Of Swords and Parasols

This is the best known of of the four Heian lady diaries, and the second one that I've read. The other was Murasaki's. Murasaki and Shonagon appear to have hated each other. While Murasaki's diary was fairly focused on details and specific historical events and descriptions-I think someone mentioned that some believe Murasaki was asked to write it to catalogue the richness of the court-Shonagon is all about the gossip or the scandal. If it wasn't something scandalous or something she couldn't be catty about, it wasn't worth her time.

Basically, she's like a fandom BNF who let it get to her head and has opinions about exactly what her fandom's creators should have in her fandom, and so is fabulously entertaining. Some quotes:

A priest who gives a sermon should be handsome. After all, you're most aware of the profundity of his teaching if you're gazing at his face as he speaks. If your eyes drift elsewhere you tend to forget what you've just heard, so an unattractive face has the effect of making you feel quite sinful. But I'll write no further on this subject....I must say, however, from my own sinful point of view, it seems quite uncalled for-for to go around as some do, vaunting their religious piety and rushing to be the first to be seated wherever a sermon is being preached.

(Best justification for eyecandy ever?)

Unsuitable things-...An ageing woman who is pregnant. It's disgusting when she has a young husband, and even worse when she's in a temper over his going off to another woman.

...

It's disgusting when a well-bred young man casually calls out the name of some low-ranking woman he's visiting, in a way that reveals his intimacy with her. It's much more impressive if he pretends not to have it quite right, even though in fact he knows her name perfectly well.

...

I do wish men, when they're taking their leave from a lady at dawn, wouldn't insist on adjusting their clothes to a nicety, or fussily tying their lacquered cap securely into place. After all, who would laugh at a man or criticize him if they happened to catch sight of him on his way home from an assignation in fearful disarray, with his cloak or hunting costume all awry?

(Such opinions one how to properly conduct affairs.)

It's also painfully embarassing to stand by and hear someone proudly reciting to others a poem of theirs that isn't really much good, or bragging about the praise they've received for it.

...

Things that give you pleasure-When a poem you've composed for some event, or in an exchange of poems, is talked of by everyone and noted down when they hear it. This hasn't happened to me personally, but I can imagine how it would feel.

(poetry=fanfic?)

Anyway, the whole book is that that, and then some. And way cattier than those quotes more often than not.