Tanizaki and Vogel's urban love : a reading in modernist Japanese and Hebrew literatures

Modernist writers of the early 20th century such as the Japanese novelist Tanizaki Jun'ichirō and the Jewish novelist David Vogel had to face a world in which the impact modernity seemingly isolated them from their own tradition and put them in a situation that was both exciting and dangerous. In this environment, both novelists wrote novels that feature a disturbing love affair between a domineering woman and weak-willed man. Reading these two novels together, this paper will explore the implications of these love affairs and the way the novels connect them to modernity. At the same time, this paper will also demonstrate that reading Japanese and Hebrew literatures together can open up new and exciting pass ways into literary studies.