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Francesca's Reviews > The Key
The Key
by
by
This is my favorite Tanizaki book.
Tanizaki is a master in story telling.
His central point to me is around the impossibility to create real, deep, human connections and be able to establish a channel of communication: you feel that no matter how hard you try to connect to another human being, you are destined to fail.
Although we should know better, we will use tricks and deception and in the end we will have distorted and ruined any chance we had of creating a real and honest relationship...at that point, he goes even deeper. Is it really just communication or it is impossible for us to communicate because objectivity does not exist and reality is flawed by eyes that look at it?
Tanikazi characters always feel old (of advanced age) to me even when they are not based on their age (although this book is about an older couple). Their impossibility and the fact that they are trapped in their behavior and tricks and ideas makes them old.
Tanizaki is a master in story telling.
His central point to me is around the impossibility to create real, deep, human connections and be able to establish a channel of communication: you feel that no matter how hard you try to connect to another human being, you are destined to fail.
Although we should know better, we will use tricks and deception and in the end we will have distorted and ruined any chance we had of creating a real and honest relationship...at that point, he goes even deeper. Is it really just communication or it is impossible for us to communicate because objectivity does not exist and reality is flawed by eyes that look at it?
Tanikazi characters always feel old (of advanced age) to me even when they are not based on their age (although this book is about an older couple). Their impossibility and the fact that they are trapped in their behavior and tricks and ideas makes them old.
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Reading Progress
Started Reading
January 1, 2003
–
Finished Reading
January 3, 2008
– Shelved
January 3, 2008
– Shelved as:
best-reads
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That is not to say of course that he might not have written this from a place of yearning for 'real relationships' and seeking them, but seeing only this sort of thing. But, it's just I don't personally see the contents of the book itself displaying that particular thing.
There is much to see in anything and what anyone sees is coloured by our own experience and the challenges we ourselves face. I see people willingly trapped in their roles, sometimes to the point of 'pulling the wool over their own eyes' and manipulating that 'trap' to their own interest, amusement, power and pleasure as well as they can. Especially on matters that are hidden or unexposed, for whatever reason. I don't think any of these characters were seeking consciously or otherwise 'real, deep human connections'.