The Makioka Sisters — Junichiro Tanizaki
In the QnA section of ‘Free Food For Millionaires’ Min Jin Lee mentioned this book as one of her favorites. At that time, I had already been a fan of her writing since ‘Pachinko’. I love how she wrote all her characters equally as a mix of good and evil that nobody was the hero, as I always expected stories about humans should be. So, it was only natural that I was curious about the influences from which her style was formed, which I assumed came from the books she read. And my curiosity got me to investigate this book.^1
Written in the middle of World War II and completed around the time when the world was recovering from it, the setting of this book was only years before the war started in the second half of the 30s. It was an interesting choice of time setting when there were a few close calls with China^2 threatened as potential wars. It was also a time when foreigners and Japanese alike left Asia for Europe and America only to find themselves caught in another world war. There were also dangers of newly found illnesses such as dysentery, anthrax, beriberi, and gangrene infection loomed to consume the population. In short, Tanizaki could not pick a more distracting timing as this to demand focus on only his story. Inexperienced writers could quickly lose the thread and entirely develop the story in a different direction.^3 But his ‘show not tell’ way of telling managed to navigate the attention back and forth to the story of the Makioka family, a merchant family whose primary business is trading within the city of Osaka.
As one of the old families in the region, the Makiokas were socially bound to traditions, including the practice of marrying unmarried daughters through matchmaking. The story didn’t dwell on the usual struggles of financial matters as one might find in other family-centered novels, so it is safe to assume that they were comfortable in terms of money. Their concerns instead revolved around the efforts in finding husbands for two of their unmarried family members.
The decision-making procedure in Japanese families like the Makiokas was unlike what I had ever encountered before reading this book. So, to emphasize my fascination, the necessity for me to elaborate is only apparent.
Traditionally, explained Tanizaki, the leader of the immediate family, was the oldest male. If there were no male ‘heir’, the family would adopt the eldest daughter’s husband as their own, who continued the family business. In the story, Tatsuo, the husband of the eldest sister of the Makiokas, Tsuruko, took the family name upon marrying her and therefore was their leader. But due to a rash decision at the first matchmaking of the third sister, Tatsuo failed to earn respect from his sisters-in-law, Sachiko, Yukiko, and Taeko. They, in turn, showed their rebellion against him in the way I, as a Javanese woman myself, could relate should I also rebel against my family.
The unmarried sisters, Yukiko and Taeko, ever since the failed matchmaking, didn’t want to live in the main house where Tatsuo and Tsuruko lived. With many excuses, they chose to live with Sachiko, the second sister, and her husband, Teinosuke, while the norms in those days compelled unmarried daughters to live in the main house until they were married. It is hilarious to read that while Yukiko excused herself by insisting that her niece, Sachiko’s daughter, wanted her to be around, Taeko, the youngest of the four, who was the loose cannon in the story, simply ignored the requirement.
With both unmarried sisters living in Sachiko’s house, the arrangement for matchmaking became Sachiko’s responsibility. With the help of her network, especially Mrs. Itani, the owner of the beauty salon the sisters frequented, Sachiko came up with numbers of eligible suitors. The arrangement processes were communicated to Tsuruko as Sachiko’s way to make her sister feel included. However, to everyone’s dismay, Yukiko rejected them all. Tanizaki didn’t explain further what Yukiko felt and looked for in them, so the readers were left guessing what could seem to be the issue with the suitors. Which I think was his intention.
He expressed Yukiko’s emotions clearer when she scolded Taeko. He revealed Yukiko’s steely moral compass about her sister’s behavior. For someone described as quiet and seemingly indecisive, this scene added more hidden layers to the enigma that was Yukiko.
I could understand why Min Jin Lee said this was one of her favorite books. Because of the holistic approach of the story, one could analyze this book from whichever angle one finds as relevant given the moods, time, and space. As I have mentioned earlier, the genius in the show-not-tell way of writing of Tanizaki brought the focus back and forth and around the issues in a human’s life. For example, as I’m writing, I am inclined to discuss the story from a woman's perspective, and it turned out this book is loaded with matters to cover.
Against my feminist conviction on how a woman should be in my time, I sympathized with the second daughter, Sachiko. In her way, she asserted feminine subtleness in manipulation, which was unmatched by any physical strength or violence to get her way. By description, she was a woman with many health problems, so she counted on her intelligence to steer her family away from the risk of humiliation her youngest sibling unintentionally peppered throughout the novel. And because of Sachiko’s cunning strategy, the story ended in peace rather than feud. My impression is not entirely wrong as Tanizaki based Sachiko on his third wife, who managed to provide the happy environment essential for his creative process in real life.^4 However, I am not saying that Sachiko was the hero of the story because I sensed that Tanizaki described the four sisters as to how one woman could be in different circumstances, which gave away his wonderment in the complex nature of women.
A woman could have been a Tsuruko when married to a stingy man such as Tatsuo, birthed and cared for so many children by herself and had to lose herself in the process. She could hardly empathize with Taeko’s misery or even be patient with Yukiko’s indecisiveness because she had no time to breathe. That could be why her response to Sachiko’s letters was always slow, and when she had the time to see her sisters, she chose to have a long massage and not discuss matters that were trivial to her. Throughout the story, Tsuruko was always in survival mode — to not lose her mind. At the end of the story, she broke down and cried out of loneliness. She wanted to watch the Kabuki show with her sisters, but she could not. Her duty called her.
A woman could have been as brave as Yukiko when she was pushed and cornered. In her way, she demanded more time to consider the important decision (for that time) that could either bring her happiness or misery — a husband. She pushed back the social pressure of having to marry within a specific age range and remained stubborn to stay where she was when she felt it was not the right fit. Her movement was calculated because all eyes were on her. She couldn’t care if she appeared as slow because she knew the matter of her happiness was her own and no one else’s.
But a woman could also have been as confident and reckless as Taeko when she felt safe. She had her sisters to protect her — as ignorant that Tsuruko was, or snappy that was Yukiko, or gentle as Sachiko, Taeko was sure she would always find a home in them. Her sisters provided a room for her to learn her mistakes, which had transformed her into more responsible and mindful of others’ feelings, although when she married that bartender at the end, I am sure it was not the end of her story.
Anyway, I will stop, although this review is not yet finished. I admit there are many things I should be able to discuss other unexplored aspects of this book. Such as the sadness I felt when I foresaw what could happen to Mrs. Itani when she arrived in America amid the war against the Japanese, or how close the family was to the bombing sites (Nagasaki and Hiroshima) which would take place soon after Yukiko’s wedding, or about the relevance of the story to today’s society reaction to the current situation. But as the story had to stop somewhere, so does this review.
[1] By ‘investigate,’ I mean reading in the only way I know — incredibly slow and not time-sensitive.
[2] One interesting close call was when a group of the Japanese army was looking for one of their members demanded the right to search the town of Wanping but was refused by the Chinese national army. The incident became the start of Sino Japanese wars. The missing soldier eventually returned unharmed and claimed he was looking for a toilet and got lost in the foreign town. For a complete account on this, see Marco Polo Bridge Incident <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marco_Polo_Bridge_Incident >
[3] Such as yours truly. Thank the universe for the invention of footnotes.
[4] Junichiro Tanizaki, The Makioka Sisters, Everyman’s Library (1993) Ch. Introduction pp xii
