I’m
not quite sure what led me to pick up this book. Whenever I am at one of those gigantic
library book sales, multiple bags dangling off my arms, I am up for
anything. I can afford to choose on the
cover. I can afford to just want “something
old”. I can afford to pick up all the
classics that I see. So here was an
older looking book, with artwork reflecting the time period.
The
cover of my copy of “Diary of a Mad Old Man” boasted “First Time in Paperback”
and was written in 1965 by an acclaimed Japanese author, Junichiro Tanizaki. I’ve never heard of Jun here, or any of his
works. It’s a thin enough, diary entry
type book. An easy read for someone with
piles and piles of books to read. I don’t
like to give up and just give them away without reading them. I
mean, after I’ve actually picked each one up at some point, looked through it
and decided to have it as my own. There
was a reason for it and although there are times I will quick clean and give
away very few, I usually feel obligated to read it first.
Diary
of a Mad Old Man starts off a bit more interesting than I’ll give the whole
thing credit for. Maybe I just don’t get
it. Maybe I’m a jerk. Or maybe the time period was more repressive and
what is riske there is not so much now, looking back in on it. In the 1960’s, maybe a parent would freak if
they caught their kid smoking pot.
Nowadays, I’m sure many parents are relieved it’s Only Pot and not
meth.
The
premise sounds interesting. This is the diary of Utsugi, who is super
rich. He’s suffered a stroke previous to
the start of the story and is for the most part, doing okay. He has his ailments on
a daily basis – greatest hits such as blood pressure, cholesterol, pains, and
the ilk. Ah, and he is impotent. Bummer.
REAL bummer. So what does he do
for fun? He does get to go to plays, takes
walks in the garden and writes in his diary.
He has a nurse and sleeps in separate beds from his wife. He has a huge attachment to his daughter in
law, Satsuko, who from my own personal view is advanced in self serving
activity and just plain ole mean. She’s
also a bit of a mindf**ker. And I guess
if you’re impotent, it’s the best sort of f**king you can get. From Utsugi, she manages to procure gifts,
most of his thoughts, energy (in the form of imagining up schemes to be alone
with her) and I’d have to say his very soul.
It
was an interesting enough read for
me. I enjoyed the fact that it was
written so long ago so that you can pick up little time pieces here and
there. What people write with, how they
think, what they are eating. Overall
while it mostly kept my interest, I’m not sure who’d I would recommend it to. Perhaps a lover of possibility – wanting to touch and
read literature, just to read it for no other reason than just being open.
