I am reading this massive novel now and am absolutely in love with the poetry of medieval 10th century Japan. A novel written by Lady Murasaki Shikibu in the Heian period where Japan was struggling to promote its own identity and coming out of the shadow of the Chinese, this is the first novel in the world.


Lady Shikibu


Heian scene


You can download the novel here from the UNESCO site.

The story is an epic about the exploits of the Casanova Genji..

Yee Genji was like the Japanese Don Juan, I see it like the first written Japanese soup opera

There was an animation lame movie that tries to present the story but it was so damn awful

i take it youre reading the translated version.

yep, there are several translations but this latest one by Royall Tyler is a nice one.

Written by a court lady, this massive novel is all about his love affairs - of all sorts of different flavours, from slapstick comic to really tragic which occurs in Genji's youth, at the beginning of the book. But after some time, he becomes a man of power. He completely dominates the court and it's political issues and issues of prestige that preoccupy him from then on.

The interesting bit is the author herself - Lady Murasaki. There are now novels written about her life by ex-geishas like Liza Dalby - The Tale of Murasaki, which gives a fascinating account of the Heian court life, the mode of communication (mainly waka poetry) and how seasons influenced their lifestyle immensely, including the food, fashion and other aesthetics.

If u are put off by the massive volume of the Tale of Genji, try the Tale of Murasaki first.

yee I did ,read the "tale of murasaki"

once again we are dealing with soup opera scripting matters


try to see it the other way around for a minute

while considering the fact this piece was written by a female and considering the background of her life (the relationship with her father and brother ,the fact that her main inspirational source was males -their power and control)I think above this decorative layer of details there’s a hidden path through which u can see the way women were treated back then and it is rather sad after all. no matter how nicely you put it.
women were treated like objects they had certain rule ,certain level and place.

the magnificent thing about murasaki - the real one and the imaginary one is that in away I think genji was a story about males from a female hidden point of view with lots of limitations she had to consider sort of babushka elements which most people fail to see because they fall into the trap of words and descriptions ..

Sounds like a nice novel Ginger.Thanx for sharing.