Book Review: "The Key" by Jun'ichirō Tanizaki

I have read quite a few of Tanizaki's novels in the past. These include books such as: "The Makioka Sisters", "Some Prefer Nettles" and even "In Praise of Shadows". So I imagine I have a good holding on what to expect from this author and yet, I am still rather surprised. In a style more befitting to DH Lawrence's novels such as "Lady Chatterley's Lover" and "Women in Love" - this book seems to, more than others by Tanizaki, cover the aspects of traditionalist love that leads to almost this mental breakdown of the main characters involved in it. An almost Battle Royale of superiority and getting what they want out of a seemingly loveless and rather strange marriage dynamic, Tanizaki tells us a story through first person diary entries about how one tries to take down the other through manipulation. The character of Ikuko is one of Tanizaki's greatest since the time I read "The Makioka Sisters" as she too, struggles with the morality of a woman and the argument around what she should and shouldn't do - believing in some respects that her modesty is for her own good without very much reasoning behind it. This book is a total invasion of deep, personal secrets that prove that this marriage was not built on love, but instead on the management of society and its views of a married woman with a child in comparison to an unmarried and childless one. But can you say the ending is happy? This is the question I will continue to ask myself until I can properly decide for what cause these acts were committed.

Let's have a look at some quotations that I thought were particularly notable from the text:

"My husband may write and think what he pleases, and I'll do the same. This year I'm beginning a diary of my own. Someone like me, someone who doesn't open her heart to others, needs to talk to herself, at least. But I won't make the mistake of letting him suspect what I'm up to. I've decided to wait until he goes out before I write, and to hide the book in a certain place that he'll never think of. In fact, one of the reasons why keeping a diary appeals to me is that although I know exactly where to find his, he won't even realise I have one. That gives me a delicious sense of superiority..."

The reader can already see the edges breaking in the marriage and this comes from the very start of the text. It is like we are being set up for this power struggle and this battle in which one must succumb to the other and it really does not end how you think.

"I violently dislike my husband, and just as violently love him. No matter how much he disgusts me I shall never give myself to another man. I couldn't possibly abandon my principles of right and wrong. Although I'm driven to my wit's end by his unhealthy, repulsive way of love-making, I can see he's still infatuated with me and I feel that somehow I have to return his love..."

There is something really quite terrifying of using the word 'violently' to describe how to love or hate someone and that is quite a powerful word in this context too. Later on, she comes back to repeat the same phrase as if revisiting it and it is no surprise as to what is happening in that moment - nearer to the 'climactic' part of the novel that happens to also be nearer to the end that you may believe.

This book has often come as one of those I have passed over in favour of other books by the same author. But to be perfectly honest, I’m glad I read the longer, more thematic ones first because now I can understand the writing style of this short but angry love letter/elegy to marriage. It is a brilliant blend between what is right and what one wants and those two things throughout the entire book are never the same thing for the wife. The implications and foreshadowings of what is going to happen are many and incredible.