... nihilism as doctrine and nihilism as experience of loss. Just as Jane Austen saw how trivial lapses in conduct can lead to moral disaster, so Dostoevsky insisted that casual concessions to boredom can drive men straight into the void. Flaubert, though not concerned with the problem abstractly, writes: "Life is so horrible that one can only bear it by avoiding it. And that can be done by living in the • world of Art.

Japanese literature has been intimately affected by all European trends and, in fact, may be regarded in effect as forming a part of the modern movement in Western literature.

More

Page 208 - ... didn't want to pour a drop of poison into the sake cup he held in his hand. Whatever pain the decision might cost her, she was determined to keep her sadness to herself. And when she had made this decision, the girl, who had always depended on others, had felt for the first time her own independence. After that, she secretly began to watch what she said and did, and when Suezo came, she started to serve him self-consciously instead of accepting him frankly and sincerely as she had previously... Appears in 5 books from 1959-2007

Page 240 - I no longer understand myself. I only feel the sharp menace of an approaching machine, aimed at me. Someone must judge me. How can I know what I have done? Appears in 6 books from 1977-2007

Page 207 - Her aim in life had been her father's happiness, so she had become a mistress, almost forcibly persuading the old man to accept. Appears in 4 books from 1959-2007

Page 209 - ... bought" by Suezo, is thinking of "buying" an "article" herself, namely Okada. Again, Okada could not know that such an operation was going on in Otama's mind, nor would he be pleased if he found out. Furthermore, the text makes it clear that Otama desires Okada as a companion and then as a sexual object: When Suezo came and talked with her over the charcoal brazier, she imagined what it would be like if Okada were there instead. At first, she felt she was being unfaithful, but she gradually came... Appears in 4 books from 1959-2007

Page 247 - Eastern spirit." Look wherever we might, such things will not be found. Or what might be found would prove hardly worth the search. And so Mr. Tanizaki's notion that we must "return to the classics" will not readily be embraced and passed on. Appears in 7 books from 1993-2007

Page 240 - But however clear this fact might seem to me, was there any way for me to know how clear it really was? In any case, some invisible machine was constantly measuring us all, as if it understood everything that went on, and was pushing us according to the results of its measurements. Appears in 3 books from 1972-2007

Less