In Praise of Shadows

“Indeed one could with some justice claim that of all the elements of Japanese architecture, the toilet is the most aesthetic. Our forebears, making poetry of everything in their lives, transformed what by rights should be the most unsanitary room in the house into a place of unsurpassed elegance, replete with fond associations with the beauties of nature. Compared to Westerners, who regard the toilet as utterly unclean and avoid even the mention of it in polite conversation, we are far more sensible and certainly in better taste.”

Building on an anecdote about the construction of Tanizaki’s own home, this passage presents one of his first major comparisons between Japan and the West. The former finds poetic and elegant qualities that sharply contrast with the latter’s disgust toward the subject. Indeed, Tanizaki describes the act of using a dimly lit, impeccably clean toilet as an utterly peaceful experience that would be ruined by the white tile and excessive lighting preferred by Westerners.

“Japanese music is above all a music of reticence, of atmosphere. When recorded, or amplified by a loudspeaker, the greater part of its charm is lost. In conversation, too, we prefer the soft voice, the understatement. Most important of all are the pauses. Yet the phonograph and radio render these moments of silence utterly lifeless. And so we distort the arts themselves to curry favor for them with the machines. These machines are the inventions of Westerners, and are, as we might expect, well suited to the Western arts. But precisely on this account they put our own arts at a great disadvantage.”

This passage provides another important contrast between Japan and the West that expands the argument beyond the preference for dark and light to include differences related to sound and voice. Moreover, Tanizaki begins to formulate one of his larger arguments: Western inventions cannot be applied universally to different cultures. He would rather see all nations invent technology that is suited to their distinct cultural preferences.

“There is no denying, at any rate, that among the elements of the elegance in which we take such delight is a measure of the unclean, the unsanitary. I suppose I shall sound terribly defensive if I say that Westerners attempt to expose every speck of grime and eradicate it, while we Orientals carefully preserve and even idealize it. Yet for better or for worse we do love things that bear the marks of grime, soot, and weather, and we love the colors and the sheen that call to mind the past that made them. Living in these old houses among these old objects is in some mysterious way a source of peace and repose.”

Tanizaki returns to his main contrast regarding the aesthetic differences between Japan and the West, but here he deepens his argument by connecting the preference for grime to a love for the past. While Western society loves progress, which means rejecting old and dirty objects for shiny new ones, Japanese society has huge respect and love for the past and thinks that connecting with the past offers one a sense of peace.