Quadrangle

THE KEY (183 pp.)--Junichiro Tanizaki--Knopf ($3.50).

In the Japanese fiction brought to the U.S. since World War II, sex has usually been treated with discretion bordering on propriety--at least by Western standards. Now Junichiro (The Makioka Sisters) Tanizaki, 74, Japan's leading novelist and author of 119 books, has written a story about sex and marriage that is as explicit as any novel on the theme since Lady Chatterley's Lover.

The Key is short, tense and psychologically sound. Its cast of four is so outwardly respectable that the story's shock is absorbed in the commonplace aspect of their lives. Papa is a mild teacher of 55 who does his work, takes walks, spends hours in his study. He is nearsighted and, to his wife Ikuko, at least, physically unappealing. She is 44 and still most attractive, with "gently swelling lines." What pains Papa is that in 20 years of marriage he has never seen her in the nude. She has submitted to him, but with no obvious enthusiasm. Now, as middle age slows him down, he fears that his inadequacy will destroy their marriage, for he suspects that Ikuko, even though she is undemonstrative about sex, is really avid for it. Papa adopts a program that may well offend readers who have never before thought of themselves as prim. He takes to French brandy and encourages his wife to get drunk with him. What is more, he encourages Kimura, a young friend of his marriageable daughter, to join them. When Ikuko succumbs to brandy and occasional fainting fits, Papa takes her to bed, throws powerful lights on her nude body, and photographs her in unconventional poses. To the young friend he allots the task of developing the film.

What happens is just what the husband expected. Young Kimura becomes interested in the wife and she in him. This in turn makes Papa jealous to the point where he performs sexual feats that astonish even his wife. The daughter, of course, catches on soon enough, and by now her jealousy of her mother has made them enemies. When the mother begins to rendezvous with her daughter's young man, the four are catastrophically enmeshed in feelings of lust, outrage and jealousy that swiftly reach a point of no return.

When The Key was published in Japan, the obvious question was: Is it pornography or literature? A little of both, perhaps. What gives it distinction is the author's astuteness in observing a human crisis, his grave, almost solemn tone, and his simple, carefully considered prose. Author Tanizaki has created his effect without employing even a hint of the D. H. Lawrence vocabulary.

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