THE MAKIOKA SISTERS (530 pp.)−Junichiro Tanlzaki−Knopf ($4.95).
In any land, an unmarried girl approaching 30 is apt to get an attack of the will-I's; Will I, oh will I ever find a husband? In Japan, this question throws the girl's entire family into a near panic. The Makioka Sisters is the story of a great mate hunt conducted with all the fussy protocol, near misses and ever-lurking dangers of a de luxe African safari.
The Makiokas are an Osaka-based clan of proper Japanese who, unlike proper Bostonians, have dipped into capital. The four sisters who dominate Author Tanizaki's story are snobbish, overbred, illness...