Welcome to Litsy!

The title story sees Tanizaki returning to China, this time the 19th century, and returning, also, to the theme of ennui and luxuriousness begetting debauchery and moral degradation. This one is more fantastical than the other two, with a siren being offered up as an exotic curiosity to tempt the jaded sensibilities of a rich prince. He's warned his pursuit won't end well, but stories would be dull if protagonists heeded good advice🧜🏻‍♀️

The second of the three tales, "Killing O-Tsuya", tells the story of star-crossed young lovers, Shinsuke and O-Tsuya, whose disregard for the social strictures which would keep them apart sets in train a series of events which leads them from deceit, to theft and blackmail, betrayal and a killing spree. That the outcome is foreshadowed by the title lends the story a grim, doom-laden inevitability. The first story was good, this is better.

"According to the chronicles of Zui Qiuming and Meng Ke, of Sima Qin and others, at the beginning of spring in the year 493 before the birth of Christ, in the thirteenth year of the Duke Ding's reign in the state of Lu, when the ruler was celebrating the Festival of the Heavens and the Earth, Confucius, together with a handful of disciples attending his carriage, left the land of his birth to preach the Way abroad."

- The Qilin

The first of the three stories in this anthology is "The Qilin", Tanizaki's retelling of an episode in the life of Confucius, when he met the beautiful but cruel Duchess Nanzi of Wei. My enjoyment of the story was enhanced by looking up references to Nanzi, the legendary beauties to whom she compared herself, and the qilin of the title, which I knew about mainly as a "monster" from D&D and as the Kirin brand of Japanese beer. A good start ?

Three short stories/novellas by "one of the greatest Japanese writers," which drew my attention. I didn't notice that they have "a restless eroticism," which doesn't really sound like my thing, but let's see...