Reviews and Comments

I somehow powered through this but will need to take a break before the second volume. I will likely read the essays in the Norton Critical edition and delve into other resources before continuing.

At some point, things expanded in scope and I had a hard time grasping the changes. There's politics and state management but we're also dealing with Genji's descendants. I have no idea what the rest of the tale has in store, even after peaking ahead.

I am not sure that the author worked entirely in a vacuum to create what many think is the world's first proper novel. However, I accept the possibility that the forms and techniques she was working with can't be neatly categorized. I suspect that the work has been adapted over time and through translation to make it more coherent to some identifiable literary standard. In the end, I doubt whether one can view Genji as a protagonist. Instead, it may be a look at how the actions of a person who is an idealized representation of a court player, tragic flaws and all, affects the lives of those around him. Or if that isn't the case, it is a way for me to connect to the story.

I am nearing completion of the first volume.

Genji never stops being lecherous but he does develop deep connections with many of the women he is involved with. Some of the women have passed away, and Genji mourns them but never quite develops (so far) enough self awareness to change his behavior.

There is always a bit of calculating and plotting behind his actions, even if he ends up suffering for them. At one point, he even self-exiles from the court but eventually comes back stronger.

Fate seems to strike those around him, especially for his own actions -- and this is where the critique of his bad behavior is focused. Karma is also a thing but we may be left to contemplate the contents of Genji's past and future lives.

It is a 1000 year old novel and our ability to read it now is the result of centuries of scholarship. The translator is very aware that there can be no authoritative translation and strongly believes that each translation adds something to our understanding and makes the work accessible to a different audience.

This is my default position regarding any story before even considering that each reader receives a story differently upon each reading. I am not interested in canonicalization as a thing. I even find it toxic in a modern context as it relates to big intellectual properties.

Even the original work was written in a language that became archaic a few generations later, so it has been in a constant process of modernization for subsequent generations. There are a lot of Tales of Genji out there. The older English translations are still considered valid, they haven't been superseded by "better" scholarship. It is a deep well.

I was first exposed to Japanese literature and literary fiction in my late teens through Yukio Mishima. I read him fairly uncritically at that age. I found the politics silly and I thought he was doing theatre or that his death was a fulfillment of a sexual fantasy. It did make me want to live more in my body and less in my imagination. Reading a queer writer at this age also helped me grow as a person. Though it would be hard for me to minimize the politics if I re-read his stuff now, 30 years later, especially with a better understanding of the background of his time.

Reading Japanese Literature: A Very Short Introduction has made me excited to discover many of his contemporaries and other modernist Japanese writers. There seem to be many figures who are equally fascinating and write at the same level of excellence. I am very eager to discover these other authors.