We Orientals find beauty not only in the thing itself but in the pattern of the shadows, the light and darkness which that thing provides.
Junichiro TanizakiRead
Whenever I sit with a bowl of soup before me, listening to the murmur that penetrates like the distant song of an insect, lost in contemplation of the flavours to come, I feel as if I were being drawn into a trance.
Interpretation
This quote reflects the deep contemplation and sensory experience associated with enjoying a bowl of soup.
In this quote, Junichiro Tanizaki expresses how the simple act of sitting with a bowl of soup transforms into a meditative experience. The myriad of flavors and soothing sounds create a trance-like state, highlighting the beauty found in everyday rituals and the importance of savoring life's simple pleasures.
In practice
During a dinner party where we discuss the joys of cooking.
We Orientals find beauty not only in the thing itself but in the pattern of the shadows, the light and darkness which that thing provides.
The second, and I think this is the much more overt and I think it is the main cause, I have been increasingly demonstrating or trying to demonstrate that every possible stance a critic, a scholar, a teacher can take towards a poem is itself inevitably and necessarily poetic.
We read and remember certain writers because they offer distinctive voices and perspectives, because they've given themselves over completely and passionately to their obsessions while vigorously ignoring everything else.
In a broader sense, the rhythms of nature, large and small - the sounds of wind and water, the sounds of birds and insects - must inevitably find their analogues in music.
Now architecture consists of order, which in Greek is called taxis ... Order is the balanced adjustment of the details of the work separately, and, as to the whole, the arrangement of the proportion with a view to a symmetrical result.
In fiction you're not often writing about the typical; you are interested in outliers, the points of interest. Part of it comes from feeling I was the only Asian or person of colour... another part comes from my personality: I'm an introvert, and my usual survival mode in a large group is to stand by a wall and watch everybody.
O why do I ever let anyone read what I write! Every time I have to go through a breakfast with a letter of criticism I swear I will write for my own praise or blame in future. It is a misery.
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