TANIZAKI: Diary of a Mad Old Man *Bestseller! 谷崎润一郎：疯癫老人日记 (ISBN 9784805306758)

In the last book he wrote before he died,Junichiro Tanizaki returns to a theme that dominates much of his earlier work: the
relationship between sexual desire and the will to live. Diary of a Mad Old Man, first published as Futen Rojin Nikki in 1962, is the journal of Tokusuke Utsugi, a 77-year-old man of refined tastes who is recovering from a stroke caused by an excess of sexual excitement. He discovers that even while his body is breaking down, his libido rages on, unwittingly sparked by the gentle, kind-ly attentions of his daughter-in-law Satsuko, a sophisticated, flashy,cosmopolitan dancer with a shady past. Utsugi records both his past desires and his current efforts to bribe his daughter-in-law to provide sexual favors in return for Western baubles. Pitiful and ridiculous as he is, he is without a trace of self-pity, and much ofthe book, especially the scene in which Satsuko explains the differ-ence between necking and petting, shines with humor. Here in this short novel is much of the tragicomedy of human existence.