Elisa Waggoner

The Makioka Sisters is beautifully written, and provides a sensitive portrayal of a point in time in Japanese society when -- as today -- mores were changing. Housewife and mother Sachiko helps her younger sister Yukiko find a husband, a key turning point in life. Author Tanizaki's reflections on this are not as sentimental or as one-note as one might imagine, given that the story revolves around this social pressure. The story also touches on the eldest and youngest sisters, who are the most conservative and the most nontraditional of the group. I took a lot of meaning from this book, growing up Japanese American. It was a touchstone to a sense of culture that was nostalgic, but that also showed a sensitive, complex perception about women, relationships, society, notions of decency, and notions of love. I am a big fan of Sachiko and her constant loyalty to Yukiko. The end of the novel suggests that complexity does not end with each sanctioned turning point, and that life -- emotionally complicated, situated in meaningful relationships, mired in expectations, ambiguous with respect to its future, and part of a larger history even when the experience is deeply personal -- goes on.