Book Review: Some Prefer Nettles by Junichiro Tanizaki

The intricacies of a deteriorating, loveless marriage are revealed within this rich and beautifully structured novel. Some Prefer Nettles is a great work of beauty and art that so captures the universal themes of the lonely and loveless while also addressing the struggles between the East and West throughout Japan at that time. Kaname and Misako’s marriage is one of function. They do not love one another, but likely had they never married, it is possible they could have been friends instead. They share a young son, Hiroshi, and although their marriage has become nothing more than perfunctory, neither can claim he or she has been treated poorly. Tanizaki’s precision with dialogue captures perfectly the politeness and facades of the culture, where much is shown by what is not said.

In the opening chapter, Misako’s father invites the couple to join him and his very young mistress to a puppet theater. As Misako is helping to dress her husband in his kimono, the narrator notes that Misako’s skill in knowing how to arrange his clothes is perhaps “the only function she really discharged as a wife, the only function for which another woman would not do as well.” And when her hand touches the back of his neck, it feels impersonal, as if it could have been the hand of a barber. From the exterior, the narrator mentions that there is nothing that makes them appear not as husband as wife, for not even the servants have suspected their troubles. Likewise, Misako has taken on a lover with Kaname’s permission, and Kaname too has been allowed to explore his sexual prowess elsewhere.

Once at the theatre, Misako is repulsed by her father with his young “doll-like” mistress, believing him to be nothing more than “an old lecher whom she found generally repulsive.” Misako manages to reveal her dislike for O-hisa through her passive aggressive remarks and overall aloofness towards her. During the performance, Kaname is irritated by the “Osaka style of singing,” where much of it is “coarse and noisy.” The Osakan is viewed as loud and gauche to that of the more reserved Tokyo native, or as the narrator mentions: “He disliked the Osaka samisen, but even more he disliked the uncouth Osaka narrator, the embodiment, it seemed to him, of certain Osaka traits that he, born and reared in Tokyo like his wife, found highly disagreeable, a sort of brashness, impudence, forwardness, a complete lack of tact when it came to pushing one’s personal ends.”

Article Author: Jessica Schneider

Jessica is the co-founder of the highly popular arts site www.Cosmoetica.com, which has been praised by film critic Roger Ebert and noted in The New York Times. She's been writing fiction, poetry and reviews for more than a decade, and her work has …

Visit Jessica Schneider's author page — Jessica Schneider's Blog