Naomi

Naomi by Jumichiro Tanizaki. paperback edition. ISBN: 9780804815208.

Na-o-mi. The three syllables of this name, unusual in 1920s Japan, captivate a 28-year-old engineer, who soon becomes infatuated with the girl so named, a teenaged café waitress. Drawn to her Eurasian features and innocent demeanor, 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 wife. But when the two come together to indulge their shared passion for Western culture, Joji discovers that Naomi is far from being the naïve girl of his fantasies, and his passion descends into a comically helpless masochism. A literary masterpiece that helped to establish Junichiro Tanizaki as Japans greatest novelist, Naomi is both a hilarious story of one mans obsession and torment, and a brilliant evocation of a nations cultural confusion.