SOURCE: "Tanizaki Junichirō: The Past as Homage. 'A Portrait of Shunkin' and 'The Bridge of Dreams'," in Modern Japanese Fiction and Its Traditions: An Introduction, Princeton University Press, 1978, pp. 22-37.

An American-born educator and critic, Rimer specializes in Japanese literature. In the following excerpt, he offers the stories "Shunkinshō" ("A Portrait of Shunkin") and "Yume no ukihashi" ("The Bridge of Dreams") as evidence that Tanizaki's fiction is modern yet heavily influenced by traditional Japanese themes and literature.

For many readers, the work of Tanizaki Junichirō remains the most absorbing in modern Japanese literature, and in many ways, for its period, the most contemporary in spirit. Tanizaki examined the foibles and obsessions of his time with an elegant and ironic spirit that continues to give his work a surprising freshness. Yet an analysis of his writing indicates a powerful interest on his part in the themes and techniques of...