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Intimist, Clear Description of another Culture The book is as fascinating as the history that surrounds it. Written during the Heian dinasty, it markes a breaktrough in its epoch. The Chinese influence over Japan was overwhelming, especially from a Cultural point of view. So the Heian leaders prohibited all that came from China. Thus, the alphabet changed.
Women were not allowed to be instructed; they just were educated to attend their dwelling and their maa. But Sei, a sort of ancient autodidact, taught herself a new language, and a new way of writing.
Many consider this the first real book in history. But it has its critic. Another women of the time, but tamed for Imperial joyness, Murasaki Shikibu, depicted the book as silly, because it dealt with every day common life.
What it really bring to us is an extraordinary recollection of ideas, commentaries, glossaries and thoughts that women were supposed not to have then.
This intimist, simple novel, permits us to look our daily rutine with other eyes, and makes us aware that everyday, every other second, id unique, and that we must use it as if we we were selected for posteriority.
A Fresh view of an ancient World This book opens a window on a vanished world. Yet, because the lady who wrote the book writes what she believes a private volume we get to see her world warts and all.
In many ways it shows that while society may change, and people are shaped by their culture, what it comes down to in the end is that we are still human beings.
I can't think of a volume from western litrature of this age written by women. This is proof is you ever needed it that Japan truly is a land of ancient cultured people. Thankfully one that has preserved at least some of what they knew.
Don't know english to gwell A very interesting book very ing depth. I thurully enjoy it. English 3 months studying now. It good practice to lerns and complicate it. I go to sleep on pillow now ha ha.. I love this country!
Something that needed translating, but... One of the other musts of classical Japanese, or indeed world literature, the Pillow Book contains the views and thoughts about a time very distant, but is still "news that stays news". Written like a "thought diary", the Pillow Book is a journal of personal experiences and feelings, from something that happened the other day when a nun came to visit, to the author's favorite type of flowers... and her least favorite flowers. The only drawback is the translation. It takes on a haughty tone at times, which is absent in the original. The writting is clear, and easy to warm up to, but perhaps a little too much was read into the character of the author in this renedition. If this is kept in mind, however, it is more than worth the read.
The Fictionalized Reality of Ancient Japan I have just completed a reading of Ivan Morris' translation of the Sei Shonagon Pillow Book and I cannot reccoment it enough. What is striking about the literature of Heian era Japan is not only that the great majority of it was produced by brilliant women, but that the parallels between the ancient human condition and that of the modern are amazing. Reading about the joys and annoyances in the life the brilliant and quick witted Sei Shonagon are comfortingly familiar. In comparison to other literature of the time it is also an extremely candid look at a fascinating civilization. What sets Shonagon apart from her contermporaries is her ability to express uncensored opinions that are both hillarious, beautiful, and heartbreaking. She does not show the aversion to boldness that some of her (though equally brilliant) sisters of the ancient courts demonstrate. All the writing of this era is fascinating and becoming unfortunately harder to find (eg - the out of print status of the beautiful Izumi Shikibu Diary - Nikki) If anything, purchase this book to keep the brilliant voices of women past alive in our hearts, minds and presses today!
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