Quicksand and Passing (American Women Writers Series)

Customer Reviews:

Eh..........2007-08-25

I think 3 is generous. I absolutely hated Quicksand, although I did appreciate the fact that Larsen's main character wasn't exactly likable, I think that was a different unusual approach, she's not exactly the ideal protagonist which is awesome. But as far as the story goes, its so reminiscent of the tragic mulatto to me and I'm pretty sick of that stereotype. Passing was better, but that too remained true to the tragic mulatto frame. It was no masterpiece.

Amazing Narrative and Multi-Faceted Topics.......2005-12-01

Passing is an amazing narrative. A key to the success of the narrative in Nella Larsen's Passing is the use of a limited third-person narrator, because it allows the villain to hide. Through the voice of Irene Redfield, characterizations get meted out as she sees fit, and only by Irene's portraits of others can we arrive at her own characteristics and motivations. As Irene describes and interacts with others, she unwittingly betrays her shrewd plans. Whether done subconsciously or not, her subtle actions and inactions tattle on her, yet she keeps the narrative vague enough that she comes off as a victim of Clare. Irene paints herself as a sheep and Clare as a wolf, when in fact the opposite is true. The affair that presumably takes place between Clare and Brian seems to catch Irene off-guard.

Keep an eye on Irene.

Amazing narrative on several levels. The crossing of domains in this novella is outstanding. Because Irene has control of the narrative, the childhood events and characterizations indict Clare as untrustworthy instead of as a misfortunate child who overcomes great obstacles. This distrust raises questions later on when Clare all but moves into Irene's house, and Irene doesn't protest for an "obscure reason."

2 nicely paired novellas.......2005-07-30

Quicksand is one of my favorite fictional stories. In truth, the word "fiction" can not adequately touch upon the essence of this novel. Helga Green's biographical information is nearly identical to that of Nella Larson, and in Helga we, the readers, see a reflection of Ms. Larsen.

Helga is a heroine, tragic not because of her fate, but of her resignation to her fate and inability to rise above it. Larsen realizes the bonds of racism and sexism that held steadfastedly in place, whether it's in Harlem or Copenhagen. A reader may either sympathesize with Helga's plight or sneer at her stupidity. But perhaps that's what Larson wants to portray. Sometimes one is irrational when it comes to the matters of the heart or the lack of. Even the most intelligent of us. We would gasp in surprise if the same fate fell upon others but would seem resigned when we are in the same situation.

Passing is considered by many critics as Larsen's "lesser novella." True, it is not as riveting as Quicksand, but it explores deeper issues of gender and the color barrier. While in Quicksand the relationship between Helga and Anne is at best lightly touched upon, the one between Clare and Irene is more complex and poignant.

Throughout the novel(la), there is a tinge of homoeroticism, if you read between the lines. This is a story, not so much of the tragic mulatta (even though tragedy tends to overshadow all else in Larsen's work), nor merely of the phenomenon of passing for white, but of two women's exploration of their own gender, sexual, and racial roles in the tumulous society of upper middle-class Harlem.

Both stories written in the early 1930s period, this book features Larsen at her best. Even though the endings to both are quite anti-climatic, one should find in her stories enough food for thought and a quite thorough insight into female African American conflicts and culture during the Renaissance era.

Only read Quicksand--wonderful book.......2004-11-27

I read this book years ago, in college. It made me much more sympathetic to the struggles of biracial (black and white) women, of the past and today -- I am an Asian-American female. The book is a beautifully written, but painful story of how the protagonist moves through her life in societies where she is kept down on many levels (socially, economically, psychologically, physically) -- basically her journey through the "quicksand" of classism, racism, and sexism. The book deserves a wide audience.

Remarkable.......2001-10-01

Quicksand was an overlooked treasure during Renaissance. Pay close attention to the detail, the surroundings, and the inner thoughts of the main character.... simply marvelous.

The Complete Fiction of Nella Larsen: Passing, Quicksand, and The Stories

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Larsen speaks to those who've felt they never really fit in
Complete fiction-- all too slight for the quality of her voice.
Passing was a great read !!!!!

The Complete Fiction of Nella Larsen: Passing, Quicksand, and The Stories
Nella Larsen
Manufacturer: Anchor
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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Cane
The Portable Harlem Renaissance Reader (African American History (Penguin))
Black No More : A Novel (Modern Library Paperbacks)
The Marquise of O and Other Stories (The Penguin Classics)
In Search of Nella Larsen: A Biography of the Color Line

ASIN: 0385721005
Release Date: 2001-11-06

Book Description

In The Complete Fiction of Nella Larsen, whose career flamed brightly but briefly in the 1920s, we rediscover one of the most gifted writers of the Harlem Renaissance.

Nella Larsen's subject is the struggle of sensitive, spirited heroines to find a place for themselves in a hostile world. Passing is the story of a light-skinned beauty who, after spending years passing for white, finds herself dangerously drawn to an old friend's Harlem neighborhood. In Quicksand, a restless young mulatto tries desperately to find a comfortable place in a world in which she sees herself as a perpetual outsider. Race and marriage offer few securities here or in the other stories in a collection that is compellingly readable, rich in psychological complexity, and imbued with a sense of place that brings Harlem vibrantly to life.

Customer Reviews:

Larsen speaks to those who've felt they never really fit in.......2006-12-21

This volume contains two novellas, Passing and Quicksand. I would recommend reading the introduction afterwards because it might spoil the stories. The two female protagonists in her stories are loosely autobiographical. Larson's mother was from Denmark and her father was Caribbean or African-American. Both protagonists are bi-racial women living during the Harlem Renaissance period and struggling to fit into segregated society.

I liked Quicksand better. Helga Crane also has a Danish mother and African-American father. As the story opens young Helga Crane is a teacher at a very strict school in an ultra-conservative small southern US city. She is lonely and isolated and far too intelligent for her environment. She finally makes the break and moves to New York City. After a long struggle to fit in she moves to Copenhagen. She is taken in by her mother's family. Instead of finding the love and acceptance she craves she is treated condescendingly like some exotic pet. I don't want to give away the ending, but it's good.

Complete fiction-- all too slight for the quality of her voice........2006-07-16

This little book represents the complete literary output of Nella Larsen, the great Harlem Renaissance writer. It is impossible to read without the sense of a voice that went quiet too soon. These are sophisticated works, full of issues about anger and identity. In the longer pieces it is frustratingly tangible how great she could have been had she been able to develop a larger body of work.

The pieces included in this work are:

"The Wrong Man" and "Freedom"-- these are two sensational short stories that Larsen published in women's magazines at the beginning of her writing career. If I have a quarrel with this collection, I have a quarrel with the fact that Larson (the editor) chose to put these stories first. While in some ways I understand it, they are so much weaker than the rest of her work that they do not create the right beginning for the book.

"Sanctuary" is a brilliant and powerful short story about a man hiding from the law. This story marked the end of her career, as accusations of plagiarism about the story drove her out of the public eye.

"Quicksand" was her first novel. Clearly drawn from the author's own experience (Larsen was born of a Danish mother and a West Indian father), it tells the story of Helga Crane. Helga constantly resists the idea that her life is defined by the color of her skin, but finds no available options for living any other way. She turns between her black friends in Harlem and her family in Copenhagen, trying to find a way to be herself.

"Passing" is a longer novel which is about two women from the same neighborhood who grew up to take very different routes. One has successfully passed as white, and is married to a white husband. One makes her home in Harlem and marries a black doctor. When they accidentally meet some time later in a different city, their lives once more connect. Irene and Clare are confronted with their own choices when they see what has become of the other woman.

Larsen died in obscurity in 1964, after 34 years of silence. In some respects, her work feels more modern than ever in the way it takes on the complexity of identity and questions notions of both feminism and race. I would suggest buying this edition if you aren't yet familiar with her work. Her output is sadly so slight that it makes sense to buy it all bound in one volume.

Recommended.

Passing was a great read !!!!!.......2003-03-21

Passing, written by Nella Larson, portrays the thoughts and feelings of a black woman dealing with inter-racial issues during the early twentieth century. The main character Irene Redfield, who has led a semi pleasant life with her husband and child finds herself dealing with issues brought upon by her past childhood friend Claire. Claire creates an intense and unstable environment for Irene and her family throughout most of the story. Towards the end a dramatic and suspenseful moment leaves the reader to create an ending in itself. I enjoyed Passing and found it to be an interesting book in relation to the early Harlem Renaissance years.

The Quicksand Question (A Stepping Stone Book(TM))

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Super book!
Excellent book!

The Quicksand Question (A Stepping Stone Book(TM))
Ron Roy
Manufacturer: Random House Books for Young Readers
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 037580272X
Release Date: 2002-05-28

Book Description

A to Z Mysteries #17

Q is for Quicksand. . . .

Everyone in Green Lawn is quaking about the ducks that keep crossing River Road. But just when the town raises enough cash to build a special duck bridge, the money is stolen! Dink, Josh, and Ruth Rose are on a quest to find the culprit. But to catch their quarry, the kids have to go wading . . . through quicksand!

Customer Reviews:

Super book!.......2006-06-20

I think this book was excellent because it was really funny. My favorite part was when the firemen put out the fire in the meadow. That was my favorite part because it made the whole family go outside and see it. Dink and Ruth Rose were sleeping over in Josh's barn when the fire happened. This fire led to an exciting adventure. Please read this book! It's great for 1st, 2nd, and 3rd graders.

Excellent book!.......2003-06-18

It's my level of reading. It had some funny parts and it had some scary parts. My favorite part was when they were playing a game seeing if ducks would come over the bridge. Good book for a 2nd or 3rd grader.

Average customer rating:

a bit annoying
A disappointment
Quicksilver

Quicksands: A Memoir
Sybille Bedford
Manufacturer: Counterpoint
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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ASIN: 1582431698
Release Date: 2005-05-10

Book Description

Beginning in 1956 with the publication of A Legacy, the highly acclaimed Sybille Bedford has narrated-in fiction and nonfiction-what has been by turns her sensuous, harrowing, altogether remarkable life. In this memoir, her first new book in over ten years, she provides the moving culmination to an epic personal story that takes readers from the Berlin of World War I, to the artists' set on the C™te d'Azur of the 1920s, through lovers, mentors, seducers, and friends, from genteel yet shabby poverty to settled comfort in London's West End. Whether evoking the simple sumptuousness of a home-cooked meal, or tracing the heartrending outline of an intimate betrayal, she offers both "a deliciously evoked return to worlds" (John Fowles), and spellbinding reflections on how history imprints itself on private lives.

Customer Reviews:

a bit annoying.......2005-09-07

Memoir of a novelist who is (I think it is fair to say) little known outside of literary circles. Interesting to a point but I was annoyed by the staccato style of writing and soon tired of it.

A disappointment.......2005-07-15

I had eagerly awaited "Quicksands," undoubtedly the last of this wonderful writer's books, given her advanced age, but sadly I was disappointed. Bedford's novels, which I have read, are autobiographical, despite her disclaimers, but I didn't realize how true to life they were until reading her memoir. Bedford lived an erratic, charmed, difficult life, part of the European artistic generation between the wars, when one could exist for long periods of time on the generosity of friends and move relatively freely from country to country. But Bedford's memoir feels removed from her life, in a way her vivid novels are not. "Jigsaw's" characters reappear--her father and mother, Oriane, Issa, Allessandro--but she observes them from afar, and they feel flat to me. She assumes the reader knows a lot already from her novels, so some incidents are briefly and cryptically covered in a way that without prior knowledge they are meaningless. An example is the story of Rosie, whose lover was a famous English jurist who secretely led a double life for many years. Bedford covers this emotional, painful, amazing story in a page and a half for the sole purpose of finally revealing the jurist's name, but without the vivid background from her novel the revelation has little impact. "Quicksands" is leading me back to the novels I haven't yet read--she's an exquisite writer. Try "Jigsaw" for the real story of this amazing woman's life.

Quicksilver.......2005-06-05

A very good writer tells of her unconventional past in Europe, with the memories harvested mainly from the time between the two great wars. Ms. Bedford omits the retelling of many episodes covered in her previous books (none of which I have read) and assumes the reader knows more of history and twentieth century literature than is probably true of most current readers. Nonetheless, I enjoyed the book and admired its many "true" sentences.

Average customer rating:

Enjoyable history, engaging style
A Must Read
A wonderfully honest and human account of pioneer life

Quicksand And Cactus
Juanita Brooks
Manufacturer: Utah State University Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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The Mountain Meadows Massacre
Emma Lee
No Man Knows My History: The Life of Joseph Smith
Mormon Enigma: Emma Hale Smith

ASIN: 0874211638

Customer Reviews:

Enjoyable history, engaging style.......2006-07-08

I purchased this book as I was driving through the Mormon country of Dixie in southwest Utah to try to get a better understanding of Mormonism. We had just toured Pipe Springs National Monument, a fort constructed by Mormons used to house polygamous families. For non-Mormons, polygamy and Mormonism is fascinating and nearly as exotic as bedouin nomads in Morrocoo.

Quicksand and Cactus is a flowing narrative of Mormon life in the last century told in a non-judgemental tone by the granddaughter of a polygamist. What sets this book apart from other books about Mormonism I've read, such as Jon Krakauer's Banner of Heaven is that Juanita Brooks fully believed in her faith from day one and practiced. There is nothing in her book that would lead you to believe that there was anything unusual at all about her grandfather being polygamous. As such, her book provides a truthful look at what being Mormon must really be like.

In addition, the book is very readable. Her voice is charming and likeable. It's a bit like Little House on the Prairie and made me admire the deep pioneering spirit of these particular Mormons who occupied an unhopitable corner of the country.

A Must Read.......2006-04-10

This Must Read will tell you more about the Mormon frontier in Southern Utah than any other book I have read. It is definitely one I will keep in my personal library.

A wonderfully honest and human account of pioneer life.......1999-01-09

One of the most accessable, yet honest histories I've read. Brooks was a well-respected historian in academic circles, yet with her straightforward style instantly transports the lay reader into the early Mormon frontier.

Quicksand (Penguin Twentieth-Century Classics)

Average customer rating:

An unfortunately forgotten classic
A Worthy Effort

Quicksand (Penguin Twentieth-Century Classics)
Nella Larsen , and Thadious M. Davis
Manufacturer: Penguin Classics
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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Cane
Passing (Penguin Classics)
Bohemian Los Angeles: and the Making of Modern Politics
Indians in Unexpected Places (Cultureamerica)
The Street

ASIN: 0141181273

Book Description

Born to a white mother and an absent black father, and despised for her dark skin, Helga Crane has long had to fend for herself. As a young woman, Helga teaches at an all-black school in the South, but even here she feels different. Moving to Harlem and eventually to Denmark, she attempts to carve out a comfortable life and place for herself, but ends up back where she started, choosing emotional freedom that quickly translates into a narrow existence.

Quicksand, Nella Larsen's powerful first novel, has intriguing autobiographical parallels and at the same time invokes the international dimension of African American culture of the 1920s. It also evocatively portrays the racial and gender restrictions that can mark a life.

"Fine, thoughtful and courageous. It is, on the whole, the best piece of fiction that Negro America has produced since the heyday of [Charles] Chesnutt." (W. E. B. Du Bois)

Customer Reviews:

An unfortunately forgotten classic.......2002-02-04

Quicksand is an epic story of a tragic heroine written with taste and a great deal of wit. I can't help but wonder how the works of Nella Larsen are so criminally ignored by those interested in the study of African-American literature and the Harlem Renaissance (most texts make a brief footnote, failing to acknowledge the incredible value of this novel and its companion, the erotic and controversial Passing).
The novel follows the ups and downs of Helga Crane, a young woman doomed by her own intelligence and beauty. She is intellectually above those who are supposedly paving the way to success and equality for the black race. She sees a great deal of false pretense and [economic] selfishness in many of the people that she encounters throughout her journey, which is no more than a quest for independence and the possibility of happiness.
Her racial background (mixed, "brought up" by a hateful white stepfather and an ailing mother) defines the way in which she sees the world. She learns to manipulate colour and sex to her own advantage, only to discover in the end that she failed at understanding her real mission in this world. Her rebellious, never content character leads her to a nervous breakdown and the making of a terrible decision that defines her fate. At this point, in the midst of everything that she disliked in life (dirt, pregnancy, ignorance, rural life, religion) she realises that all of her existence she had been walking upon quicksand (her own soul being made of it), and that all she can do now is finally stop fighting; letting herself drown; escaping the struggle.
Larsen's way of ending her novels has been often criticised as rather abrupt and unexpected (Passing ending with the sudden death of its protagonist). I tend to disagree with those who dislike the way in which Quicksand closes. The author has presented a heroine whose life has been marked by struggle, fighting with fate, with herself, with her own race and sexuality. By placing Helga in such deplorable conditions (as her life seemed to reach some balance), Larsen makes a clear criticism of the position of women (as well as a commentary on race, religion, economic exploitation, and other topics) in a world that could not forgive intelligence or bravery in such a gender.
Quicksand touches upon so many subjects in such a sharp manner that it may take more than one read to discover the hidden layers within the novel. If any novel about race has come close to perfection this has to be the one, Passing being a close competitor for that feat. Hopefully one day they will receive the recognition that they deserve.

A Worthy Effort.......1998-12-15

Nella Larsen does an exemplary job of devling into the human psyche with Passing. Unlike the color-struck works of Dorothy West this Harlem Renaissance author brings all of the pain of duality of multi-cultural people to the reader. Helga Crane lives between the two worlds of white and black and expresses the same anguish that many middle class blacks feel today. She is not the "tragic mulatto" as many critic paint her. This book should be read by anyone with an interest in the politics of race.

Extreme Encounters: How It Feels to Be Drowned in Quicksand, Shredded by Piranhas, Swept Up in a Tornado, and Dozens of Other Unpleasant Experiences--

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Extreme Encounters
Do you want to FEEL a quick thrill
So-so
A Quirky Reprise of Multifarious Demise
So what DOES it feel to die?

Extreme Encounters: How It Feels to Be Drowned in Quicksand, Shredded by Piranhas, Swept Up in a Tornado, and Dozens of Other Unpleasant Experiences--
Greg Emmanuel
Manufacturer: Quirk Books
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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Book Description

After reading The Worst-Case Scenario Survival Handbook, did you ever wonder what it s like to be struck by lightning? To run with the bulls in Pamplona? To ride the crushing swell of an avalanche? Extreme Encounters describes these adventures and 37 others with endlessly addictive you-are-there second-person narratives so you chill to the numbing effects of frostbite, you hear the 110-decibel roar of a grizzly bear, and you feel the stomach-lurching drop of an elevator freefall. Extreme Encounters is a moment-by-moment, blow-by-blow account of what happens to you physically, emotionally, and scientifically during life s most perilous experiences. Like a cross between The Worst-Case Scenario Survival Handbook and Into Thin Air, these heart-racing stories take readers where few have gone before.

Customer Reviews:

Extreme Encounters.......2006-11-10

For those who have always dreamed of moments after seeing Jaws, and the like, this book is perfect. Describing all the goriest details in the second person view. I found this book extremely interesting, along as educational with all the scientific phenomena associated with each painful experience.

Do you want to FEEL a quick thrill.......2006-06-08

This book was outstanding. The only complaint I have is that it wasn't longer. What I enjoyed most was that each story refers to the characters as YOU, and has enough scenerary information to give you a clear image in your head of where your suppossed to be, then BAM something crazy happens and your drowning in a lake in the middle of nowhere. I could literally taste the water in my mouth during that story. Then after the climax of each story the author throughly describes how each situation can kill you. He is very descriptive and interprets it in an easy to understand language. He must have done his homework to be able to describe those many different situations as he did. I loved this book, it is a quick fun and factual read for anybody at any age level.

So-so.......2006-05-07

I thought the concept for the book a little more exciting than the book itself. The stories seemed too short, and a few end abruptly without much explanation as to what happened next. It seems only obvious that extreme encounters should have extreme details, but that's not the case here. Overall, I think 5th through 8th graders would appreciate this book most.

A Quirky Reprise of Multifarious Demise.......2006-02-02

Quirky apropos of its publisher, Quirk Books, "Extreme Encounters" is formatted like one of those books to keep in the bathroom: the information is fascinating but not sufficiently in depth for anything more than morbid curiosity. Nevertheless, this is a fun little book to read, with anecdotes of demise as diverse as the effects of a shark attack to Civil War amputations. In a break from the subject matter (which mostly deal with death or dismemberment), author Greg Emmanuel also describes the experiences of sky diving and rocketing into space in a Gemini capsule.

Emmanuel is definitely on to something with "Extreme Encounters". We are drawn by our fears toward descriptions of what scares us the most, and the author does describe some of the neurological processes that govern our behavior while under life-threatening stress, but the book is a little haphazard and mixed-one can envision a series of books on this topic, more in depth, with the non-lethal, purely experiential anecdotes such as sky diving filling a book of their own.

A consistent theme in this book is our neurological responses to stress in life-threatening situations. Readers can get more information about these responses than Emmanuel offers with Laurence Gonzales' book "Deep Survival".

So what DOES it feel to die?.......2005-06-01

So what does it feel like to die? According to author Greg Emmanuel, it all depends on how you go. 39 separate, horrible fates are chronicled in this book, and though not all of them end in death, they do all make your skin crawl. The categories include When Animals Attack, The Great Outdoors, Somebody Get a Doctor, Crime and Punishment, Everyday Mishaps, and Going to Extremes. Most of the scenarios only last for 2-3 pages which makes this a great book to pull out at parties and read aloud from, or take with you on vacation. The story style is conversational and informal, and the book length is a scant 175 pages, so it's a quick read all around.

Yes, the stories are creepy and gross, and at times they'll make you laugh though you might feel a little guilty for doing so. This is a novel and fun book.

Quicksand (Dover Books on Literature & Drama)

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Quicksand (Dover Books on Literature & Drama)
Nella Larsen
Manufacturer: Dover Publications
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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Book Description

Brave, bold, and brilliant, this ground-breaking first novel is the work of one of the Harlem Renaissance's most influential and enduring writers. Larsen's autobiographical portrait of a biracial woman's quest for self-identity and acceptance offers a cautionary tale of an individual lost between two cultures.

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Flying Over Quicksand
Carlos Cuauhtemoc Sanchez
Manufacturer: Diamante
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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Flying Over Quicksand is a highly intense book. In it, the author describes the way perversity and revenge try to trap us in malignant darkness and how, at the same time, anyone who is willing to pay the price to succeed, can fly towards the light of self-improvement.

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Oh, what a tangled web...
An odd misfire from one of my favorite writers
Another Tale Of Obsession
A very absorbing novel!
Good but not the author's best work

Quicksand
Junichiro Tanizaki
Manufacturer: Vintage
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0679760229
Release Date: 1995-06-24

Customer Reviews:

Oh, what a tangled web..........2006-08-07

Sonoko, a bored housewife in 1920s Osaka and the first-person narrator of this story, has a passionate affair with the beautiful Mitsuko. At first, this seems like a fairly straightforward account of forbidden passion, but then we discover the existence of Mitsuko's male lover, Watanuki. At this point, the figure of Mitsuko becomes increasingly enigmatic as the reader attempts to discern which of her actions are motivated by passion and which are calculated to keep herself enshrined as an object of desire at the center of a convoluted human drama. The schemes and manipulations become ever more outrageous until, by the end, we are forced to conclude that "Quicksand" is a very dark comedy, despite author Junichiro Tanizaki's cold, controlled style. The suspicions that the narrator reveals on the very last page of the novel shows just how tenuous her grip on reality has become.

An odd misfire from one of my favorite writers.......2005-05-27

Okay, so Tanizaki began his career with decadent, sadomasochistic short stories like "The Tattooer," "Children," and "The Secret," and ended it with affectionate novels like A Cat A Man and Two Women and Diary of a Mad Old Man. In the middle, there's some variation in the tone of his work (though self-destructive erotic obsession remained a near-constant), but there's a common thread of humanity throughout: even at their most degraded, the author allows his characters to retain some sense of dignity; the reader rarely gets the sense that Tanizaki is *enjoying* their suffering. Even a novel as aggressively twisted as The Secret History of the Lord of Musashi ends on a redemptive note.

His first major novel, Naomi, is no exception to this, but if you had to choose, you would probably call it his most "cruel." Then came Some Prefer Nettles, which represents a major leap in artistic maturity and is probably his best work outside The Makioka Sisters. And then, the current novel under consideration, Quicksand. The strong impression I got from it is that Tanizaki wasn't sure in what direction he wanted to go, thematically. So most of the novel consists of a typically elegant clandestine love affair, only to culminate in a lugubriously grotesque denouement reminiscent of his earliest work. In my opinion, these two aspects of the novel sit together very uneasily; they do not seem to me to form a coherent artistic whole.

I find it unsurprising that Quicksand remained untranslated for so long. It's interesting for those who want to chart the author's artistic development, but I wouldn't recommend it to the inexperienced Tanizaki reader without some heavy caveats. Pick up The Makioka Sisters, Some Prefer Nettles, or Seven Japanese Tales instead.

Another Tale Of Obsession.......2004-01-25

I've been reading a lot of Junichiro Tanizaki lately, and the most recent book I read was Quicksand. It was another love triangle penned from the point of view of an unreliable narrator, which is similar to The Key and Diary of a Mad Old Man. It is yet another story of obsession, desire, and death. It is a love triangle between a married woman, her husband, and a corrupt, manipulative femme fatale. It was one of his more compelling stories for sure.

A very absorbing novel!.......2001-12-14

This is a wonderful work of literary fiction and in my opinion, one of Junichiro Tanizaki's best works. Here he weaves love, lust, deceit, extortion and human suffering into a compelling and gripping novel. The story centers around Mrs. Sonoko Kakiuchi a woman who is bored with her husband and has recently started taking courses at an art school. She eventually meets a beautiful student named Mitsuko and the two carry on an affair. Everything seems fine at first but Mitsuko soon starts acting strange and before Mrs. Kakiuchi knows it, she is thrust into a strange, surreal world filled with deception, suspicion, botched abortions, fake pregnancies, blood oaths and secret rendezvous. This is a fantastic book that will pull you right into the story. It almost makes one feel like they're a silent accomplice to all of secret goings-on while at the same time making them thankful that they're not involved at all. The story becomes more and more engrossing with each chapter. When a twisted love triangle and suicide pact are introduced, the situation takes a sinister turn until the entire affair ends in tragedy. The story has an interesting melodramatic, film-noir like quality that adds to the atmosphere. A highly recommended novel! Another recommendation is "The Key" also written by Junichiro Tanizaki.

Good but not the author's best work.......2001-09-29

The book deals with many of Tanizaki's usual themes: erotic obsession, deceipt, manipulation, a man who cannot but submit itself to his wife so much his desire for her is overwhelming, etc. One of the author's usual theme that I do not remember was very present is Westernization.

While by no mean a bad bood, I was dissapointed reading it. I think that the book lacks some of the intensity and natural flow of the author's author main work such as Naomi, The Key and Diary of an Mad Old Mad. The story line seemed a bit coerced at times. I must however concede my personal bias of having read perhaps too much of his work within a short time.

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