Some Prefer Nettles: first impressions, East vs West, 2 types of women

1/ Here is the blurb of Some Prefer Nettles by Junichiro Tanizaki: 

“Kaname, a young man from Tokyo, escapes from a loveless marriage into the arms of Louisa, a Eurasian prostitute, tactfully permitting his wife to take a lover. His father-in-law, sensing that the marriage is failing, tries to revitalize it by drawing the couple into an appreciation of classical Japanese arts, especially the puppet theater, which Tanizaki describes magnificently. Kaname’s conflict—whether to embrace the traditional aesthetic and emotional satisfactions that are the mainstay of Japanese culture or to accept the more superficial westernized ways represented by Louisa—is symbolized by the parallels between the puppets of the traditional Japanese theater and the human puppets of the domestic conflict…” 

That looks like a good thing to read after The Sound of the Mountain. Even though they’re a few decades apart—the Kawabata novel was serialised between 1949 and 1954 and Some Prefer Nettles was published in 1929, they share several themes in common: a failing marriage, relationship between two generations, and the clash between East and West, old and new.  
The subject of East vs West has never bothered me much personally, as I embrace both in me, but it is interesting in the context of Japan. Compared to Vietnam, their contact with the West was very different—Japan wasn’t colonised, but was deliberately learning from the West. Several years ago I even read Yukichi Fukuzawa’s autobiography—as Vietnam is still an authoritarian regime and in many ways still under Chinese influence, I’m fascinated by Japan deciding to break out of Chinese influence, learn from the West, adopt modern technology and certain values from the West. Today Japan is one of the most modern countries in the world in terms of technology, but still has a strong, rich culture and tradition—in certain aspects, I think Japan is even more traditional and oppressive than Vietnam (such as gender relations). 
I suppose it’s the high contrast between modernity and tradition in Japan that many foreigners find fascinating. 
It’s therefore interesting to read Japanese writers writing about the East vs West conflict in the early 20th century.  

2/ The blurb is probably unclear—what does an appreciation of classical Japanese arts have to do with saving a marriage? The idea is that Misako’s father (Kaname’s father-in-law) seems to think that the marriage is falling apart because of Western influences—Kaname thinks he is a modern man, they are having a modern marriage, and now they’re contemplating a divorce. 

3/ Chapter 2 has a passage comparing the Japanese bunraku puppets and the Western string puppets. 
In chapter 3, through Kaname, Tanizaki talks about the differences between Tokyo people and Osaka people (to the reserved Tokyo natives, Osaka is associated with the merchant class—loud, coarse, forward, and impudent). There’s an interesting passage about the Japanese tastes. 

“… pure Japanese tastes, such as the old man’s, were dominated by the standards of the Edo period, the period of the two and a half centuries before the Restoration of 1868, and Kaname simply did not like the Edo period. […] Edo culture was colored through and through with the crassness of the merchant class, and no matter where one turned, one could not escape the scent of the market place. […] the very fact that he was a child of the merchants’ quarter made him especially sensitive to its inadequacies, to its vulgarity and its preoccupation with the material. He reacted from it toward the sublime and the ideal.” 

Later: 

“Kaname had an intense feeling of loneliness and deprivation when he thought of the emotional life of the Japanese, so lacking in this particular feeling of worshipfulness. Ancient Japanese court literature and the drama of the feudal ages, with Buddhism a strong and living force behind it, had in its classical dignity something of what he sought, but with the Edo shogunate and the decline of Buddhism even that disappeared.” (ibid.) 

The translation is by Edward G. Seidensticker. 
This is very interesting. Is it true? I have no idea, knowing nothing about Edo culture. But there might be something there. 
Tanizaki wrote Some Prefer Nettles before translating The Tale of Genji into modern Japanese. Having read nothing else by him, I wonder if his writing changes after Genji.  

4/ For whatever reasons, I have always grouped Kawabata and Tanizaki together in my mind, separate from Soseki. That hasn’t changed. 
While Soseki begins Kokoro by introducing the main focus (Sensei) and where the narrator first meets him (Kamakura), Kawabata in The Sound of the Mountain and Tanizaki in Some Prefer Nettles both throw the reader into the middle of a scene, the middle of a conversation. Then the story slowly unfolds, and they start introducing the characters and their relationship with each other. 
Both the Kawabata and the Tanizaki have lots of dialogue, but Kawabata pays more attention to nature, and The Sound of the Mountain is more meditative. Some Prefer Nettles especially has more dialogue after a cousin named Takanatsu Hideo (Japanese order) enters the scene to help Kaname and Misako come to a decision regarding the divorce—for instance, in chapter 6, there are more than 2 pages of dialogue about a dog’s throat. 

5/ As Kaname says to Takanatsu, he divides women in 2 types: the courtesan type and the mother type. 
Later: 

“For Kaname a woman had to be either a goddess or a plaything. Possibly the real reason for his failure with Misako was that she could be neither.” (Ch.8)

That’s not a very healthy way to look at women, is it? 
Tanizaki uses dialogue to contrast between Misako in Kaname’s presence and Misako when she talks to Takanatsu alone. When her husband’s not there, she seems livelier, more animated, more comfortable with herself. 
To my surprise, Kaname doesn’t look at women the way Shingo in Kawabata’s novel does—he doesn’t seem obsessed with breasts, at least so far. 

6/ For Tanizaki’s reputation, the writing in the novel so far is rather tame. But perhaps the subject matter was shocking at the time—Kaname withdraws from his wife sexually and after a while accepts her getting a lover (making the marriage open), even though they have a small son called Hiroshi. 
A large part of the novel seems to be about them hesitating about getting a divorce.