Genji
Sorry for the prolonged delay, but I'm now up-to-date with my HOA duties. So back to Genji.Genji is in exile in a little house on the coast. There was a torrent of farewell poetry between himself and all his young ladies before he rode off in the night. Even now it seems to be primarily the new emperor's mother who hates him.
But the poor man can't even throw himself into exile on a deserted shore (not really) without attracting attention, this time in the form of the former governor,
p271 "I hear that the shining Genji is out of favor," he said to his wife, "and that he has come to Suma. What a rare stroke of luck -- the chance we have been waiting for. We must offer our girl."
"Completely out of the question. People from the city tell me that he has any number of fine ladies of his own and that he has reached out for one of the emperor's. [Oborozukiyo] That is why the scandal. What interest can he possibly take in a country lump like her?"
...
"...it hardly seems the right and sensible thing to choose of all people a man who has been sent into exile for a serious crime... You must be joking."
p272 "A serious crime! Why in China too exactly this sort of thing happens to every single person who has remarkable talents and stands out from the crowd..."
Though the girl was no great beauty, she was intelligent and sensitive and had a gentle grace of which someone of far higher rank would have been proud. She was reconciled to her sad lot. No one among the great persons of the land was likely to think her worth a glance. The prospect of marrying someone nearer her station in life revolted her. If she was left behind by those on whom she depended, she would become a nun, or perhaps throw herself into the sea.
...
This doesn't immediately lead anywhere. Very odd.
Time for a tale of trash. (I've been wondering if they've considered re-titling Genji, "The Adventures of the Horn-dog Pervert, Genji" to sell more books?)
For the past month (or longer) a scavenger has been coming into my alley early Monday mornings to go through all our trash -- both my building's and the trash of two other buildings that go out the same time, and he's going through both the recycling -- and the landfill and leaving a mess behind. I get up around 6am and pick up what was left on the paving and re-sort everything for the pick-up an hour or two later. This morning I went out and talked to the Recology guy about our options: We could put locks on the recycling, but there are ways around this; we could get the trash picked-up earlier, except that we can't because the idiots on the corner have already forced them to delay until around 7am because their sleep was being disturbed. The final option is to keep at least the recycling locked-up inside until Recology arrives. So that's what I'm going to try next week.
This is a nuisance, but so is the new status quo. If I continue to hear the guy going through everyone else's stuff, I can just wait until he's done and then pull our recycling up and clean-up. I may end up doing this with our landfill, too. The only real problem would be if I slept through the scavenger and Recology. That would be awkward.
In a way, I'm more upset with our residents than with the scavenger. He's pulling things out of the landfill that should be in the recycling. Yesterday happened to be the day when I tossed the tortilla chip bag that holds my landfill waste for a month. If everyone would just sort their damn trash there would be almost nothing in the landfill toter to make a mess with.
End rant.
The Akashi lady
We do return to the old governor and his daughter, or as I'm starting to think of it, the "...a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife" story-line.
p297 After the girl is unable to bring herself to respond to Genji's first note, He got off another message the next day, beautifully written on soft, delicate paper. "I am not accustomed to receiving letters from the ladies' secretaries.
"Unwillingly reticent about my sorrows
I still must be -- for no one makes inquiry.
Thought it was difficult to say just what I mean."
There would have been something unnatural about a girl who refused to be interested in such a letter. She thought it splendid, but she also thought it impossibly out of her reach. Notice from such supreme heights had the perverse effect of reducing her to tears and inaction.
She was finally badgered into setting something down. She chose delicately perfumed lavender paper and took great care with the gradations of her ink.
"Unwittingly reticent -- how can it be so?
How can you sorrow for someone you have not met?"
The diction and the handwriting would have done credit to any of the fine ladies at court. He fell into a deep reverie, for he was reminded of days back in the city. But he did not want to attract attention, and presently shook it off.
Genji finally "visits" the girl.
p304 Genji called in secret from time to time. The two houses being some distance apart, he feared being seen by fishermen, who were known to relish a good rumor, and sometimes several days would elapse between his visits. Exactly as she had expected, thought the girl. Her father, forgetting that enlightenment was his goal, quite gave his prayers over to silent queries as to when Genji might be expected to come again; and so (and it seems a pity) a tranquility very laboriously attained was disturbed at a very late date.
Genji dreaded having Murasaki learn of the affair. He still loved her more than anyone, and he did not want her to make even joking references to it. She was a quiet, docile lady, but she had more than once been unhappy with him. Why, for the sake of brief pleasure, had he caused her pain He wished it were all his to do over again. The sight of the Akashi lady only brought new longing for the other lady.
I've taken a break here (creating my HOA's pro forma budget for next year is always a trying task -- mostly because I forget from one year to the next many of the complications. Also, I wanted to take some time with this next section as it gets interesting. I started out saying that this was not a feminist screed, but now I'm having to wonder what kind of agenda our author does have. I've alluded to P&P before, and, as with Jane Austen, it seems that Murasaki Shikibu is telling this particular story for a reason. Even if her writing is free of words of judgment, the care she is taking to tell this story of the provincial girl of an undistinguished family, and the motivation of her parents, is suggestive. (It would not have surprised me if Jane Austen had read this, but I'm informed that nothing was translated into English until the 1880s.)
still p304 He got off a more earnest and affectionate letter than usual, at the end of which he said: "I am in anguish at the thought that, because of foolish occurrences for which I have been responsible but have had little heart, I might appear in a guise distasteful to you. There has been a strange, fleeting encounter. That I should volunteer this story will make you see, I hope, how little I wish to have secrets from you. Let the gods be my judges.
"It was but the fisherman's brush with the salty sea pine
Followed by a tide of tears of longing."
Her reply was gentle and unreproachful...
p305 ...he found it hard to put down, and for some nights he stayed away from the house in the hills.
The Akashi lady was convinced once more that her fears had become actuality. Now seemed the time to throw herself into the sea. She had had no ambitions for herself, no thought of making a respectable marriage. Yet the years had gone by happily enough, without storms or tears. Now she saw that the world can be very cruel. She managed to conceal her worries, however, and to do nothing that might annoy Genji. He was more and more pleased with her as time went by.
...
Both the new emperor and his mother (Genji's enemy) are ill. The emperor takes advantage of his mother being indisposed to summon his half brother, Genji back to the city.
p306 Genji had been sure that a pardon would presently come, but he also knew that life is uncertain. That it should come so soon was of course pleasing. At the same time the thought of leaving this Akashi coast filled him with regret. The old monk, [the lady's father] though granting that it was most proper and just, was upset at the news. he managed all the same to tell himself that Genji's prosperity was in his own best interest. Genji visited the lady every night and sought to console her. From about the Sixth Month she had shown symptoms such as to make their relations more complex. A sad, ironical affair seemed at the same time to come to a climax and to disintegrate. He wondered at the perverseness of fates that seemed always to be bringing surprises. The lady, and one could scarcely have blamed her, was sunk in the deepest gloom. Genji... now lamented that he would not see this Akashi again.
...sad thoughts accosted Genji. Why, now and long ago, had he abandoned himself, heedlessly but of his own accord, to random, profitless affairs of the heart?
p307 "What a great deal of trouble he does cause," said those who knew the secret. "The same thing all over again. For almost a year he didn't tell anyone and he didn't seem to care the first thing about her. And now just when he ought to be letting well enough alone he makes things worse."
...
Two days before his departure Genji visited his lady, setting out earlier than usual. This first really careful look at her revealed an astonishingly proud beauty. He comforted her with promises that he would choose an opportune time to bring her to the city. I shall not comment again upon his own good looks. He was thinner from fasting, and emaciation seemed to add the final touches to the picture. He made tearful vows. The lady replied in her heart that this small measure of affection was all she wanted and deserved, and that his radiance only emphasized her own dullness. The waves moaned in the autumn winds, the smoke from the salt burners' fires drew faint lines across the sky, and all the symbols of loneliness seemed to gather together.
"Even though we now must part for a time,
The smoke from these briny fires will follow me."
"Smoldering thoughts like the sea grass burned on these
shores.
And what good now to ask for anything more?"
She fell silent, weeping softly, and a rather conventional poem seemed to say a great deal.
She had not, through it all, played for him on the koto of which he had heard so much.
p308 "Do let me hear it. Let it be a memento."
Sending for the seven-string koto he had brought from the city, he played an unusual strain, quiet but wonderfully clear on the midnight air. Unable to restrain himself, the old man pushed a thirteen-stringed koto toward his daughter. She was apparently in a mood for music... He had thought Fujitsubo's playing quite incomparable. It was in the modern style, and enough to bring cries of wonder from anyone who knew a little about music. For him it was Fujitsubo herself, the essence of all her delicate awareness. The koto of the lady before him was quiet and calm, and so rich in overtones as almost to arouse envy. She left off playing just as the connoisseur who was her listener had passed the first stages of surprise and become eager attention. Disappointment and regret succeeded pleasure. He had been here for nearly a year. Why had he not insisted that she play for him, time after time? All he could do now was repeat the old vows.
"Take this koto," he said, "to remember me by. Someday we will play together."
Her reply was soft and almost casual:
"One heedless word, one koto, to set me at rest.
In the sound of it the sound of my weeping, forever."
He could not let it pass.
"Do not change the middle string of this koto.
Unchanging I shall be till we meet again.
p309"And we will meet again before it has slipped out of
tune."
Yet it was not unnatural that the parting should seem more real than the reunion.
...
[After Genji is gone] p311 Her mother tried everything to console her. "What could we have been thinking of? You have such odd ideas," she said to her husband, "and I should have been more careful."
"Enough, enough. There are reasons why he cannot abandon her... Stop worrying, mix yourself a dose of something or other. This wailing will do no good." But he was sitting disconsolate in a corner.
...
p319 [I really thought she was going somewhere else with this story of the Akashi lady and her scheming family, but now Genji is back on top of the world and, after hearing of the birth of his first daughter, we get this piece of new information,] "You will have three children," a fortuneteller had once told him. "Two of them are certain to become emperor and empress. The least of the three will become chancellor, the most powerful man in the land" The whole of the oracle seemed by way of coming true.
...
The new emperor has abdicated in favor of the Reizei emperor whose mother is Fujitsubo and
whose father is actually Genji. Yugiri, his other son with his actual wife, is now serving as page to both the emperor (his half brother) and the crown prince. Which would make the daughter of the Akashi lady the future empress.
p324 He had said little to Murasaki of the events at Akashi... "And that would seem to be the situation," he said, concluding his account. "Somehow everything has gone wrong. I don't have children where I really want them, and now there is a child in a very unlikely place. And it is a girl. I could of course simply disown her, but that is the sort of thing I do not seem capable of. I will bring her here one of these days and let you have a look at her. You are not to be jealous, now."
Murasaki flushed. "How strange you are. You make me dislike myself, constantly assigning traits which are not mine at all. When and by whom, I wonder, shall I begin to have lessons in jealousy?"
Genji smiled, and tears came to his eyes. "When indeed, pray. You are very odd, my dear. Things come into your mind that would not occur to anyone else."
...
He told her of the lines of smoke across the Akashi sky that last evening, and, though with some understatement, perhaps, of the lady's appearance and of her skill on the koto. And so while she herself had been lost in infinite sadness, thought Murasaki, he had managed to keep himself entertained. It did not seem right that he should have allowed himself even a playful glance at another woman.
If he had his ways, she would have hers. She looked aside, whispering as if to herself: "There was a time when we seemed rather a nicely matched couple.
"I think I shall be the first to rise as smoke,
And it may not go the direction of that other."
"What a very unpleasant thing to say.
"For whom, in mountains, upon unfriendly seas,
Has the flow of my tears been such as to sweep me
under?
"I wish you could understand me, but of course it is not the way of the world that we are ever completely understood. I would not care or complain except for the fact that I do so love you."
He took out a koto and tuned it and pushed it towards her; but, perhaps somewhat displeased at his account of the other lady's talents, she refused to touch it. She was a calmly, delightfully gentle lady, and these small outbursts of jealousy were interesting, these occasional shows of anger charming. Yes, he thought, she was someone he could be with always.
...
p326 The old man's face [the Akashi lady's father] was a twisted shell once more [after seeing the gifts Genji sends for his daughter's fiftieth-day celebration], this time, more properly, with joy. Very elaborate preparations had been made for the fiftieth-day ceremonies, but had these envoys not come from Genji they would have been like brocades worn in the night. [Footnote: The Shih Chi informs us that to be rich and powerful and not to display that fact in one's native village is to wear brocades in pitch darkness.]
...The Akashi lady began to think herself important for having had something to do with the little memento he had left behind. The nurse [Genji carefully selected and sent to her after flirting a bit] saw Genji's letter [to the lady]. What extraordinary good fortune the lady did have, she had been thinking, and how unlucky she had been herself; and Genji's inquiries made her feel important too...
[Thanks to a spell of rain, Genji has time to finally visit another of his ladies, the lady of the orange blossoms]
p329 Her soft voice, trailing off into silence, was very pleasing. He sighed, almost wishing it were not the case that each of his ladies had something to recommend her. It made for a most complicated life...
Amazingly, we now jump immediately back to the Rokujo lady, who is ailing and enlists Genji to look after her daughter's interests (without his having thoughts not becoming a parent, she is wise enough to add.) This Genji is trying to do, which leads to palace intrigue involving Genji and Fujitsubo pushing Akikonomu (the Rokyjo lady's daughter) on the new emperor (still a child) while keeping her away from the recently abdicated Suzaku emperor (feeling much better now, thanks for asking) who has been courting her for some time.
The competition to mate the new emperor turns into yet another competition between Genji and his boyhood chum and opponent. Genji carries all before his (as always) but the outcome is left open as to the particulars.
p359 Genji has a strong sense of history and wanted this to be one of the ages when things begin... it was an exciting time.
But he was also obsessed with evanescence. He was determined to withdraw from public affairs when the emperor was a little older. Every precedent told him that men who rise to rank and power beyond their years cannot expect long lives. Now, in this benign reign, perhaps by way of compensation for the years of sorrow and disgrace, Genji had an abundance, indeed a plethora, of rank and honor. Further glory could only bring uncertainty. He wanted to withdraw quietly and make preparations for the next life, and so add to his years in this one. He had purchased a quiet tract off in a mountain village and was putting up a chapel and collecting images and scriptures. But first he must see that no mistake was made in educating his children. So it was that his intentions remained in some doubt.
The End
...but not really. It turns out this abridged edition only included twelve of the first seventeen chapters. Out of fifty-four. So this is really just getting started.
I'm now back to the Introduction, that I couldn't read at the beginning because I didn't know enough. (And I'm copying this stuff for the second time as my Chromebook ran out of memory yesterday and lost everything I copied. The moral being, restart your Chromebook every week or so even if it seems like you don't need to.)
p ix Precise information about Murasaki Shikibu is equally scant. We do not know her personal name, though scholars have delighted in speculating upon it. In Heian Japan it was bad manners to record the names of wellborn ladies, except, curiously, imperial consorts and princesses of the blood. Of the sobriquet by which she is known today, the second half, Shikibu, designates an office held by her father. Murasaki may derive either from the name of an important lady in the Genji itself or from the fact that it means "purple,"... ...her branch of the [Fujiwara] family had by the time of her birth fallen to the second level of court aristocracy. Her father occupied modest positions in the capital and twice served as a provincial governor.
p x Provincial governors are generally treated with contempt in The Tale of Genji. Their layer of the aristocracy did more for the literature of the day than any other... [All this reminds me, again, of Jane Austen, with Murasaki being most familiar with the world of provincial governors while Austen was most familiar with the world of vicars.]
...
She went to court, in the service of the empress Akiko or Shoshi, sometime around the middle of the first decade of the eleventh century...
...
p xi The action of the Genji covers almost three quarters of a century. The first forty-one chapters have to do with the life and loves of the nobleman known as "the shining Genji,"...
...
p xii Murasaki Shikibu had a rich tradition of Chinese historical writing and Chinese and Japanese lyric poetry to draw on. As for prose fiction, she had little more than the beginnings the Japanese themselves had made in the tenth century... ...little in them seems to anticipate the appearance of a romance which is more than a romance, in that it shows believable people in real situations. When romancers of the tenth century attempt characterization, and it is of a rudimentary sort, they write fairy stories; and when they write of such matters as court intrigues, the characterization is so flat that it can hardly be called characterization at all. The diaries of the tenth century may perhaps have been something of an inspiration for Murasaki Shikibu, but the awareness that an imagined predicament can be made more real than a real one required a great leap of the imagination, and Murasaki Shikibu made it by herself...
...it may be difficult to imagine a single genius building so much on so light a foundation; but it is almost impossible to imagine a second genius taking over... The historical fact is that whoever wrote the Genji had no successors, and so the theory of mass genius has very little to support it. Later romances are by comparison rather poor stuff...
...
p xiv We may think of the novel as the form of prose narrative in which the emphasis is upon characterization rather than upon plot -- on believable characters in believable relationships. If this definition is accepted, then the Genji is a very good novel indeed, the best one the Japanese have produced down to modern times. The characterization is remarkably vivid even in the early chapters... Large numbers of characters are kept distinct from one another with remarkable skill.
[That bit about characterization reminds me of my preference for Austen and Martha Grimes primarily on that basis.]
p xv When the Genji is compared with Proust in this regard, and the comparison has long been popular, it seems apt. In other respects the two are far apart, and the Genji reveals its Japanese origins. It is loosely constructed and inconclusive, and it is strongly lyrical, especially in its treatment of nature and the fusion of man and place and season, of foreground and background...
...
p xvii A final word: the reader may be discouraged to learn that the tale gets better as it goes along, and that later chapters are often better than the ones included here...
There's a great deal more about the difficulty of translation, which seems to be a two step process -- first you translate into something a modern Japanese person could understand, then you translate that into English. This makes sense as Murasaki is centuries earlier than Shakespeare, for example.
And now we are done.
The reason I did all this in one post is that I've started reading Reflections on Violence by Georges Sorel and I want to start getting into that soon... it's going to be a bumpy ride.
...
