reminded me a bit of a soap opera or telenovela. Tanizaki, I think, offers a clear vignette of the stylized decorum demanded by the upper-class Japanese culture of that time, as well as portraying the heartache that often underlay it. It is a remarkable achievement.

View all my reviews

Backyard Nature Wednesday: Pine Siskins

They're here! Or rather, I should say, it's here, because so far I've only seen one in my yard. But surely where there is one Pine Siskin, there must be others. I happily await their onslaught.

The Bundy Bunch

I love our national wildlife refuge and national park system. Whenever we take a road trip, we plan it so that we can spend time at one of these jewels in the crown of our nation. National wildlife refuges and parks are a testament to the ability of human beings to value something greater than themselves; the ability to see the importance of preserving a bit of Nature unblemished for the sake of the wildlife and for the sake of our souls.

Few things make me madder than seeing someone disrespect and devalue a park or refuge. After all, this is my land. It is land that belongs to all of us, a part of the public trust. As you might suspect, I am pretty angry these days as I read of a bunch of jumped-up domestic terrorists occupying buildings at one of our national refuges, causing the refuge to have to be closed to visitors as a matter of public safety.

I have never visited the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge in Oregon but I know it is a very important site along the Pacific Flyway, the route that many thousands - probably millions - of western birds take on their spring and fall migrations. It is a place where the tired birds can stop in safety to rest and find food. And now these yahoos, the Bundy Bunch, the Y'all Qaeda, these domestic terrorists have desecrated that place.

They represent a group of people who poach wildlife, conduct illegal hunts, set illegal traps, and, in some cases, illegally graze their cattle on these lands that belong to all of us. All the while they complain loudly about government overreach and usurpation of Western lands. But they don't waste any time cashing their government checks! In the case of the leader of this current group of criminals, Ammon Bundy, it was a federal stimulus package check for some $530,000.

Of course, we all remember the previous Bundy Bunch action in Nevada in 2014. That one was led by the patriarch, Cliven Bundy, another scofflaw who owes over $1.2 million to us for grazing fees on our land. And now, here we go again.

I realize that law enforcement does not want to go in with guns blazing and make martyrs of these idiots, but one does have to admit that it is a bit ironic that these dozen or so armed white guys who took over some federal property several days ago have not been forceably removed, while a black child with a toy gun is mowed down by police instantly upon their arrival on the scene. Something is definitely wrong with this picture. But it isn't the way that law enforcement officials are handling the Oregon situation.

I read that the authorities have made the decision to cut off power and phone service to the building the armed insurrectionists have occupied and that they are planning to block the roads and, one hopes, keep the 24 hour news channels from going in to interview and lionize these guys, giving them the publicity they seek. My only question is, why didn't they do this sooner? 

The spring migrants will soon be winging their way north again. Indeed, some have already started their long trips. Get these trespassers out of their refuge! Give it back to the wildlife for which it is intended.

We birdwatchers are watching you! (Hat tip to Jen Sorensen and Daily Kos for the cartoon.)

The Grave Maurice by Martha Grimes: A review

The Grave Maurice by Martha Grimes
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This book started out as a sort of homage to Josephine Tey's The Daughter of Time, sometimes referred to as the best mystery ever written. Like the protagonist in that book, we find Superintendent Richard Jury laid up in a hospital bed and unable to pursue his usual occupation. He needs distraction. Sergeant Wiggins brings him Tey's book to read and his doctor provides him with a much more current mystery.

When last we saw Jury (in The Blue Last) he was lying grievously wounded on a dock. He was found there by a dog and his boy and by his friend Melrose Plant. His life was saved and now he's in recovery, soon to be released. But in the meantime, his mind needs something to occupy it.

His surgeon catches his interest with a mystery from his own life. Two years earlier, his fifteen-year-old daughter had vanished without a trace along with a champion thoroughbred that she was tending at her grandfather's stud farm. Both the horse and the girl disappeared from the barn one night and no one has seen them since.

Jury reviews the known facts of the case and determines to investigate. He's not cleared to return to duty and so he will have some time to look into the matter unofficially.

While still in the hospital, he sends his friend Plant to the stud farm to reconnoiter the place and find out what he can. Melrose arrives to find the local police already there. The body of a woman has been found on one of the training tracks. Everyone at the farm claims not to recognize the woman. How did she happen to end up on that track?

Plant's excuse for going to the farm in the first place is to pretend that he's interested in buying a horse. As these things usually turn out when Melrose Plant is involved, he winds up actually buying a horse. A very expensive stallion.

Once Jury is released from the hospital, he heads to Northampton to convalesce at Plant's home and then he begins his own investigation into the girl's disappearance. Could it somehow be related to the murder of the woman who was found on the training track? There are few clues and Jury finds that he must attempt to piece together tiny bits of information and connections in order to try to get a clear picture of what has happened.

Martha Grimes is up to one of her usual twisting and turning plots in this book. It becomes a rather dark story as we get further into it, involving the abuse of the abducted girl and the abuse of pregnant mares kept for the production of their urine that is used in making the hormone replacement therapy drug Premarin. Grimes paints an all too vivid picture of the lives of the poor mares that are kept tied up and without a chance to exercise, their every drop of urine collected. The reader intuits that this is not going to end happily. And it doesn't.

But (spoiler alert) at least the mares survive and move on to green pastures.



View all my reviews

Poetry Sunday: To the Garbage Collectors...

For our first Poetry Sunday of 2016, how about something a little different? 

Here's a poem that celebrates a group of people who we too often overlook but who we depend upon to do their necessary work to keep our society functioning. First responders get all the glory, but where would we be without these guys and their weekly pickups? Knee-deep in garbage to start with.

To the Garbage Collectors in Bloomington, Indiana, the First Pickup of the New Year

by PHILIP APPLEMAN

(the way bed is in winter, like an aproned lap,   

    like furry mittens,

    like childhood crouching under tables)

The Ninth Day of Xmas, in the morning black   

outside our window: clattering cans, the whir   

of a hopper, shouts, a whistle, move on ...   

I see them in my warm imagination

the way I’ll see them later in the cold,

heaving the huge cans and running

(running!) to the next house on the street.

My vestiges of muscle stir

uneasily in their percale cocoon:

what moves those men out there, what

drives them running to the next house and the next?   

Halfway back to dream, I speculate:

The Social Weal? “Let’s make good old

    Bloomington a cleaner place

    to live in—right, men? Hup, tha!”

Healthy Competition? “Come on, boys,

    let’s burn up that route today and beat those dudes   

    on truck thirteen!”

Enlightened Self-Interest? “Another can,

    another dollar—don’t slow down, Mac, I’m puttin’

    three kids through Princeton?”

Or something else?

Terror?

A half hour later, dawn comes edging over   

Clark Street: layers of color, laid out like

a flattened rainbow—red, then yellow, green,

and over that the black-and-blue of night   

still hanging on. Clark Street maples wave   

their silhouettes against the red, and through   

the twiggy trees, I see a solid chunk   

of garbage truck, and stick-figures of men,   

like windup toys, tossing little cans—

and running.

All day they’ll go like that, till dark again,   

and all day, people fussing at their desks,   

at hot stoves, at machines, will jettison

tin cans, bare evergreens, damp Kleenex, all   

things that are Caesar’s.

O garbage men,

the New Year greets you like the Old;   

after this first run you too may rest

in beds like great warm aproned laps

and know that people everywhere have faith:   

putting from them all things of this world,   

they confidently bide your second coming.

                          ~~~

I love that last verse. It says it all really, doesn't it? "People everywhere have faith" that the garbage men will come. 

This week in birds - #187

A roundup of the week's news of birds and the environment:

American Goldfinches are finally visiting my black oil sunflower seed feeder in my front yard. They haven't started hitting the nyger seed feeders in the backyard yet, but this is typical. They usually start with the sunflower seeds and later move to the nyger. I still haven't seen any Pine Siskins in my yard, although several people have reported them in the area.

*~*~*~*

In that "galaxy far, far away," apparently there are birds! Audubon has helpfully created a field guide to them.

*~*~*~*

Noah Strycker, the birder who gave a year of his life to do a worldwide "Big Year," finished 2015 having seen and recorded more than 6,000 species of birds. Think about that for a minute. That's in a world where the total known bird species number a bit over 10,000. Noah's final count was 6,042.

*~*~*~*

Sad news regarding the oldest banded Bald Eagle in the country. The bird was struck by a car and killed in New York while apparently feeding on a road-killed rabbit. Band #629-03142 was hatched in Minnesota in 1977 while the future of Bald Eagles was still very much in doubt. They were on the Endangered Species List. He lived to see the triumphant recovery of his species and helped contribute to that recovery.

*~*~*~*

The U.S. Congress did something positive for the environment! Stop the presses! Just before they left town in December, they easily passed a bill banning microbeads in health and beauty products. Microbeads are tiny bits of plastic used as abrasives that eventually wind up in our waterways and do significant harm to the environment.  

*~*~*~*

A recently published study of American Kestrels found that those that stayed on their home territories and did not migrate south in winter nested earlier than birds that did migrate.

*~*~*~*

Japan has designated four new or expanded areas of protection for birds. One of the birds that will benefit is the extremely endangered Spoon-billed Sandpiper.

*~*~*~*

Mistletoe, that parasitic plant beloved by Christmas party celebrants, is a valuable plant for some species of birds. They eat the berries that it produces and some use it as nest material.

*~*~*~*

Two bees or not two bees; that is the question. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is evaluating two bees, the blue Calamintha bee and the rusty patched bumblebee, to determine if they need protection under the Endangered Species Act. If they don't get the protection, they may not be two bees for much longer. The Franklin's bumblebee became extinct during the time that the FWS was "evaluating" it.

*~*~*~*

The sacred bird of the Maya and Aztecs, the Resplendent Quetzal, is facing an extinction risk due to loss of habitat in Central America.  

*~*~*~*

Humans! I'll never understand them. Why would anyone do this? Some person or persons unknown killed some Laysan Albatrosses and destroyed nests and eggs at Kaena Point Natural Area Reserve in Hawaii. One can only hope that the person or persons responsible are caught and punished to the full extent of the law.

*~*~*~*

Funnily enough, Americans are more willing to support offshore drilling if it is far, far away from where they live. Gee, I wonder why that would be?

*~*~*~*

The majestic Andean Condor has become all but extinct in Colombia, but conservationists are making an effort to repopulate the skies of the country with the iconic bird. Two birds from Chile have recently been brought to a zoo in Medellin as the first step in the plan to reintroduce them in Colombia.

*~*~*~*

As changes in climate have made it more difficult for them to access their normal diet, polar bears are becoming more and more dependent upon predation of nesting birds and their eggs.

*~*~*~*

A solar power plant on the Atacama in Chile offers hope for a constant source of clean energy but the facility has run into difficulty in regard to its finances.

*~*~*~*

Temperatures in the Arctic have recently risen above freezing. In other words, it has been warmer at the North Pole than in some areas of the lower 48 states. 

*~*~*~*

Finally, take time to observe the birds in 2016. They are all around you, so you don't have to go out of your way to do it, and as Yogi Berra once said, (or should have) "You can see a lot by just looking!" Happy birding!

2016

I hope that the new year will bring good

things to you and those you love.