13 Days

[muckefuck]

That's how long it's been since I've sat at this desk, my brief scheduled appearance last week having been pre-empted by the arrival of the Nasty Cold That Would Not Leave.

I'm now just a hair short of the halfway point in the Tale of Genji. It doesn't surprise me that this is the work I gravitated to during my illness given the superficial resemblances between my lifestyle and that of a Heian lady. As Seidensticker points out in his preface to The gossamer years (his translation of the 蜻蛉日記 Kagerō nikki), although Heian culture is often described as "effeminate", a better characterisation of its leading principle is "inaction". A Heian lady spent most of her time secluded in semi-darkness behind curtains, covered in layers of clothing until she was a "shapeless mass", never walking anywhere except during the occasional pilgrimage to a nearby shrine, and seeing almost no one but the ladies in attendence on her. Is it any wonder that questions of which colour and grade of paper to use for the day's correspondence came to take on an immense importance?

Also, Seidensticker's translation is so smooth and readable and the whole mood of it fits perfectly the dreamlike state of being pumped full of pseudoephedrine for days on end. Some days, however, even opening my eyes seemed too much of a strain and I just sat quietly in the dimness of overcast days and sleepless nights. Thank God for the iPod; some days, it and a call from monshu were the only distraction available.

I'm probably as caught up with LiveJournal as I'm going to get, so if there was some brilliant post of yours that's still begging for an erudite reply from me, then point me to it or forever hold your bitching.

Comments

[niemandsrose.livejournal.com]

I loved Genji when I finally read it. But then I got bogged down in the Uji section at the end and never *really* finished. "Genji's dead? Well that's that then." *puts book down*

(For Heian ladyhood, though, I'd prefer Sei Shonagon.)

[muckefuck.livejournal.com]

I'm worried that will happen to me, too. I can think of other precedents, such Die Blechtrommel, which I think totally runs out of steam when Oskar leaves Danzig for the Rhineland. I tried and tried, but I couldn't make it through the last tenth or so of that book.

Sei Shonagon is definitely on my short list. Michitsuna no Haha is altogether too whiny, even if I do sympathise with her somewhat.

[niemandsrose.livejournal.com]

Have you gotten to the chapter yet where Genji can't get the girl he's trying to get, so he just "makes do" with her brother that night instead??

[muckefuck.livejournal.com]

Way past that now; I just hit his 40th birthday celebration. This is the jaded, post-Suma Genji whose outgrown such youthful hijinks.

[niemandsrose.livejournal.com]

Golly, you have been lying in!

[muckefuck.livejournal.com]

As I say, I'm just short of the halfway point, which occurs later in the same chapter ("New Herbs, Pt. 1"). Where does the Uji section start? Seidensticker talks about it in the introduction, but never actually names the chapters.

[niemandsrose.livejournal.com]

The Uji chapters are 45-54, according to http://www.lizadalby.com/taleofgenjipage.htm.

[muckefuck.livejournal.com]

Ooh, have you read Dalby's novel? It sounds like something worth picking up.

[niemandsrose.livejournal.com]

I've not. I'm irrationally opposed to the concept, but that said, I'd probably like it despite myself. NUL has it: 813.54 D137t.

Also, if you haven't seen her book Kimono: fashioning culture, I bet you'd like looking at the pictures, if only for the pages and pages of Heian color palettes for correct layering of robes for different times of the year.

[muckefuck.livejournal.com]

Ohboyohboyohboy!

Unfortunately, the examples on her website wouldn't display for me.