Rating: 
Summary: Fragile and lovely.
Review: A sense of gradual decline pervades Junichiro Tanizaki's The Makioka Sisters. There are personal upheavals and unexpected discoveries, but it is the passage of time itself that takes the biggest toll on the characters. Time chips away at them, tarnishing not just the present, but the best moments of the past. When Sachiko finds out about Taeko's deceitful treatment of her old boyfriend Okubata, this discovery stains Taeko's image not just then, as she gasps for air in the hospital bed, but in the past, casting a pall over even her most selfless and prettiest moments, like the time when she dressed up in Japanese clothes to perform a traditional holiday dance. But, though the Makiokas' lives are shaken up from time to time, like when the big flood happens or Taeko announces her pregnancy, decay is a slow process. It encroaches on the atmosphere so gradually that one barely notices how the book, which starts with businesslike optimism at a good marriage prospect for Yukiko, ends with tones of sorrowful regret. One is told right at the beginning that the fortunes of the Makioka family, once a wealthy and noble clan, have been in decline, but one doesn't really feel how true it is until the end.Yukiko's reluctance to marry is her way of trying to stall this retroactive erosion of their lives. While she's still unmarried, everyone comments on her youthful beauty, as if solitude and virginity have shielded her from time. Her eventual inevitable marriage, then, is like a surrender. The other sisters have their ways, too, but they also bend in the wind. Tsuruko, the eldest sister, can't avoid moving to Tokyo, even though she's an Osaka woman at heart. When she does move, the traditional structure of the family, which always had a "main house" in Osaka and a "second house" nearby, disintegrates. With Tsuruko moving into a crowded shack in another city, there is no more main house. The second house holds down the fort for some more years, with the knowledge that it won't always be able to do so. Taeko, the youngest sister, doesn't want to deal with the family's aristocratic pretensions, which are rapidly becoming obsolete, so she wears Western clothes, smokes cigarettes, and spends most of her time away from home. These things aren't even that devastating, on a grand scale - certainly the war that would follow in just a few years would be a far greater calamity - but they have a great cumulative destructive effect, because these people are simultaneously not meant for the new Japan and yet too modernized and educated to really be able to remain in the old one.
For instance, according to the old ways, Yukiko is supposed to go stay with the main house until she can get married, which she is supposed to do as soon as possible. But staying at the main house, even before the move to Tokyo, makes her miserable, and she turns away all of her marriage prospects (well, those that haven't been frustrated by her extreme reticence and shyness). At the same time, she would be incapable of adopting the open-minded ways of her younger sister Taeko, and doesn't even try to do so. In fact, she looks prettiest in traditional Japanese clothes. And Sachiko's house, and its familiar surroundings, are just as important to her as Sachiko and Taeko themselves. The necessity of change tears at her. In the end of the book, they finally marry her off, the hideous face of World War II looms on the horizon, Sachiko regrets that she won't be able to hold her yearly ritual of taking Yukiko's picture by the cherry blossoms, and the reader is left feeling that a great injustice had been wrought. Well, eventually there comes a time when one just can't fight anymore. But I can't help lamenting: Ah, Yukiko, would that you hadn't married, and stayed forever young.
Rating:
Summary: Sloppy edition of a true masterpiece.
Review: Just like Trollope's "the way we live now" provides a century old preview of the accounting scandals that shake the western financial systems, Tanizaki's evocative novel gives such a detailed exposition of the Japanese psyche that extrapolation of the storyline allows a deeper understanding of the mindset that plagues the economy in the land of the rising sun. This book is a long and detailed look at the "clash" of the Makioka family representing the established former order of Japanese society with the challenge of changing times. The Makiokas still hold on strongly to a way of life that provides an almost religious structure to their existence, but that also is a straightjacket for especially the youngest of the sisters. In its subject matter the novel reminds one of an Austen novel, yet the style is almost as journalistic as Dreiser's "American Tragedy". Especially, the objective "just the facts" approach makes this book timeless. From a western post-Seinfeldian perspective it could be argued that this is a "book about nothing". Yet, the fact that many of the problems that face the Makiokas are both of a scope and on a scale that may seem trivial to the western ratracer does not make them any less significant for this cast. In addition, thanks to a mastery of every detail of the story and the three-dimensional portraits of characters that by themselves are rather "flat", reading this book was the opposite of boring. The 500+ pages flew by in a breeze. This book has often been called the best Japanese novel of the twentieth century. This is a matter of taste, but both the subject matter and execution reflect a quintessential Japanese eye for achieving perfection using the simplest of means. I do agree with a previous reviewer with the sloppiness of this edition. Typos abound, sometimes as many as three per page. In addition, the translation is a far cry in style from the Japanese original and has numerous examples of lines that make no sense. Yet for all readers who are willing to invest some time and a lot of attention, reading this book is a very worthwhile investment that will result in a better understanding of the remnants of the old way of life, that still haunt modern Japan.
Rating:
Summary: A great classic.
Review: Others have commented that this book is slow-going, which I can understand--there certainly isn't a great deal of what you'd call 'action,' in a Hollywood sense--but on the other hand, I found it an amazingly effortless read; pages would simply melt away at an astonishing rate. It's very much a novel after the manner of the nineteenth-century (though it's probably best to avoid Jane Austen comparisons, which, though superficially appealing, ultimately don't really work very well): no modernist jiggery pokery (not that I have anything against that, necessarily), just a straightforward narrative of things that happen. One sometimes forgets how effective this can be, when done well. All this notwithstanding, perhaps the most interesting thing about the novel is its ambiguity: out of the three sisters (the fourth, Tsuruko, being a very minor character, although this does also apply to her, to an extent), only one, Sachiko (the novel's de facto protagonist, I suppose), is made entirely psychologically comprehensible by Tanizaki. Taeko and Yukiko remain to a large extent mysterious throughout. I find that the glib characterizations of them and other major characters in the Vintage edition to be very misleading: nobody in the book can be so easily characterized. Even Taeko's old flame Okubata, who the reader is likely to quickly write off as 'total jerk,' is ultimately given the benefit of the doubt. One thing that may seem strange to some readers is the way that world events of the time are understated. The novel takes place in the years leading up to World War II, concluding at the end of 1940. However, in spite of occasional references to Hitler and "the China Incident," there is little effect on the lives of the Makiokas, and insofar as they are aware of these things, they remain undemonstratively, naturally, loyal to their country and their allies. This, of course, is nothing more than self-evidently realistic, and I certainly hope nobody would be deranged enough to condemn them for it. People have to live their lives; it's not as if the US hasn't been involved in its share of ignoble wars (hmm...can we think of a current example?). Tankizaki may be subtly critiquing this behavior, but it never becomes more than an undercurrent. At ANY rate! This is nothing like my preconception of what Japanese novels are supposed to be like was, based on reading Mishima and Kawabata. It is, however, excellent in its own right. If you want something a little more circumspect than your average novel (whatever THAT beast would like!), go for it.
Rating: 
Summary: The Private world of a vicious dicatorship
Review: The Makioka Sisters is a special novel for two reasons. Much of Japanese literature this century is very taut and relatively short. One thinks of Soseki, Mishima, Dazai, Kawabata and the two most important of Tanizaki's other novels, Some Prefer Nettles and Diary of a Mad Old Man. Instead of being 150-200 pages, this book is around 500 pages. The popular description of this book, about a merchant family in decline, might imply a book like Budenbrooks. Yet this book is very different from Thomas Mann's fine novel. For a start it only covers four years, not a couple of generations. More important the theme of decline is not a primary one, and Mann's theme of cultural enervation is absent. What we have instead is a book that seeks to be a work of "photographic realism." It seeks to be "real" not in the sense that Flaubert or James or Tolstoy are realistic. Instead of portraying complex themes and ideas while keeping an eye on what would be actually plausible, Tanizaki seeks to describe what actually happens. This sort of realism is not highly valued since it is often unimiginative and often psychologically shallow. And indeed in this book it can often appear tedious and unrewarding. But a closer examination reveals certain virtues. In a sense Tanizaki's book is "like life." The story of Taeko of of the youngest sister who cannot marry because custom dictates she must wait for her older sister Yukiko to be married. The story of her two possible fiancess and the eventual pre-marital pregnancy appear, not as part of a complex, organic scheme as, say, the story of Anna Karenina, but as a series of discrete events, moved often by coincidence and chance. A flood becomes a crucial event, one character is killed by a quack doctor, Taeko becomes ill with dystentry at a crucial moment, a proposal is botched because Yukiko cannot summon the courage to answer the telephone. Since this is often how life happens it is not unrealistic and indeed has a special value of perspective. Tanizaki's sense of style and detail are also interesting. For example there is little on food (by contrast one remembers the Christmas dinner in Buddenbrooks). There is the Japanese emphasis on the intense aesthetic absorption in a taut, sparsely described expression of nature. Two of the leading incidents in the book describe watching cherry trees bloom and having a firefly hunt in the night. At one point Sachiko, the second sister and the most important one in the novel, watches her young daughter and her German friends plays with dolls and the German girl accurately tells where babies come from. It is interesting that Sachiko approves of this realism. Most interesting is the fact that this book takes place from 1936 to 1940, during, of course, the Japanese invasion of China. Tanizaki itself stared writing the book during the second world war, and his publication was delayed on the grounds that it apparently did not help the war effort enough. It was not actually published until 1948, when Japan was occupied by the American occupation. How much did this change the political tone? Perhaps not as much as one might think, since the Makiokas write their German friends that they are pleased that their ally is doing so well in the summer of 1940. Yet at the same time the absence of ideology and fanaticism is striking. The Makiokas naturally agree with the austerity campaigns, they refer to the invasion as the "China Incident" like everyone else, and they vaguely wish for peace. This is not unrealistic per se (the Makiokas are probably too old to worry about conscription) and the absence of politics is also not unrealistic. After all women did not have the right to vote at this time. Before commenting on how the Makiokas have escaped the trap of ideology, and before making comparisons to Jane Austen, one should consider while reading this novel the idea that such privatism is essential to such a regime. Instead of totalitarianism smashing individuals and transforming themselves into empty masses, one should consider the insights of Rudy Koshar and William Sheridan Allen that regimes feed off this sort of privatism and political isolation.
Rating:
Summary: A sensational story told in beautiful, delicate detail
Review: THE MAKIOKA SISTERS tells the story of the lives and relationships of four sisters in the late 1930's and early 1940's in Osaka, Japan. Tsuruko, the oldest, who is married, acts as the head of the household by nature of her age. Sachiko, the second oldest, also married, is a sensitive and intelligent woman who watches over her younger sisters. Yukiko, unmarried, is extrmeley shy and reserved, and extremely dependent upon Sachiko. The youngest, also unmarried, is Taeko (nicknamed Koi-san), a free spirit who finds that she must break with tradition to be happy. It is the responsibility of Sachiko and her husband Teinosuke to find a suitable husband for Yukiko, who must marry before Taeko as custom dictates. The book takes us through several years in the lives of the Makioka family (curiously, since there were only daughters and no sons, both sisters' husbands took the name Makioka), as they experience the joys and disillusions of life in an extremely close-knit family. As their wealth and prosperity wane, they realize that you sometimes must make sacrifices. It was wonderful to read this book knowing that not only was it written by a native Japanese, but that it was also written in that time period, in the early 1940's. Knowing that every description and every conversation was authentic made this an amazing book. I would highly reccomend this to anyone who has an interest in Japanese customs, society and way of life. It was fascinating.
Rating:
Summary: Japanese classic : important but less than compelling read
Review: This book holds a very special place in my reading history. It opened my mind in the subtlest of ways. It is a book about the meeting of cultures, east and west, and to my surprise neither side wins. Tanizaki shows that blindly revering the past can yield fatal results, but so can blindly flying into the future. Tanizaki's sentiments lie somewhere inbetween. The novel is longer than most and moves at a pace which reveres eastern tradition while assimilating western forms, in short, this is a perfectly poised work that does not sacrifice anything to short term gain nor martyr itself for some unwinnable cause. Tanizaki is a master at a game that his whole culture is (and less obviously ours) is playing. Neither way is completely correct and neither way wrong. The characters in this magnificent novel all walk in between. In some ways the novel belongs to the twenties in which it was written, in other ways it belongs to us.
Rating:
Summary: Addictively engaging
Review: This book offers a wonderful glimpse into the pre-war life in Japan among aristocratic women. Four sisters, Tsuruko, Sachiko, Yukiko, and Taeko struggle to maintain the family honor and to construct satisfying lives. This is made especially difficult by Yukiko's inability to find a husband and a tradition that prohibits younger sisters from marrying until the older sisters marry. Addictively engaging, this book takes the reader to Japan to spend some time living in the Makioka sisters' world.
Rating:
Summary: Addictively engaging
Review: This book offers a wonderful glimpse into the pre-war life in Japan among aristocratic women. Four sisters, Tsuruko, Sachiko, Yukiko, and Taeko struggle to maintain the family honor and to construct satisfying lives. This is made especially difficult by Yukiko's inability to find a husband and a tradition that prohibits younger sisters from marrying until the older sisters marry. Addictively engaging, this book takes the reader to Japan to spend some time living in the Makioka sisters' world.
Rating:
Summary: Beautiful, evocative tale of pre-World War II Japan
Review: This has to be considered Tanizaki's masterpiece. It is a beautifully written, deliciously observed tale of the decline of a privileged upper middle class Osaka family, told through the lives of four sisters. I have read this book three times and learn someting new each time. It is a thoroughly modern story with elusive and ghostly antecedents. Although the tale takes place only 60 years ago, on the eve of pre-war Japan, it describes a world now vanished. Tanizaki's writing is fluid and clear. His description of Kyoto during cherry blossom viewing makes me sorry I've never been there at that season. The sublety Tanizaki brings to the emotions and motives of each of the persons attending Yukiko's many miais is amazing. Unfortunately, the film of about a decade or so ago doesn't do the book justice. Thank you, Tanizaki-san, for giving us the Makioka Sisters.
Rating:
Summary: much better
Review: This is the third novel I've read of Tanizaki's and it was definitely a huge triumph over the last one I read (title to remain unnamed). Though I thought that this book could've been shorter, 500+ pages as opposed to 250 or less(?), it was all in all a good storyline. Being of Japanese descent, this novel makes me appreciate the so found "freedoms" that we have today in contrast to the past.
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