Many women were sheltered beneath his shade.

The Tale of Genji by Murasaki Shikibu

Spoiler Alert: Plot Summary

Ah, The Tale of Genji, what is it about? It is about a man named Genji, a wealthy commoner born of an emperor, living in eleventh century Japan. It is also about his many (many) (many) women. It is also about his progeny, and his putative progeny. It is a love story, a telenovela, a word of warning. It is simultaneously deeply misogynistic and beautifully feminist. It is the first 'novel' we have in our hands in the present, and it is the work of a woman. It is lyrical, poetic, poignant, and disturbing. For every beautiful moment there is an equally painful moment where a woman is in distress, and a distress of man's making. It is a study in contrasts, it is a work of art, and it is, above all, many things. Genji is not easily contained or blurbed, and anyone who would wish to make you think so is simply not telling you the truth.

Spoiler Over: Continue Here

Dear readers, 

  You may have noticed that it has been some time since I have blobbed. The reasons are threefold: 

(1) Genji is very long. As in, 1,319 pages. So it took even this fast reader quite some time. 
(2) I am engaged in book bingos (of my own making, #pressed) - one is a "Spooktober" book bingo, and the other is a "feminist resistance" book bingo (it's so intersectional, it's Spoooky!) so I have been reading several other books and cheating, as it were, on this blob list. 
(3) Life. It can be busy!

 Without further ado, allow me to welcome you to the world of Genji. Or Genji-bear as I like to call him. Not because he's so endearing, per se, but because I spent so much time with him. A few quick notes if you are considering undertaking this task: 

• It is widely believed that Genji is unfinished. While Shikibu *may* have intended to leave the book unresolved, it seems more likely that she either died before she could finish, or that we simply have lost some of the later chapters in the last 900 years since it was written. You know, sometimes you lose your library card, sometimes you lose the last few chapters of an epic novel. It happens. Personally, I found the lack of resolution very unsatisfying. But that's just me. Maybe you like a jazz ending.

• Genji is not an easy book to read as a 21st century woman. Maybe it wasn't easy to read as an eleventh century woman, either. I won't get into the details too much here, but suffice to say that it read a little (or a lot) "rapey" for my taste. I'm all for telling all our stories, but I can't condone the behavior of Genji or MOST of the men in the novel.

Favorite chapters
Since the first ten chapters of the book read as a laundry list of Genji's lovers (willing and not so willing) my favorite chapter initially was when Genji was exiled for bad behavior. Basically, he slept with the wrong woman, and got sent away from court for what everyone THOUGHT was going to be eternity. But which turned out to be like a couple of months. Genji being Genji, of course he ended up seducing a lady in exile and getting her pregnant (surprising no one) but at least we got to spend like half a chapter not chasing a lady. 

If you're interested in reading a taste of Genji, I'd recommend that chapter, or the one where a lady basically goes Grey Gardens and refuses to leave her home even though it is crumbling to pieces around her. I found it delightful. 

• Exile chapter - Exile to Suma (no callers except for the wind and the waves)

• Grey Gardens chapter - Ruined Villa of Tangled Gardens

Genji snapshot
Okay, so I've been painting around the edges of who Genji was, but let me give you a chance to get to know him yourself. Here are some lines I have carefully selected to give you a flavor of our titular character:

• How will I ever find out which sister I slept with? (#playerproblems)

• His disposition always drew him toward relationships that were unusual and problematic. One could also substitute "pedophilic" for unusual and the sentence would still be true.

• Genji seemed to be always suffering pangs of longing for every woman he knew.

• His radiant splendor was a never-ending reminder of her own insignificance. Ah, yes. In addition to constantly hunting down women, Genji was apparently SO GORGEOUS he basically sparkled, à la Twilight. I don't know if this made me like him more or less. Less, I think. Maybe I wouldn't have minded him so much if he was hideous? No, I'd probably still hate him.

• All of my women, each in her way, have qualities that make it impossible for me to abandon them. It makes my life very trying. OH SO TRYING. #hoesindifferentareacodes

• I sometimes neglect to take care of things...but perhaps that's natural, given that I have so many competing responsibilities that keep me busy. IS IT THO?

• Despite his troubling perversity, he himself cut a magnificent figure. see above comments.

• Genji's son, on Genji - You're being unreasonable. Do you mean to say that he should give all of his attention to only one of his wives? LOL. What a preposterous idea!

Defilement, demonic possession, and directional taboos
One of the things that I genuinely loved about this book was that it was all kinds of bizarre. I don't know much about Japanese culture from that period, so I think quite a bit of it was not weird for the time period, but reading it now, it was positively wild. Here's the rundown:

defilement - apparently, you could be defiled by birth, death, washing your hair at an inauspicious time. basically there were tons of way to be defiled. so you had to be careful! (To be clear, I'm not making fun of religious or spiritual beliefs, just saying that it had a lot of rules, some of which felt practically challenging.)

demonic/spiritual possession - this happened more often than you might think. often, Genji's ladies from the past would inhabit one of his ladies from the present to mess with his head. admittedly, I found this FANTASTIC. 

directional taboos - at several points in the novel, there were directional taboos, so people couldn't travel west, or couldn't travel north, or sometimes couldn't travel at all. I feel like this would be a very convenient excuse to not do something I didn't want to. Oh, so sorry, I can't come to your event, since there's a directional taboo on traveling south today. 

Kaoru, the original mansplainer
Spoiler alert - Genji dies WAYYYYYYY before the end of this story. The last four hundred pages are about his grandson and his putative son (as in, was actually the product of a rape, but mostly everyone thinks he's Genji's son. Except Genji.) The putative son, Kaoru, is, imho, fairly obnoxious, and even less likable than Genji (which is hard). This line he says to some ladies made me dub him the original mansplainer: 

• Being a man, I have many things to tell you that you might not otherwise learn."

Koto and the game of Go

Since it was the eleventh century and all, the main characters do a lot of playing music, like on the koto (see right) and playing a game called "Go" (see left). Aside from eating (and courting lovers) this is really the main activity. Oh, and they play backgammon - who knew it was that old? While I feel like this might have gotten old after a while, I really loved the scenes where they just gathered together and had extravagant parties to play music. Granted, the people in the story were mostly super wealthy, so they had the luxury of doing that, but still. It sounded fairly magical. Here's a sample:

Singers were summoned to the steps of the main entrance on the south side, and they accompanied the instruments by intoning the syllables of the musical scale in extraordinarily fine voices until the night deepened and the modes were changed, with the performers shifting to intimate minor keys. 

Themes
Here is a collection of themes I compiled as I was reading: 
- Love
- Beauty
- Evanescence of life (this one comes up A LOT)
- Rape
- Seasons/nature
- Balancing your affairs
- Crying (about anything - the weather, a pretty song, a lovely poem)
- Poetry
- Pedophilia
- Taking vows (this seemed like a very common activity - both for older folks, and for women as a kind of 'last resort')
- Hyperbole
- Incest
- Music and nature

• When music is performed during the melancholy of autumn, the notes weave together with the chirring of crickets to produce indescribably moving overtones. Isn't that lovely?

Kaoru's special smell

• He couldn't remain hidden for long before his fragrance gave him away. I found this hilarious. There's a lot of scenting of robes and contests to see who makes the best incense, but apparently Kaoru had an innate smell that was intoxicating, but also made it very difficult for him to try to play hide and seek when he was trying to surprise the ladies. (Who mostly didn't want to be surprised.)

Lines about ladies
It was kind of trippy reading a book that had so much misogyny and troubling rules for female behavior, but I felt like Murasaki Shikibu came out more and more as the tale went on, which I enjoyed. Still, here's an example for cognitive dissonance:

In all cases a woman should pretend to be ignorant, even if she has a little learning. And when she has something to say, she should just focus on a couple of points and skip the rest.

Lines I want to steal
Ok, so I obviously read this work in translation, since I'm not fluent in Japanese, but I loved the translation I read, and would highly recommend it. Washburn was the translator, and while I haven't read other versions, I really enjoyed the way the words came across to me. Here are some lines I would like to bring into present vernacular: 

• An ascetic's response to Genji when he tries to summon him - I am getting much too old to leave my cave anymore. lololololz.

• Murasaki, who becomes Genji's favorite woman, before he goes into exile and abandons her, responds his comment about not behaving in a way that is untoward - Is there anything more untoward than what's happening now?

• The Hitachi princess, aka Ms. Grey Gardens - Though what you have said makes me glad, I am not like other people, so how could I possibly leave my home? I shall remain here always until it crumbles around me and disappears. ah, yes. great plan.

• Tō No Chujo, to his daughter - It's undignified to just lie about looking disheveled.

• The expression on your face could easily pulverize boulders. I love this one so much.

• I have caught a cold and am indisposed. Sorry, directional taboo on traveling south, and I have caught a cold and am indisposed!

• You should consider my love a deep abyss, and throw yourself into it. Tempting... but no.

• Your playing is getting less intolerable all the time. Wow. What an overwhelming compliment. 

Shikibu-isms
Like I said, we get more and more peeks at Shikibu throughout the book. Here are some of my favorites:

• Unfortunately, I have a terrible headache, and it is simply too much to go on with the story. 

• I have heard that he acquired a reputation as a pompous fool who meddled in things that were none of his business. 

• In the old romances they deemed the enumeration of treasured possessions a wonderful thing, but I find such lists annoying, and, in any case, I could not possibly count up the gifts and rewards bestowed at that banquet. 

On women
Just as we see more of the author, I also felt like we got to see more of her perspective and commentary on the female experience. Some snippets...

• Is there any life as restricted and miserable as a woman's?

• No matter how proud and brave you are, can any woman really manage to look after her affairs solely on her own?

• The longer a woman lives in this world, the more likely it is that unpleasant surprises will befall her.

• Men may exude an air of kindness and sagacity, but they are cruelly fickle.

Referents/Reverberations
This line - She was compliant by nature, but in forcing herself to be resolute, she resembled supple bamboo, which, though it looks fragile, will not easily break.

Reminded me of this line from Gone With the Wind - We're not wheat, we're buckwheat!

This line from Genji - I waited all day yesterday for you. Apparently I am not in your thoughts as much as you are in mine.

Reminded me of this line of YBN's, to Gilberte, from Swann's Way - "I had so many things to ask you,' I said to her. 'I thought that today was going to mean so much in our friendship. And no sooner have you come than you go away! Try to come early tomorrow, so that I can talk to you.'"

And finally this line: I realize that it's customary for a woman to pretend that she knows nothing of the aching sorrow in a man's heart, even when she is all too aware of his feelings. But it's especially disappointing that you in particular should feign complete ignorance about me.

Reminded me of this line from Pride and Prejudice, when Mr. Collins proposes to Lizzy - I am not now to learn,” replied Mr. Collins, with a formal wave of the hand, “that it is usual with young ladies to reject the addresses of the man whom they secretly mean to accept, when he first applies for their favour; and that sometimes the refusal is repeated a second, or even a third time. I am therefore by no means discouraged by what you have just said, and shall hope to lead you to the altar ere long.”

Title Possibilities
I opted for the one I chose because I felt it most accurately captured both Genji's extensive collection of women but also the fact that many of the women genuinely benefitted from his benevolence, given the patriarchal structure of society.

• Who first taught you the world was a place of woe?

• Feeling forlorn, she looked with envy at the returning waves.

• No doubt I shall suffer painful regrets even in the world to come.

• A twentieth-night moon shone exceptionally clear, the surface of the sea was sublimely beautiful, heavy frost settled, turning the fields of pine white, and a penetrating chill created a profoundly moving aura of elegance and melancholy.

• There are so many things past and present that I regret about my impulsive heart.

New Words
arhat - (in Buddhism and Jainism) someone who has attained the goal of the religious life

cresset - a metal container of oil, grease, wood, or coal burned as a torch and typically mounted on a pole

lambent - (of light or fire) glowing, gleaming, or flickering with a soft radiance

moonflower - tropical American morning glory with fragrant flowers

pampas grass - a tall South American grass with silky flowering plumes, widely cultivated as an ornamental plant

paulownia trees -  any of a genus of Chinese trees of the snapdragon family especially one widely cultivated for its panicles of fragrant violet flowers

sutra - a rule or aphorism in Sanskrit literature, or a set of these on grammar or Hindu law or philosophy

uxorial - relating to a wife

Well, if you made it through this blob, you have a TEENSY taste of what it was like to read Genji! ;) I'll leave you with a few of my favorite lines: 

In the poetry of our land, the poignant beauty of autumn seems to be favored.

A lot of things have changed in a thousand years, but it's oddly comforting to me to know that they loved fall as much as I did. 

There are moments when one wants to pass on to later generations the appearance and condition of people living in the present - both the good and the bad. These are the subjects that people never tire of, no matter how many times you read about them. Shall we make a story unlike any other that has ever been told and pass it on to later generations?

Shall we? Do let's. 

I'm off to The Gorgeous and the Cursed, or was it The Stunning and the Haunted? Or maybe it's just a retelling of Genji. ;) 

Keep each other safe. Keep faith. Good night.