Some Prefer Nettles

is a 1929 novel by Jun'ichirō Tanizaki.

Plot summary

Kaname and his wife Misako are caught in a loveless marriage, yet neither is willing to ask for divorce. Each decision they make is carefully executed so that they can remain in their delicate balance of passivity. But one day the couple decides to go see the puppet theater in Osaka with Misako’s father and his mistress Ohisa, out of filial piety.

Watching the puppet theater, Kaname feels that the plot of the specific play (Love Suicides) parallels his relationship; but it also strikes a chord with him because he feels a connection to the Japan of the past. They leave early, with Misako riding in a taxi to her lover Aso, while Kaname is swallowed up in the crowds outside the theater.

At Kaname’s request, his cousin Takanatsu visits them to offer advice with the possibility of their divorce while also bearing gifts. Kaname and Misako are unwilling to discuss the problem, and Takanatsu leaves in frustration. Kaname accepts an invitation from his father-in-law to go to Awaji with him and his mistress to experience the puppet theater from there. Kaname becomes more aware of Ohisa’s doll like characteristics making her the ‘eternal woman’ when she plays the song “Snow” on her shamisen on their trip to Awaji. The town is charmingly reminiscent of the past, and the puppet theater is a carnival like event with the community actively involved. After wishing goodbye to his father-in-law and Ohisa, Kaname goes to Kobe to eat fine Western food and visit a boisterous Eurasian prostitute, Louise. Finishing with her he swears to never return to the brothel and returns home.

Kaname receives a letter from his father-in-law expressing regret that their marriage has gone awry and wishes to talk to them in Kyoto. Tension between Kaname and Misako is high. Kaname discovers a letter from Takanatsu to Misako explaining his views on the relationship; reading it moves him to tears.

Finally, Kaname and Misako go to Kyoto to talk to the old man. Kaname muses about how he could see himself living in such a Japanese-style house while Misako and her father are elsewhere discussing the relationship. Kaname is left with Ohisa at the house alone when rain starts to fall.

Themes

Considered one of Tanizaki’s most successful novels, "Tade kuu mushi" is rife with thematic elements which pervade the story and make for fascinating points of discourse.

East vs West

In reading "Tade kuu mushi", a theme that becomes immediately apparent is the struggle between East and West. Although the terms themselves are artificial social constructions, the dissonance between the two is present throughout the entire novel, and indeed throughout this portion of Kaname’s life.

The beginning of the novel presents a Kaname whose aesthetic tastes lean more toward the so-called West. His romanticized version of it is manifested in the western wing of his house (in particular, the veranda under which he likes to sit), his fascination with lascivious American movie-stars, and very potently in an English translation of the Arabian Nights that he is wont to skim through in order to find the more lewd passages for which it is famous.

After a visit to the bunraku theater with his father-in-law, wife, and his father-in-law’s mistress in Chapter Two, however, Kaname’s interest in traditional aesthetics is piqued, and he even becomes envious of the ‘Old Man’ and his lifestyle: at an old play, pipe in hand, sake and a young mistress at his behest. This is the beginning of Kaname’s divergent interest in the East, his preference for the past.

But there is no East, and there is no West — a concept that becomes more apparent as certain tokens or representations of each begin to arise. For example, the Old Man’s mistress, Ohisa, comes to represent the traditional East, always dressing in kimono, conforming her ministrations to the Old Man’s every whim—and her iconic Osaka black teeth. The idea that Ohisa represents the East is consummated in the closing lines of Chapter Ten: “Ohisa truly was a vision left behind from a feudal age” (TKM, 139). But in spite of such a strong affirmation of her ‘easternness,’ all throughout the novel we are given clues as to her ‘true’ nature that serve to contradict the mask she is wearing: how she is scolded for using a compact (Chapter Two), how she uses sunscreen in Awaji (Chapter Ten), and certainly how she complains about the stiff clothing that the Old Man insists she wear. So we are told she’s a vision of the past, then led to suspect that very concept. In reality: she is both. And neither. She is simply Ohisa.

The same goes for Louise, the prostitute in Chapter Thirteen, who is a dubious (at best) representation of the West. She pretends to be Turkish — and looks it, too. Were the white powder she practically bathes herself in removed, though, Louise would be revealed as Eurasian, half-Korean, half-Russian, as close to the East as Kaname himself, in spite of her directness and blatant sexual nature that together form the now gossamer connection between her and the West.

Kaname’s copy of "Arabian Nights" is a mix of these two contradictions, being an exotic collection technically written in the East, but translated into English, and thus made all the more exotic in Kaname’s eyes. His world is convoluted, to say the least.

Madonna vs Harlot

Speaking of convolution, it’s also important to look at Kaname’s view of, and interest in, women — the second major theme that permeates the novel. His proclivities can be summed up in the title of this section — Madonna vs Harlot — a theme for which Tanizaki is notorious, and which he addresses directly at several points in "Tade kuu mushi".

In speaking with his cousin, Takanatsu, Kaname reveals that he’s only interested in two types of women: the motherly-type and the whore-type ("bofugata" and "shoufugata", respectively). What he looks for in a woman oscillates between the two, and the fact that his wife is neither one nor the other, but a mix of both, is largely the impetus behind his waning, if not dead, interest in her. Kaname prefers extremes, which will become more and more apparent as the novel progresses.

There is some sort of reconciliation between these two extremes, however, and it is found in what is coined as the “Eternal Woman” ("eien josei"), a woman to be worshiped. Though it’s not expressed clearly who exactly this Eternal Woman is, nor what characterizes her, it is clear that she’s someone who would not only inspire, but command genuflection of the man who worships her.

To unravel what it means to be an Eternal Woman, however, it may help to look at Tanizaki’s use of dolls throughout "Tade kuu mushi", for it is in looking at the doll Koharu — in the play "Shinjuuten no amijima" (Love Suicide at Amijima) — that Kaname gets his first taste of her power.

Dolls

Dolls appear frequently throughout the novel, and even when they’re not being dealt with literally, there is a specter of doll-ness that, though figurative, is continually visited and revisited in the text. As mentioned, while watching "Shinjuuten no Amijima", Kaname takes particular notice of the character Koharu—the doll that becomes the very Form of what Kaname thinks women should be (later to be replaced by Ohisa). The conception of womanliness that Koharu inspires in Kaname is what lies at the heart of his Madonna-Harlot conflict, what makes him attracted both to an image of the Virgin Mary and to Hollywood movie stars: he isn’t interested in real women at all, but in idealized forms of them: women who can be appreciated from afar for what they represent, not for who they are. And dolls encapsulate this perfectly, being masterfully sculpted, subtle in their beauty, and silently manipulated by men.

Fantasy vs Reality

Kaname has an overly active fantasy life that he seemingly prefers to interact with more than he does reality. In that same manner, his interest in the West is rooted more in its fantastical (not necessarily accurate) elements; the same can be said for his interest in the traditional East.

An example of the former is evidenced in his preference for the Western concept of divorce, how everyone supposedly does it—to the extent that it’s almost a fad. He is also fascinated with the colorfulness of western sexuality and, in particular, the way in which American films continually find new and more poignant ways of exhibiting a woman’s beauty. Both divorce and sexuality are viewed differently in the ‘West’ than in the ‘East,’ but there are generalizations and exaggerations of both that render Kaname’s fixation with them more fantastical than real.

As for Kaname’s recognition of the wiles inherent in eastern tradition, the more shadowy locations in "Tade kuu mushi" seem to encourage his imagination and perpetuate a potentially false concept of the East. A perfect example of this is in Chapter Ten, wherein Kaname, walking alongside Ohisa with the Old Man toddling behind, is struck by the image of a dark old house. The passage that follows practically brims with enchanting musings as to what might actually be going on behind the house’s curtains, deep in the shadows beyond its latticework, a narrative technique that is largely unused up until this point in the novel—one that’s tapped only when the readers are finally given the opportunity to glance briefly into Kaname’s world of fantasy.

The Water Basin

One of the most memorable scenes in the novel is incidentally found in the first chapter. It is a scene where Tanizaki conjures the image of a tub of water being suspended between Misako and Kaname. Whoever moves first, the water will tip in his direction. This image is a symbol of indecision, a harbinger of the passivity that infects their present situation. Both Misako and Kaname are afraid of taking the final leap toward divorce, and each is waiting for the other to tip the scale, make the water flow—finish off what they’ve begun. Inaction and pussy-footedness are present in almost every facet of both of their lives, whether it be ending the marriage, or Kaname choosing to associate more with the East or West, and there’s no telling who will make the decision to act, nor what will encourage it—it’s clear, though, that the decision won’t bring itself into fruition as they’d both like it to.

References

Tanizaki Jun’ichirō 谷崎潤一郎. "Tade kuu mushi" 蓼食う虫. Tokyo 東京: Shinchōbunko 新潮文庫, 2004.

Seidensticker, Edward G., trans. "Some Prefer Nettles". Tanizaki Jun’ichirō. New York: Vintage Books, 1995.

Further reading

Gessel, Van C. "Three Modern Novelists: Sōseki, Tanizaki, Kawabata". New York: Kodansha International, 1993.

Ito, Ken Kenneth. "Visions of Desire: Tanizaki’s Fictional Worlds". Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1991.

Keene, Donald. "Dawn to the West: Japanese Literature of the Modern Era". New York: Hold, Rinehart, and Winston, 1984.

Pollack, David. "Reading Against Culture: Ideology and Narrative in the Japanese Novel". Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1992.