¶ … fool's love in Naomi by Junichiro Tanizaki
Naomi (1924) by the 20th century Japanese writer Junichiro Tanizaki has often been anachronistically called the Japanese Lolita in that it relates the obsession of a middle-aged man for a much younger woman. (Nabokov's novel was published in the 1950s). Tanizaki's male protagonist Joji is somewhat younger than Nabokov's Humbert and the female heroine Joji is somewhat older (although still a teenager) than Lolita. Rather than a tale of exploitation of a man lusting after a young girl and selfishly indulging his Pygmalion fantasies, Naomi instead functions more as a cautionary tale of the foolishness of patriarchal, idealistic love.
When Joji first spies Naomi, she is a waitress in a local cafe, and he is entranced by what he sees as her movie star-like appearance. Significantly, he compares her 'white' features to that of the famous American actress Mary Pickford, an adult actress who frequently played young children. Joji is taken by Naomi's apparent innocence, and becomes obsessed with making her into the 'perfect' woman. He fantasizes that he can be a father-figure...
She never learns to speak English well. She routinely embarrasses her patron (Jogi) by talking loudly and somewhat ignorantly in public. She never fully becomes the ideal vision of Westernization that he initially attracts him to her (she is said to have a "physical similarity" that strongly resembles a popular American silent film actress of the time) (Schneider). Her failure to Westernize, then, symbolizes that the notion of the
Price Beauty? 'For though beauty is seen and confessed by all, yet, from the many fruitless attempts to account for the cause of its being so, enquiries on this head have almost been given up" William Hogarth, The Analysis of Beauty, (1753) Not very encouraging words, but if the great artist William Hogarth felt himself up to the task, we can attempt at least to follow his lead. That beauty is enigmatic
From girlhood," Sula shows a natural gift for daring, Lorie Watkins Fulton writes in African-American Review (Fulton, 2006). Sula in fact persuades Nel to join up with her in order to confront the bullies on Carpenter's Road; and when Sula shows the guts to pull her grandma's paring knife from her pocket and slice a piece of her finger off, the boys star "open-mouthed at the wound" (Morrison 54). If I
It seems to her, says Flaubert, that her being, rising toward God, is going to be annihilated in love like burning incense that dissipates in vapor. But her response during this phenomenon remains curiously erotic... The waving of the green palm leaves relates this scene to the previous scenes of sexual seduction. (Duncan para, 5) At times, the green in the novel moves from springtime to the idea of the
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