The Nature of Things

The Makioka Sisters by Jun'ichirō Tanizaki My rating: 4 of 5 stars The four Makioka sisters are a Japanese family living in Osaka in the late 1930s. They are members of a once prominent and powerful family now fallen upon hard times. The parents of the family are long deceased but their adult daughters continue to cling obstinately to the prestige of their family name and to pursue lives that are essentially unchanged from their aristocratic past. As we meet the sisters, the two older ones are married and established with families of their own. Both of their husbands have taken the Makioka name. The oldest sister, Tsuruko, is the mistress of the "main" house in Osaka, which by Japanese tradition wields authority over the collateral branches of the family. Her husband, Tatsuo, a bank employee, is now the acknowledged head of the family according to Japanese custom. Sachiko is the second sister and she is mistress of a branch house in Ashiya, a small city just outside of O...