The pursuit of love is embedded in human nature. Although one might figure love is a mere projection of our own desires, we still wish to embrace it as a vulnerable emotion.
We wonder, can love truly be perfect by crossing the restraints of time and life? The laughter during a date, the whisper before bed, the vows in weddings — can the emotion constructed by moments remain unchangeable for eternity?
Junichiro Tanizaki frequently makes me ponder the unique existence of love. His most famous work is “Naomi,” or “Chijin no Ai” (A Fool’s Love). A man, wishing to raise an ideal version of his wife, scams a young girl, Naomi, into living with him. However, he gradually becomes the puppet of this femme fatale — jealous of her one-nighters, resentful of her extravagant spending, but so obsessed that he can never live without her teasing and accompaniment.
While reading “Naomi,” I wondered if this was an accurate display of love. Can love truly be established not from emotional connection but lust, possession and vanity? Their unconventional relationship is filled with betrayal, and yet their love is undeniable — a relationship strong enough to cross all deficiencies of human nature and life.
Another work by Tanizaki, “Shunkinshō,” or “The Story of Shunkin,” seems to construct a similarly bizarre relationship to elaborate on such a perspective on love. It paints a story between Shunkin, a blind musical genius, and Sasuke — Shunkin’s servant, student and lover.
Shunkin’s arrogance and wrath weirdly commit Sasuke as her loyal follower, but also attract violence and revenge from others. When a thief disfigures Shunkin, Sasuke chooses to blind himself in order to forever preserve the perfect image of Shunkin in his mind.
At the end of the story, when Shunkin is coming to terms with her disfigurement, she demonstrates a strong objection to letting Sasuke see her face.
Why did Shunkin do the exact opposite of what we usually do? Why did she exclude Sasuke — the only one she could cling to and trust — to care for her?
If readers look back on Shunkin’s life, perhaps such a choice will not be so difficult to understand. Sasuke had served as Shunkin’s servant since he was only nine years old. He became her devoted student in music and, most importantly, cared for her during fits of rage and depression as her ardent lover.
In Shunkin’s eyes, Sasuke represents a symbol of respect and admiration that helps build her pride. Sasuke alone constructs the world Shunkin lives in — a stage where she can freely express her talent, bad temper and the emotions she conceals.
Shunkin has lived in such a stage for too long: She yells at others, bullies Sasuke and thinks of herself as the true master of everyone.
However, suppose Sasuke retracted his tolerance and no longer affirmed her dominance. In that case, Shunkin would be nothing but a bitter musician, unable to reconcile with her blindness, disfigurement and reality.
So she refuses to listen and truly see Sasuke, whose words might, at any second, ruin the respect and admiration that serves as the foundation of Shunkin’s life and personhood. She does not want the pity, which could easily come from any common person, to come out of Sasuke’s mouth — it would destroy her.
If Sasuke were to pity her, he would reduce her to a melancholy woman who stresses ordinary matters about her appearance and past. In this way, Shunkin loves Sasuke deeply; the only difference is that she loves him not as her lover, but as a living representation of devotion and affirmation.
One might consider Shunkin’s logic selfish. But isn’t Sasuke, who blinded himself to preserve the perfect image of Shunkin, also selfish?
When Sasuke told Shunkin that he had blinded himself, Shunkin “said simply, ‘Is that true, Sasuke?’, and for a long time remained lost in thought.” But Sasuke can grasp “happiness as those few minutes passed in silence.”
Where does this happiness come from? Perhaps the answer was layered in Shunkin’s silence.
There is, apparently, the shocking acceptance of Sasuke’s commitment to her. But such a love is unbearable in reality: He will no longer be able to take care of Shunkin as he used to; he has to learn how to live as a blind man. Yet such concerns are neglected by Sasuke’s fascination that he is now living in the world where Shunkin lives.
In essence, Shunkin is an imaginary possession for Sasuke. Her silence, thus, tells the reader that she realizes this. That her dominance in the relationship is, at best, illusory.
When Sasuke blinds himself, it is not because Shunkin is asserting her dominance; instead, it is the imaginary image of the perfect Shunkin that drives Sasuke to do so. Sasuke idealizes Shunkin’s beauty, musical skills and sadistic temper, but doesn’t see her as a complete person.
Shunkin eventually realizes that she is an altar for Sasuke to store and reflect his worth, pursuit and desire. He is using her, in a way, just as she uses him — as a projection of pride that sustains her to live as a musician, a teacher and a person.
“ Is this love? If we regard love as an emotion filled with purity and devotion, the relationship of Shunkin and Sasuke surely fits these criteria. ”
If we think of love as a symbiotic relationship, that can certainly summarize this relationship as well. The only question remaining about their love, thus, is the innate morality that made us question the violence, selfishness and void imagination that construct some kind of love, suggested by Tanizaki.
Despite its deformed plot and shocking characterizations, such as the apparent pleasure Sasuke receives from pain, Tanizaki did succeed in illuminating a love story that changed my perception of love: one formed when you can stop viewing your lover as a person.
And thanks to Tanizaki, these elements are, perhaps, part of the perfect love we are looking for.
Leslie Tong PO ’29 is from California. She loves films, history and literature. She recently reaffirms her love for Ravel and keeps listening to his Piano Concerto for the Left Hand.
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