Wow. Wow. Wow. A magnificent glimpse into daily life a thousand years ago, poetry (literally and figuratively) on every page. Annoying at times - specifically the cliffhanger on the last page…. ( )

Two months of almost daily reading. At times, tough going. Goodbye, pretty boys and girls of imperial Japan!

{Review of the Seidensticker Genji} A thousand pages from Japan in 1000 AD. This is one of the world's first novels, perhaps the very first. Modern Japan surrounds Murasaki Shikibu with the same august aura as Shakespeare receives in England. Her novel established and uses many of the features we still expect and appreciate in novels today: internal consistency, characters distinguishable by personality, and psychological insight into their motives and desires. The most significant thing it lacks is an overarching plot, but even that is familiar to us from open-ended television serials. This story could have simply gone on and on, and some scholars speculate it was only the author's death that determined where it concludes.

It is primarily the tale of Genji (just as the title suggests), the man of supreme countenance (and everything which happens to him only makes him more handsome still, aging included), who falls in love with every woman he lays eyes on (except his wife) and won't take no for an answer. And who takes a young boy into his bed, when the older sister briefly denies him. And who starts grooming a ten year old girl. And gets one of his father's consorts pregnant. And the list goes on. Not even fifty pages into this novel its ostensible hero has already wilted under our 21st century moral lens, and we're just getting started. Eventually Genji receives a small measure of comeuppance, though without taking a shred of responsibility or expressing regret (except to wish he'd done even more philandering). No less than five women pour their heart out to him in letters during his self-imposed exile, and one wonders how aware of one another these women really are. Pretty aware, as it turns out, but no worries: Genji will only ever view their jealousy as 'interesting', 'silly' and 'amusing', so all remains well.

This is a kinder, gentler medieval Japan than what followed in the era of samurai and shogun, at least at court, but it was as bad as ever for the women. Even those surrounding the throne are powerless to protect themselves from sexual assault when one brazen man or another lets his passion get the better of him, or decides that's a great way to propose marriage. Men recieve almost incredulous praise for their restraint when they choose not to rape a woman, much as you find in Boccaccio's Decameron. What does the author think of all this? She seems more ready to excuse than to judge the men: "He was so young and handsome, and at an age when it was natural that he should have women angry at him. It was natural too that he should be somewhat selfish." Said fellow is so very, very handsome after all, though with all the talk of blackened or missing teeth as a token of beauty you might be better off not trying to picture it. At the same time, I wonder if she wasn't merely recording the common excuses for these goings on, pasting them over her plain depiction of the acts. Her women are in tears, despairing, unhappy under these circumstances and denied their peace by oblivious men. The very conclusion, unfinished though it is, ends with emphasis on this point.

With the exception of this element, the story's atmosphere is wonderful. Here is the Emperor and his court of ministers, provincial governors and the like. Here are elaborate gardens designed for effect, carefully rehearsed concerts with multi-stringed kotos. When someone talks about wishing to part from the world, it usually only means becoming a 'priest' or a 'nun' (a strange quirk of the translation; there are also 'bishops' in 9th century Japan, metaphors impossibly drawing on the Bible, etc.). Nobody draws a sword on anybody or even threatens violence (again, sexual assault excepted), and poetry is the word of the day. Actually, poetry is life. The integration of poetic allusions into dialogue is a fascinating highlight of the novel. Frequently the narrative is interrupted by a quotation from one poem or another that is familiar to the characters and presumably the author's contemporary readers, thus saying much more than what's conveyed by just the literal few words. Many written messages between characters are no more than a short poem from which the writer's sincerity, skill, intelligence etc. are all measured by the recipient. This might just be part of the fiction, but it would be fantastic if the Japanese court actually communicated among themselves in this way at that time. It's central to making this work a unique reading experience.

The author is present in the novel, and is identified closely enough with the character Murasaki that scholars have ascribed this name to her (nobody knows her real one). Occasionally the narrator reminds us that she is recording things she personally witnessed or has otherwise learned. She certainly presents as female when she says "It would not be seemly for a woman to speak in detail of these scholarly happenings." But for the most part she only reminds us of her presence when it provides an excuse to dodge some details: "We all read romances which list every gift and offering at such affairs, but I am afraid that they rather bore me." Not everything was different a thousand years ago. ( )

When Libby delivered this, I was really pleased. I had reserved this a year ago, and I’m glad I did as I wasn’t sure how to approach and read the full version that was written over a millennium ago and is 1000 pages. However, listening to this has helped a lot. ( )

Read 150 pages or so. Interesting from a historical perspective, but I think one would really have to be into 11th cent Japanese courtly romances to get through it all.