Of Swords and Parasols

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 can only really be considered a diary in that it’s personal writings in the context of not being written for any apparent particular purpose, though many have little or nothing to do with Murasaki’s life directly, focusing instead on the life and events of the court of young Empress Shoshi) are rather mixed in terms of style. Many of the earlier entries seem to be primarily interested in preserving her version of her events and surroundings for future readers, with later entries focusing on her personal experiences at court, until the entries eventually read more like conversations**. Many of these are made especially pertinent in the context of Bowring’s discussion regarding how women weren’t supposed to write, and so effectively created their own way of writing.

Both parts are incredibly easy to read and informative, and it’s a very interesting, if somewhat brief, read.

*Which I have not read, but shall.
**Including a couple of rather catty comments regarding Sei Shonagan, which reminded me of how Charlotte Bronte was supposedly at least partly inspired by not liking Jane Austen and thinking her books were too passion-less. (I’m not sure how much credence I give that, as everyone always seems determined to pit the two against each other for reasons I do not understand at all, and most references along those lines seem to come up when trying to prove the superiority of one’s preferred author.)