The Key - Softcover

Scintillating, elegant, darkly comic, The Key is the story of a dying marriage, told in the form of parallel diaries. After nearly thirty years of marriage, a dried-up, middle-aged professor frenziedly strives for new heights of carnal pleasure with his repressed, dissatisfied wife, resorting to stimulants galore for her: brandy, a handsome young lover. During the day, they record their adventures of the previous night. When they begin to suspect each other of peeping into their respective diaries, it becomes unclear whether each spouse's confessions might not be intended for the other's eyes.

Translated from the Japanese by Howard Hibbett.

"At once sensational and serious...the translation by Howard Hibbett beautifully captures the male-female interplay of the two diaries." -- The New York Times Book Review

"That [The Key] is a work of art can never be in doubt. Tanizaki's style in this novel has been compared...to that of Andre Gide, and Howard Hibbett's translation bears an appropriate resemblance to ...Gide in English." -- New Statesman