The Key & Diary of a Mad Old Man

Name: The Key & Diary of a Mad Old Man
Author: Junichiro Tanizaki
ISBN: 9781400079001

by Junichiro Tanizaki

368 pages2004Knopf Doubleday Publishing GroupISBN 9781400079001

Fiction

About this book

These two modern classics by the great Japanese novelist Junichiro Tanizaki, both utilize the diary form to explore the authority that love and sex have over all. In The Key, a middle-aged professor plies his wife of thirty years with any number of stimulants, from brandy to a handsome young lover, in order to reach new heights of pleasure. Their alternating diaries record their separate adventures, but whether for themselves or each other becomes the question. Diary of a Mad Old Man records, with alternating humor and sadness, seventy-seven-year-old Utsugi’s discovery that even his stroke-ravaged body still contains a raging libido, especially in the unwitting presence of his chic, mysterious daughter-in-law.

Publication Details

Publisher: Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group
Published: 2004
Pages: 368
ISBN: 9781400079001
Language: en

About Junichiro Tanizaki

> Jun'ichirō Tanizaki (谷崎潤一郎, Tanizaki Jun'ichirō, 24 July 1886 – 30 July 1965) was a Japanese author who is considered to be one of the most prominent figures in modern Japanese literature. The tone and subject matter of his work ranges from shocking depictions of sexuality and destructive erotic obsessions to subtle portrayals of the dynamics of family life within the context of the rapid changes in 20th-century Japanese society. Frequently, his stories are narrated in the context of a search for cultural identity in which constructions of the West and Japanese tradition are juxtaposed. >He was one of six authors on the final shortlist for the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1964, the year before his death. --- [From Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jun%27ichir%C5%8D_Tanizaki)