Some Prefer Nettles by Junichiro Tanizaki

Some Prefer Nettles

Junichiro Tanizaki

Beautifully told tale of a disintigrating marriage set in Japan in the 1920s. Unusual, keenly observed and quietly compelling.

Extract

Today was not the first time they had been faced with this difficulty. Indeed, whenever they had to decide whether or not to go out together, each of them became passive, watchful, hoping to take a position according to the other's manner. It was as if they held a basin of water balanced between them and waited to see in which direction it would spill.

Parallels

An Artist of the Floating World by Kazuo Ishiguro
The Good Soldier by Ford Madox Ford

Borrow this book

Books with similar mood

The Pages

Murray Bail

Journey in Blue

Stig Dalager

Big Fish: a Novel of Mythic Proportions

Daniel Wallace

Portrait of the Mother as a Young Woman

Friedrich Christian Delius

Brendel's Fantasy

Gunther Freitag

This Body

Tessa McWatt

The Other Side of the Mountain

Erendiz Atasu

The Promise of Happiness

Justin Cartwright

Men in Space

Tom McCarthy

Mr Vogel

Lloyd Jones

Madame

Antoni Libera

The Book of Israel

Jeremy Gavron

Bel Canto

Ann Patchett

The Story of Edgar Sawtelle

David Wroblewski

The Princess of Mantua

Marie Ferranti

Corfu: a novel

Robert Dessaix

If Nobody Speaks of Remarkable Things

Jon McGregor

Old Men in Love

Alasdair Gray

Love Notes From a German Building Site

Adrian Duncan

Brother in Ice

Alicia Kopf

Fieldwork

Mischa Berlinski

Winter Under Water

James Hopkin

In Another Place, Not Here

Dionne Brand

The Short Day Dying

Peter Hobbs