Naomi
Naomi book cover

Naomi

Paperback – April 10, 2001

by
Price
$18.00
Format
Paperback
Pages
256
Publisher
Vintage
Publication Date
ISBN-13
978-0375724749
Dimensions
5.2 x 0.55 x 8 inches
Weight
6.8 ounces

Description

"In a class with Lady Chatterley's Lover and Lolita . . . . Powerfully erotic, directly funny, a great novelist's masterpiece." -- Booklist "Joji [is] exquisitely drawn, his uncomprehending guilelessness the perfect tool for the author's deft cross-cultural thrusts." -- The Washington Post Book Review From the Inside Flap Na-o-mi. The three syllables of this name, unusual in 1920s Japan, captivate a 28-year-old engineer, who soon becomes infatuated with the girl so named, a teenaged café waitress. Drawn to her Eurasian features and innocent demeanor, Joji is eager to whisk young Naomi away from the seamy underbelly of post—World War I Tokyo and to mold her into his ideal wife. But when the two come together to indulge their shared passion for Western culture, Joji discovers that Naomi is far from being the naïve girl of his fantasies, and his passion descends into a comically helpless masochism. A literary masterpiece that helped to establish Junichiro Tanizaki as Japan's greatest novelist, Naomi is both a hilarious story of one man's obsession and torment, and a brilliant evocation of a nation's cultural confusion. Na-o-mi. The three syllables of this name, unusual in 1920s Japan, captivate a 28-year-old engineer, who soon becomes infatuated with the girl so named, a teenaged cafe waitress. Drawn to her Eurasian features and innocent demeanor, Joji is eager to whisk young Naomi away from the seamy underbelly of post--World War I Tokyo and to mold her into his ideal wife. But when the two come together to indulge their shared passion for Western culture, Joji discovers that Naomi is far from being the naive girl of his fantasies, and his passion descends into a comically helpless masochism. A literary masterpiece that helped to establish Junichiro Tanizaki as Japan's greatest novelist, Naomi" is both a hilarious story of one man's obsession and torment, and a brilliant evocation of a nation's cultural confusion. JUNICHIRO TANIZAKIxa0was born in Tokyo in 1886 and lived in the city until the earthquake of 1923, when he moved to the Kyoto-Osaka region, the scene of one of his most well-known novels, The Makioka Sisters (1943-48). The author of over twenty books, including Naomi (1924), Some Prefer Nettles (1928), Arrowroot (1931), and A Portrait of Shunkin (1933), Tanizaki also published translations of the Japanese classic, The Tale of Genji in 1941, 1954, and 1965. Several of his novels, including Quicksand (1930), The Key (1956), and Diary of a Mad Old Man (1961) were made into movies. He was awarded Japan’s Imperial Prize in Literature in 1949, and in 1965 he became the first Japanese writer to be elected as an honorary member of the American Academy and the National Institute of Arts and Letters. Tanizaki died in 1965. Read more

Features & Highlights

  • A hilarious story of one man’s obsession and a brilliant reckoning of a nation’s cultural confusion—from a master Japanese novelist.
  • When twenty-eight-year-old Joji first lays eyes upon the teenage waitress Naomi, he is instantly smitten by her exotic, almost Western appearance. Determined to transform her into the perfect wife and to whisk her away from the seamy underbelly of post-World War I Tokyo, Joji adopts and ultimately marries Naomi, paying for English and music lessons that promise to mold her into his ideal companion. But as she grows older, Joji discovers that Naomi is far from the naïve girl of his fantasies. And, in Tanizaki’s masterpiece of lurid obsession, passion quickly descends into comically helpless masochism.

Customer Reviews

Rating Breakdown

★★★★★
30%
(76)
★★★★
25%
(63)
★★★
15%
(38)
★★
7%
(18)
★
23%
(58)

Most Helpful Reviews

✓ Verified Purchase

Pygmalita

'Naomi', Tanizaki's first major novel, starts off simply: a relatively young middle-class man discovers an even younger woman, who he sees as both exotic (starting with her western-sounding name 'Naomi' and Mary Pickford-esque looks) and an exciting work-in-progress, a Japanese Pygmalion. She ends up living with him, and (to no great surprise) they end up as man and wife. This is where the fun begins.

Joji begins to see the sarcastic and nasty side to Naomi, who, with his nurturing, has turned into a full-fledged 'modern girl' (or 'Moga' as the Japanese referred to them). Interested in avant-garde clothing and modern dancing, red flags go up as Joji meets her large number of intimate male friends and gradually recognizes her manipulative ways. Still, he has decided that it is not that women deceive men; rather, men enjoy being deceived by women. The rest of the story progresses as an ever-deepening spiral of manipulation and masochism as Naomi fully exploits her role as Joji's Lolita-like object of obsession.

Although this story was so shocking that its serialization was briefly halted, the idea of sexually-dominant women and submissive men is a theme repeated often in Tanizaki's works (perhaps the pinnacle of this theme in Tanizaki's work is the early short story 'The Tattooer' or 'Portrait of Shunkin').

While it's easy to generalize and say that Naomi represents the West, Joji the East, I think that might be an oversimplification and miss Tanizaki's more immediate point. First and foremost, Naomi represents the Japanese 'modern girl', an increasingly powerful and liberated creature with even more weapons to make men submit to her. This story is as much modernity vs. tradition as it is West vs. East. After all, despite Joji's casual interest in dance and even his pseudo-western name (Joji/George) he is no match for the fully modernized Naomi. When things start to go wrong, Joji tries to run for traditional safety nets (a traditional house, clothes, family structure), but Naomi doesn't let him. Modernity allows Naomi to fight back on equal (if not more powerful) footing, and permits her to be realized as an object of loathing, obsession, and desire in ways not yet seen in Japan.

No matter how you interpret the story, 'Naomi' is a sexy, humorous, and ironic tale of "a fool's love", as the original title suggests. It's a memorable book and a great introduction to the master writer Tanizaki.
9 people found this helpful
✓ Verified Purchase

A Glimpse of Japan in the 1920's

It is surprising that this first appeared as a newspaper serial. It had a reasonably long run (16 chapters) before it was cut or censored. I wonder how it would fare as a newspaper serial in western cultures of the time, especially with the cultural references were reversed.

The first person protagonist, Joji, is a salary man who has moved from the countryside to Tokyo to a boring job with an electric company. He is very conscious of being short and having bad teeth and seems to be socially awkward. He is enchanted with the west and falls for a western looking girl. His goal is to raise her to be his ideal woman. Joji becomes obsessed with his creation. As she matures, he loses his grip on her. Losing her is so painful he will do anything to avoid it.

Besides the psychological drama, Tanizaki provides glimpses of Tokyo in the 1920s. There is an unabashed fascination of with the west marking a time when most of the living population would not remember the seclusion and only the elderly would bear scars of the process of ending it.

I was surprised about the mosquitoes and the need for mosquito netting in Tokyo.

This short book is very different from Tanizaki's epic, The [[ASIN:0679761640 The Makioka Sisters]] which covers a different strata of society about 15 years hence. In both, the author introduces realistic characters and brings them alive with detail.
7 people found this helpful
✓ Verified Purchase

Sensual and Dramatic

A friend got me back into my Japanese obsession, and I picked up I am a Cat awhile ago; never got around to reading it. I read fabulous reviews of Naomi, however, and it seemed to have the deeply psychological feel to it - dark and forbidding, exactly what I was looking for. I keep comparing it to a Japanese Lolita.

The story is about a man named Joji, obsessed with all things Western in 1920's Japan. He finds a Eurasian-looking girl named Naomi (aha! A name both Western AND Japanese!) working in a café. Between her Western looks and name, her childish innocence, and her beauty, he becomes truly captivated. A man twice her age and with a decent amount of money, he takes her in and educates her in Western ways, tolerating her occasional cruelty and selfishness. As things get deeper and deeper (including a secret marriage) he learns to tolerate the extravagances and infidelities of a cold-hearted and cold-eyed woman (no longer a childish teen) due to his increasing sexual obsession with her.

This book was a fantastic study in obsessive love. Deeply psychological, you feel for Joji at the same time you want to slap him and tell him to send his wife packing. You can almost see the train wreck at the end of the book coming - Joji discovering the infidelity the audience knows is there, and holding their breath to see if he will stand strong or fall under. For her part, Naomi's manipulations are absolutely fantastic. Comic book authors cannot pen better villains. You truly, truly see the power that beautiful women can wield in this book.

The book was excellent - I blew through it in two days. Even with that, though, I give the book four stars. I know the spinelessness of Joji was part of the plot, but it still bothered me. A little too much.
4 people found this helpful
✓ Verified Purchase

Four and a half, actually.

A fine novel. The premise may seem simple, but Tanizaki has an excellent ear for dialogue and an engaging style that'll pull you in and make you read the whole book before you know it. Said style is often ironic, witty and amusing, but the author always knows better than to engage in small-minded mockery of any of his characters. The point isn't to get you to hate Naomi, it's to get you to understand and sympathize with the hapless Joji, whose travails are depicted in such droll and realistic detail that one gets the impression that there's something of Tanizaki's own life in here. The photograph of him on the back cover of my edition, at any rate, could have been the spitting image of Joji. Anyway. Even if this isn't my favourite book or even my favourite Japanese book, it's still a great, bittersweet read. You should probably purchase it.
4 people found this helpful
✓ Verified Purchase

Tanizaki's Satire of 1920s Japan

This translation of the original Japanese title "Chijin no Ai" (A Fool's Love), can be interpreted as Tanizaki's skewed portrayal of the East versus West culture clash of the 1920s, during the Taisho Period.
The principle female character, Naomi, is Tanizaki's exaggerated depiction of a victim of the "moga"
(modern girl) / "mobo" (modern boy) phenomenon. Starting as a young and innocent café waitress, she meets Joji, an independent, frugal, commonsensical engineer who introduces to her several Western ideas, like piano, the English language and Western-style dining. She easily integrates these aspects of Western culture in her life, but soon becomes enormously fascinated. As a result, she develops into a frivolous, egocentric, manipulative, and crass woman. With Naomi's transformation, Joji must learn to compromise between his moral integrity and her demands.
The principle male character, Joji, can be seen as Tanizaki's depiction of the struggles between the culture of traditional Japan and the fierce invasion of the cultures of the West. He too undergoes a sort of transformation that may shock readers at the end.
Having read many of Tanizaki's other novels, I have discovered this work to be one of his more milder ones in terms of sexual themes. Unlike some of his other novels, readers will not find foot fetishism, physical sadomasochism, or worship of excreta in Naomi. And surprisingly, this novel was still a controversial work in 1920's Japan. Nevertheless, I recommend this novel to readers interested in Japan's prewar Westernization, works of Tanizaki or social satire.
3 people found this helpful
✓ Verified Purchase

A good book especially for Asians in Western countries

It's so...How do I start? I watched the film adaptation of the book first, and it was a very erotic piece just from the poster. The story is actually more intense, and there are lots of hidden meanings inside if you studied Japanese History, or simply being an Asian in the Western world. It reminded me that when I was a teenager I was in Tokyo and I always see group of girls talking about make-ups and theres one simple goal: to be like a westerner. We want to make our eyes bigger, noses higher, lips fuller, double eye-lids, pale white faces, everything in west standards. Where is this norm came from? Read the book and re-think about it.
2 people found this helpful
✓ Verified Purchase

Dancing Queen

Naomi, light of my life, fire of my loins, my jazz baby dance queen flapper it girl! Western culture's sneak attack in 1924 Japan where Mary Pickford is much more than name-checked provides the background for this comic novel. Masochism is the price you pay when you're 13 years older than your better half and boy oh boy are you willing to to pony up. Not great Tanizaki but a good place to start.
2 people found this helpful
✓ Verified Purchase

Terrific ~ 4.5/5 stars

Naomi, translated from the Japanese was an entertaining read. I wasn't sure what to expect when I started reading this one, but by the time I was finished I had a big smile on my face.

The story takes place in 1920's Tokyo, where Naomi, a 15 year-old from a poor background works as a waitress at the Diamond Cafe. She is an attractive girl with "Eurasian" features. When Joji, a 28-year old Engineer, first sets eyes on her, he thinks she is beautiful, and before long he becomes obsessed with her. He thinks she has the perfect blend of eastern and Western features and a beautiful if not somewhat unusual name. Joji in contrast is nothing to look at, he's short, has "bad teeth" and is socially inept.

Initially Joji sees himself as a father figure for Naomi, but deep down thinks he can transform her into the perfect Western woman. She comes to live with him and initially does some household chores for him. He tries to teach her English and even pays for her to take music lessons. She isn't very good at either, but he still has hopes of molding her into the perfect woman, and then making her his perfect, beautiful wife.

They do marry, but it isn't long before Joji's plan backfire. Naomi soon begins to take total control over him. She becomes manipulative, spends more money than he makes, and quite plainly does what she wants to do and sees who she wants to see including other men. She makes a fool out of Joji.

Joji the protagonist of this story is really a pathetic man who has lost all respect. Even when he tells Naomi to move out, he finds he misses her and, she knows what cords to pull to keep him interested in her, and finds reason after reason to return to the house when he is there. Having lost all self-respect, Joji feels like he has to put up with Naomi calling the shots.

I really liked this story and it packs a punch for a short book -- about 250 pages or so, and it made me chuckle at times as well. I found Naomi to be almost a cautionary tale about what can happen when you try to make someone into the type of person you want them to be. I think we all know that it rarely works and the person, in most cases, just resents the other person for having tried.

It's a great read - Try it!
2 people found this helpful
✓ Verified Purchase

Precursor to "Laughter in the Dark"?

***CONTAINS SPOILERS***
(which you could probably have guessed happen anyway)

Having only read the book through once, and being drawn on by the plot so much I found it difficult to slow down and analyse the characters and symbolism in their entirety, I plan to write a full review after a re-reading.

But did anyone else who may have read "Laughter in the Dark" feel that Nabokov couldn't possibly have not read this book? There are so many similarities, from the obvious lead characters to the deception taking place so close to home (or rather, right at home), the contrived holiday location, even to the smaller details such as the bathroom between their separate rooms? I'm sure on re-reading both books I can find more.

My opinion briefly (symbolism and theme aside) - this book had a very powerful effect on me; though I couldn't put it down for a minute, at times I had to because I honestly found it painful to read. Though Jouji is of course a glutton for punishment, I felt intense (seriously intense) sympathy for him, and while hating Naomi at the same time found her utterly captivating and extremely attractive. This book put my emotions through the shredder.

Great, characters, great plot, great book. Will read again very soon.
2 people found this helpful
✓ Verified Purchase

Western Fetish Through Japanese Eyes

This is my first time reading a novel by Tanizaki Junichiro and I think I picked a good one to start with. In the novel, Tanizaki creates a realistic character in Joji. I think that Joji mirrors aspects of Tanizaki life as well. Tanizaki was infatuated with the West and then suddenly he only wanted to be Japanese and immerse himself in Japanese culture. Joji is so preoccupied with the West that he chooses a young girl because of her Western sounding name. Then he pays for English lessons, takes her to American movies, goes out with her to trendy restaurants to indulge in steak, and buys expensive Western clothes. It almost as if Joji is pruning a bonsai tree as he carefully molds her into his ideal. But this tree has a wild root that grows up into his own worst nightmare. I do feel sorry for Joji always giving in to Naomi's seemingly endless demands. I actually think he should run off and start a new life anywhere else but Naomi has other twisted plans for whomever she decides to get involved with. I don't fault Naomi due to her background that is revealed as the story gets going. Actually, I think that the whole novel is a satire of all things Western by Tanizaki. Even for someone like me who spent time in Japan because I loved Japanese culture, there comes a period where you become disillusioned by whatever country that you think you love. The Japanese often tell Americans living in Japan that after 3-years you either love Japan or hate it and never want to go back. I had mixed feeling after the 3rd year too. I think this novel was written during Tanizaki's disillusion with the West and knowing that I'm not judging him for it. In fact, this novel was probably a way of allowing Tanizaki to express himself in a way to create a comparison between the West and Japan and how people view each other, stereotypes and all. I do the same thing myself. Sometimes I get so wrapped up in Japanese movies that when someone asked me about an American movie like Iron Man, I don't want to talk about it. So I'm looking at it from the prospective of a Japanese fan. Also, in order to explain Japan to other people, I often pick American pop culture because I know about it and it makes some things easy to explain. Nothing always translate so smoothly between east and west and that's where problems start.
Anyway, I found Naomi to be an enjoyable read by a master storyteller who knows his characters with all their glorious faults intact. Truly great characters should have quirks and faults or the story isn't interesting. I will probably read The Key or The Makioka Sisters next.
2 people found this helpful

Related Books