{"product_id":"the-maids","title":"The Maids","description":"\u003cp\u003e \u003cem\u003eThe Maids\u003c\/em\u003e, Tanizaki's final novel, sparkles like a jewel. Over the years--before, during, and after WWII--many women work in the pampered, elegant household of the famous author Chikura Raikichi, his wife, and her younger sister. Though the family's quite well-to-do, the house is small; the proximity of the maids helps perhaps to explain Raikichi's extremely close, and somewhat eroticized, observation of all their little ways. In the sensualist patrician Raikichi, Tanizaki offers a richly ironic self-portrait, but he presents as well an exquisitely nuanced chronicle of change and loss: centuries' old values and manners are vanishing, and here--in the evanescent beauty of all the small gestures and intricacies of private life--we find a whole world passing away.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"New Directions Publishing Corporation","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":48833662025933,"sku":"9780811228749","price":16.95,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0557\/1529\/9533\/files\/imageloader_7cb8a298-b93b-42f9-9a87-9dc80de12ac6.jpg?v=1790892742","url":"https:\/\/booksatmidnight.com\/products\/the-maids","provider":"Books At Midnight","version":"1.0","type":"link"}