The Story of Tomoda and Matsunaga

Junichiro Tanizaki (1886–1965) is considered among the greats of modern Japanese literature. The Story of Tomoda and Matsunaga (first published in Japanese in 1926, later in Italian, and then in English in 2018 in The Penguin Book of Japanese Short Stories) is a novella that explores the divide between Eastern (specifically Japanese) and Western (specifically European) culture through the figure of a doppelgänger—a kind of Jekyll-and-Hyde character who shifts between a provincial, traditional East and a dissolute, indulgent West.

The narrator, F.K., is a celebrated novelist living in Tokyo. He receives a letter from Shige Matsunaga, who lives in a rural village in south-central Honshu. Her husband, Gisuke, left years earlier after saying he would be away on a long trip, and remained gone without any word. When he eventually returned he resumed his role as a loving husband and father.

Suspicious, Shige searches his belongings and finds a postcard addressed to a Ginzo Tomoda. Years later Gisuke leaves again, disappearing for another long stretch. She comes to suspect that he's living a double life as both Gisuke and Ginzo. During this second absence, she writes to F.K., hoping he might determine whether Ginzo, also known as “Tom,” is in fact her husband. This seems unlikely to F.K., who knows Ginzo as a drinking companion—a carefree libertine with an appetite for women, food and drink, and not someone able to settle into quiet rural life.

Parts of the book read like a detective story, with sharp dialogue, scenes involving foreign women in Yokohama’s bordellos, and pacing that builds suspense effectively. The eventual reveal is especially satisfying, especially if you’re interested in the blurred boundaries between Japan and the West.

Through the narrator, we come to learn whether Gisuke and Ginzo are one and the same. The final pages offer vivid, sometimes contradictory impressions of East and West—one seen as wild and excessive, the other as restrained and conventional. Tanizaki’s own ambivalence toward Western culture comes through clearly, and the result is a sharply written and engaging novella.