The Key & Diary of a Mad Old Man - (Vintage International) by Junichiro Tanizaki (Paperback)

Book Synopsis

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.

Review Quotes

"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

About the Author

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.