In praise of shadows

I read the piece with absolute delight. Tanizaki captures in an amusing, flowing commentary on architecture, drama, food, feminine beauty, and many other aspects of Japanese life the uneasy mixing of two clashing aesthetic traditions based on differing technologies. He makes clear his own love of the softer, quieter, more shadowy, older aeshetic tradition and his pain as it is challenged by the brighter, more garish products of Western technology. -- Edwin O. Reischauer. Harvard University.