excerpt - in praise of shadows

we find beauty not in the thing itself but in the patterns of shadows, the light and the darkness, that one thing against other creates.

-- Jun' ichiro Tanizaki, 'In Praise of Shadows'

The quote above is probably the most famous one in this essay by the Japanese novelist Tanizaki, but looking beyond the pleasing aesthetics of a modestly-lit Japanese room versus the 'tragedy' of integrating modern electrical lighting into old spaces, Tanizaki explores nuances of the Japanese culture and how the quality of light and interplay of shadow is crucial to understanding the approach of the Japanese to their way of life. I wish I had read this book before I went to Japan - it certainly lent me a faint glimpse of knowledge that a whole semester of pre-Asia trip studies sort of failed to do.