As I Crossed A Bridge of Dreams, ed. Ivan Morris
The Sarashina Nikki is the last of the Heian diaries for me. Unlike the other three nikki, this isn't really a diary so much as a memoir. Sarashina writes her various entries years after events actually take place, her entries affected by the fact that many of the people she talks about are dead by the time she wrote it, and briefly summarizes large stretches of time, interspersed with numerous poems. (There are possibly 5 or 6 pages without a poem, and it more than the other nikki shows how poems were used for communication.)
Sarashina is a much gentler-seeming person than the authors of the other nikki (actually, I'm pretty sure they'd all chew her up and spit her out in less than a minute) and while she's a court lady, she's rarely if ever actually at court. The most interesting part is, perhaps, her extreme love of the arts. She goes into mourning when a calligrapher whose work she admires dies, even though she never met the woman in question, and is almost obsessed with passages from The Tale of Genji. At times, she seems to be combining Genji with her own experiences and losses.
Reading it, I can't help but picture Sarashina as that nice neighbor lady or aunt who is alwaya urging you to come over for dinner or tea and when you're there, she waxes on forever about how deep and moving and nuanced and beautiful her favorite TV show or book of the moment is and you're sitting there thinking "I...liked it?" but are scared to say anything because she's so invested that you fear her soul will shatter if you interfere with her fannish delight.
I didn't find it as involving as the other nikki, but it was still very interesting and a nice read.
Sarashina is a much gentler-seeming person than the authors of the other nikki (actually, I'm pretty sure they'd all chew her up and spit her out in less than a minute) and while she's a court lady, she's rarely if ever actually at court. The most interesting part is, perhaps, her extreme love of the arts. She goes into mourning when a calligrapher whose work she admires dies, even though she never met the woman in question, and is almost obsessed with passages from The Tale of Genji. At times, she seems to be combining Genji with her own experiences and losses.
Reading it, I can't help but picture Sarashina as that nice neighbor lady or aunt who is alwaya urging you to come over for dinner or tea and when you're there, she waxes on forever about how deep and moving and nuanced and beautiful her favorite TV show or book of the moment is and you're sitting there thinking "I...liked it?" but are scared to say anything because she's so invested that you fear her soul will shatter if you interfere with her fannish delight.
I didn't find it as involving as the other nikki, but it was still very interesting and a nice read.