The Diary of Lady Murasaki, ed. Richard Bowring

[meganbmoore]

A little over 60 pages of this is fragments of the personal writings of Murasaki Shikibu, author of The Tale of Genji*. The other 70 or so pages are graphs, illustrations, and extremely detailed cultural and historical notes by Richard Bowring. Bowring clearly loves Japan’s Heian period, and infuses his notes with it.

Murasaki’s “diary” entries (it

Comments

[dangermousie]

That's interesting. I never read Murasaki but I really enjoyed Sei Shonagon - maybe I should look this up.

[meganbmoore]

I have Sei Shonagan (and at least one other Heian Lady's diary, along with Ivan Morris's book) but haven't read it yet. The impression I get is that they were more political rivals and it carried over than that they were strictly creative rivals. Murasaki is actually a bit of an obsession of mine, even though I haven't read Genji and little is known about her.

[rachelmanija]

Oh my God, you haven't read Sei Shonagon? READ! It's so great - basically the Heian-era LJ of a snobby, catty, brilliant BNF, complete with memes.

[meganbmoore]

I think you describing it as Heian LJ is how I first heard of the book, actually.

[nebulia]

haha, I don't know how much you know, but Shonagon and Murasaki were rather not fond of each other. Shonagon has some pretty catty comments herself in The Pillow Book regarding Murasaki. I think, though, a lot of it for them was politics.

Oh, Genji. Genji, Genji, Genji. I really don't know what else to say about him. It is absolutely fascinating, but...well.

[meganbmoore]

Yeah, the impression I got (based on very limited knowledge) was that it was mostly politics, and writings were just icing on the cake.