I always longed to read Tanizaki's works and when I came across this book, I immediately interested. And after learning that this book contained his early works, I feel like I'm in good path. I'm not familiar with his writings yet, but I found myself enjoying all the stories in this book.

This book contains three short stories, written by Tanizaki in early years of his carreer. I liked all of them, but I think my most favorite will be The Qilin. Although I'm not familiar with Confucius or Chinese philosophy and history, I enjoyed the story quite much and it left me with some sort of feelings after reading that. I liked the sensation I was feeling after I finished reading the story. I also liked the second story. Killing O-Tsuya. I liked how the story turned from what I thought as forbidden love story drama with high possibilities of a happily-ever-after kind of ending into something brutal and tragic. I liked how things slowly leaning to the corrupted way step by step as I was advancing toward the ending. I enjoyed reading the third story, The Siren's Lament, but I found the ending to be quite unclear for me. But I found the story to be some sort of cooling down after all the euphoria of the second story.

I enjoyed reading Tanizaki's writings and I can't wait to read some more of his work. I think I would enjoy them as well.

Thank you for NetGalley and Pushkin Press for the e-ARC in exchange for honest review.

This book is comprised of three short stories, The Qilin, Killing O-Tsuya, and The Siren's Lament. The Siren's Lament was the most interesting one and the only story that I somewhat enjoyed reading. The writing style makes it difficult to comprehend and visualize. The pacing was strange. I had high hopes for this book, but unfortunately, I didn't click with it.

The Siren’s Lament is a collection that contains two short stories and one novella in the middle by the classic Japanese author Jun'ichirō Tanizaki. This was a great introduction to the fiction of Tanizaki (I’ve always wanted to read his novels, especially The Makioka Sisters), it is also a brand new translation by Bryan Karetnyk. The last short story is the title one, which is very fitting as all three stories in a way deal with the theme of women as temptresses, desire vs. morals, or reason. The most impactful and memorable text is the novella Killing O-Tsuya which tells a story of an elopement gone wrong. Some of the elements made me think of Macbeth (especially Lady Macbeth). I didn’t fully love the very ending of this story but still, it was a really captivating, somewhat theatrical, read. I breezed through these stories and would recommend them to anyone interested in less known classics. It definitely made me want to read more of Tanizaki’s works.

Thank you to Netgalley and Pushkin Press for the e-arc. The book comes out in September 2023 :)

The Siren's Lament was an enjoyable collection of three short stories by Tanizaki Jun'ichirō. All three tales had something interesting to offer, but I think my favourite was "Killing O-Tsuya. It was the longest of the three and I felt that gave me time to really get involved with the characters and their situations. This is the second trio of short stories I've read by this author and I am certainly keen now to go on to read some of his longer works. Recommended if you like early 20th century Japanese fiction. I am giving this book 4.5 stars.