The Reed Cutter and Captain Shigemoto's Mother
Two late novellas by Junichirō Tanizaki, paired in one volume and written after he had already made his reputation as a chronicler of obsession. The Reed Cutter is a slow, riverbank meditation on beauty, desire, and the unreliable memory of a woman glimpsed years before. Captain Shigemoto's Mother returns to the Heian court for a story of a noblewoman's affair, abduction, and the son who reconstructs her legend. Tanizaki's usual obsessions—women's cruelty, erotic longing, the gap between historical record and fantasy—are present in miniature, refined rather than diluted.Knopf's edition presents the pair with the quiet authority of translated fiction from a major house. Neither story offers the release of a conventional ending; both prefer to let longing settle like sediment. Best read by those who find unease more sustaining than resolution.
