A young lady from Osaka begins to attend an art class and, while painting a picture of the Kannon (the goddess of mercy), substitutes the head for that of a beguiling student. Soon, she is drawn into a complex web of lesbian passion, pitted against the social norms of marriage in a deadly game that will engulf both the women and their male partners.
This 1931 novel is classic Tanizaki and shows off his talent for exuberant storytelling within a multi-layered narrative of sexual obsession. To win in this battle of heterosexual versus homosexual love, its leads are prepared to use everything at their disposal: trickery and lies, legal contracts, blackmail, detectives, feigned suicides and even the threat of poison.
Tanizaki¡¯s descriptions of Osaka¡¯s Showa Era (1926-89) pleasure quarters are an added delight as he shuttles his characters from their refined homes in Hanshin to offices in southern Osaka, a style that prefigured his later series, ¡°The Makioka Sisters.¡± And, as always, Tanizaki is alert to the maidservants buzzing around the protagonists, acting at their beck and call but threatening mutiny when abused.
While ¡°Quicksand¡± is professionally-executed and stylized entertainment, its racy plot twists lack the depth of ¡°The Makioka Sisters,¡± a more stately but ultimately satisfying evocation of prewar Kansai. For the Tanizaki connoisseur though, ¡°Quicksand¡± is a fascinating example of his transition from the technically brilliant detective fiction of his youth to the social realism of his middle age.
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