'Hilarious... gleeful... [A] shrewd commentary on Japan's infatuation with the West." - NY Times
Na-o-mi. The three syllables of this name, unusual in 1920s Japan, capture the imagination of 28-year-old Joji, who soon becomes smitten with the girl so named, a teenaged cafe waitress of obscure origins. Drawn to her innocent demeanor and her almost Eurasian features, which bear a vague likeness to Mary Pickford's, Joji is eager to whisk young Naomi away from the seamy underbelly of post-World War I Tokyo and to mold her into his ideal companion. As the two come together to indulge their shared passion for Western culture, Joji discovers that Naomi is far from being the naive girl os his fantasies, and his passion quickly descends into a comically helpless masochism.
A literary masterpiece that helped to establish Junichiro Tanizaki as Japan's greatest novelist, Naomi is both a hilarious story of one man's obsession and torment, and a brilliant evocation of a nation's cultural confusion.
"Tanizaki's prose is clean and inviting, and the character of Joji exquisitely drawn, his uncomprehending guilelessness the perfect tool for the author's deft cross-cultural thrusts." - Washington Post
"In a class with lady Chatterley's Lover and Lolita... Powerfully erotic, direly funny, a great novelist's masterpiece." - Booklist
