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Zusatztext “Japan’s great modern novelist É. Tanizaki created a lifelong series of ingenious variations on a diominan theme: the power of love to energize and destroy.” -- Chicago Tribune “ The Key is a story about sex and marriage that is as explicit as any novel on the theme since Lady Chatterly’s Lover .” --Time “The diarist Utsugi is an absolutely convincing creationÉfunny and ultimately appealing.” -- The Atlantic Informationen zum Autor Junichiro Tanizaki was born in Tokya in 1886 and lived there until the earthquake of 1923, when he moved to the Kyoto-Osaka region, the scene of The Makioka Sisters . By 1930 he had gained such reknown that an edition of his complete works was published. Author of more than twelve novels, he was awarded Japan's Imperial Prize in lLiterature in 1949. Tanizaki died in 1965. Klappentext 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 themselves 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. The Key New Year's Day This year I intend to begin writing freely about a topic which, in the past, I have hesitated even to mention here. I have always avoided commenting on my sexual relations with Ikuko, for fear that she might surreptitiously read my diary and be offended. I dare say she knows exactly where to find it. But I have decided not to worry about that any more. Of course, her old-fashioned Kyoto upbringing has left her with a good deal of antiquated morality; indeed, she rather prides herself on it. It seems unlikely that she would dip into her husband's private writings. However, that is not altogether out of the question. If now, for the first time, my diary becomes chiefly concerned with our sexual life, will she be able to resist the temptation? By nature she is furtive, fond of secrets, constantly holding back and pretending ignorance; worst of all, she regards that as feminine modesty. Even though I have several hiding places for the key to the locked drawer where I keep this book, such a woman may well have searched out all of them. For that matter, you could easily buy a duplicate of the key. I have just said I've decided not to worry, but perhaps I really stopped worrying long ago. Secretly, I may have accepted, even hoped, that she was reading it. Then why do I lock the drawer and hide the key? Possibly to satisfy her weakness for spying. Besides, if I leave it where she is likely to see it, she may think: "This was written for my benefit," and not be willing to trust what I say. She may even think: "His real diary is somewhere else." Ikuko, my beloved wife! I don't know whether or not you will read this. There is no use asking, since you would surely say that you don't do such things. But if you should, please believe that this is no fabrication, that every word of it is sincere. I won't insist any further-that would seem all the more suspicious. The diary itself will bear witness to its own truth. Naturally I won't confine myself to things she would like to hear. I must not avoid matters that she will find unpleasant, even painful. The reason why I have felt obliged to write about these things is her extreme reticence-her "refinement," her "femininity," the so-called modesty that makes her ashamed to discuss anythi...
