Junichiro Tanizaki may well prove to be the outstanding Japanese novelist of this century, rivaled only by Yasunari Kawabata…. Both writers presided over the obsequies of traditional Japan, and both responded to its demise with a strong but ironic nostalgia….

For Tanizaki, "Arrowroot" (1932) and "The Secret History of the Lord of Musashi" (1935), now admirably translated into English for the first time, mark the period when, after 20 years of writing novels in a fairly orthodox style, he fused two interests—traditional Japanese storytelling and experimental narrative—into a unique style. But their themes are mirrored in many of his other stories….

Sadism—or more exactly sexual coercion, quietly engineered and often taking place among members of the same family—is a theme that fascinated Tanizaki. He managed to exclude it altogether only from "The Makioka Sisters," as though he had determined not to mar his masterpiece with anything too...