Putting this back on my TBR. I started reading it and then realized I had accidentally picked up the abridged version at the library - I thought it looked small! I just think if I'm going to read it I might as well go the whole way.

تجربة جديدة

الكتاب مليء بالتفاصيل لدرجة ان كل فصل مكتوب في اوله الشخصيات اللي فيه و العائلات حيث ان الاسماء شبه بعض لدرجة انت بتفتكر جينجي بس والباقي كله تفاصيل

بس بما انها اول رواية في التاريخ وكده فمحتاج ابص علي الجزء التاني

بس مرهقة جدا خصوصا لو بتقراها ع فترات

عطية
الدوحة
فبراير 2019

Steven Moore reviews the latest Genji=translation, this one by Washburn ::

"‘The Tale of Genji’: The work of a brilliant widow 1,000 years ago" (19 August 2015)
https://www.washingtonpost.com/entert...

"It is questionable, however, whether a new English translation is needed. It was only 14 years ago that Royall Tyler published his superb translation, more faithful to the original than Edward Seidensticker’s of 1976 , which was considerably more faithful than Arthur Waley’s published 50 years earlier. This new version by Dennis Washburn, a professor at Dartmouth, falls somewhere between Seidensticker’s reader-friendly translation and Tyler’s more stringently literal one, resulting in a fluid, elegant rendition."

Rendition comparison ::
'All of this is rendered in a style rich in idioms and poetic allusions, which have always been the greatest challenge to Murasaki’s translators. Some ignore them, some work them into the text, others explain them in a footnote. For example, in Chapter 7 the teenage Genji is caught in a comically compromising situation: He arrives for a tryst with a woman in her late 50s on the same night as one of his friends and rivals. In Tyler’s version, Genji reprimands his lover by saying, “I am sure the spider’s behavior was perfectly clear,” alluding to a proverbial poem about a spider foretelling a lover’s visit. Waley simply ignored the allusion, while Seidensticker expands on the original: “This is a fine thing. I’m going. The spider surely told you to expect him, and you didn’t tell me,” and then he appends a footnote explaining the reference. Washburn renders Genji’s brief, allusive line thus: “I saw a spider spinning away when I got here, but I never believed that spiders could foretell a lover’s visit — until now!” Genji’s snippy taunt is lost as these translators pad it out to make sense of it; what we gain in comprehension we lose in style.'

A masterpiece!

Long ago I read selections of this monumental work, and I remember liking it, but I was daunted by the sheer bulk of the complete work. I should have read it sooner because it well deserves its high reputation. Of course the most amazing thing is that it was written a thousand years ago, hundreds of years before Dante and Chaucer. This is of the same vintage as Beowulf, which is a fine story, but nothing to compare with Genji. It was the era of the Battle of Hastings, a time of European history when the Dark Ages were dark. Rich people lived better than the poor in Europe, but there was nothing to compare with the culture and refinement of the Japanese imperial court that is portrayed in this book.

Genji is an interesting character. In most ways he is the ideal man - rich, handsome, the son of the emperor, smart, cultured, talented and having impeccable taste. But he is flawed too. He knows that he is nearly irresistable to women, and though he is generally kind to his lovers, he can't help himself in pursuing one woman after another, and no matter how hard he might try to be kind to them, with multiple wives and many more dalliances, there just isn't enough time in the universe for him to be devoted to all of them. He's not always the best friend to his male companions, and though he dotes on his lady Murasaki, his relationship with her is not always the best. I couldn't help feeling that he was a bit cruel in denying her most fervant wish to take religious vows and abandon worldly things. Sometimes he seems to force himself on his women and to become obsessed with women who are inappropriately young. The complexity of Genji's character creates dramatic tension and makes for a much better story than we would have had if he had been purely good.

Murasaki is his female counterpart and perfect karmic mate because, though she lacks his fine ancestry, she is his equal in every way in beauty, culture and taste. Sometimes she seemed a little whiney to me, but as is the case with Genji, her imperfection makes her more interesting and helps to build the story. Perhaps the two of them are literary embodiments of the Japanese concept of wabi sabi where perfect beauty is achieved through imperfection.

One thing that I found striking about the story is how it is entirely intimate and personal. Genji at some points in his life holds high government office, and there is constant discussion of ranks, but we see nothing of the process of governing. There are no wars or military training. There is an archery contest that is mentioned in passing with less description than we get of the dancing and poetry contests, but other than that no athletic contests or training of any kind. It's very much a woman's eye view of this fascinating world of culture and beauty.

In the last part of the book, after Genji dies, I began to lose interest in the story but then as the story of Ukifumi and Kaoru comes together I began to enjoy it for its own qualities. If it had been presented as a separate book, I think I wouldn't have approached it by comparing all of the characters to Genji who so clearly surpasses all of them, and so I would have liked it even more.

So much has been said about Genji Monogatari: some say it is the world's first novel; others, the greatest novel ever written; others again an incomparable source of information on Heian Japan. For some it is a satire, for others a great love story. All these are probably true, but it depends on your point of view, culture and even your sex as to how true.

My reading showed me that it is one of the greatest of autobiographies. For me, Murasaki, whose own name we do not even know, is the true hero of the story. Genji himself is a cypher: yet for sure Murasaki loved him, or someone like him. In her book Murasaki stands revealed; it is one of the great acts of intimacy in world literature. She is tangible, present in every adjective, real, alive. She was a strong living personality, a passionate nature, possessing great sensitivity to nature (so much more than the conventional Heian pose) and one who loved deeply and was not able to express her love. Of Murasaki, the scholars tell us, we know nothing. But her book tells us as much as one person can tell another, and with such power that we can never forget her.

This is a book from a distant era. Its survival, composition, culture and conventions, even its authorship, have inspired scholarly debate. There is even a 'Murasaki question' to parallel the 'Homeric question', concerning who wrote the book. Homer is in fact a useful analogue, but we don't need to know any of this. Murasaki tells us all we need to know. Over 1,000 pages, 400 characters and many, many tankas, yet we never lose the way. I like to think that Murasaki never finished her book, and that somewhere she is still writing some later chapters, that someone who loved so deeply in 11th century Japan could be granted some special dispensation by those in charge.

A Majestic Work

For some unknown reason I never opened this book until I was prodded by a book club choice. I have always been interested in Japanese culture since my 20s, but knew very little about the Heian Era in the year 1000. The book is a marvelous collection of court tales, aesthetic descriptions of nature, and beautifully crafted “waka” used to convey conversations. It is long but well worth investing the time in reading. The vast footnotes that are hyperlinked to the text are very informative.

Finally finished all 1182 pages! Always remember that the world's first novel was written by a woman, and that the theme of the novel is basically that men are terrible. Now, if you read older English translations or older criticism of Genji you may not get that idea, because older criticism (at least in English, I don't know what Japanese critics thought/think) never includes the words "rape" or "sexual assault" and of course most of the older criticism is by men anyway. But even accounting for the very different time period the novel was written in and depicts I don't know how one can read it and not have the takeaway that the men are all selfish, awful hypocrites who only succeed in making all the women's lives miserable, no matter how cultured or handsome the men they are. I wonder (and I have read criticism by women who bring this up) if the author's intent was to depict the plight of women and it was both misread by men (I mean there are men out there who see Humbert Humbert as sympathetic soooo) and taken as a romance by women the same way women today will crush on fictional villains. Reading Genji yet again makes me think about what gets lost in translation, both culturally and from the prejudices/opinions of the translator (for another example of this see the entire Bible). Also I've read fair bit about Heian Japan so I know the context, but even knowing that it's still hard to fully understand what's rape/assault vs what's women wanting to have sex but culturally not being allowed to "give in" too easily, or wanting to have affairs but then regretting them because of the social costs. But there are a few lower class women in the text depicted as fully and happily engaging in sexual affairs with men. But are they only allowed that because they're of a lower social class? I'm not sure.
I highly recommend reading Ivan Morris's World of the Shining Prince if you want to read Genji but don't know much about Heian Japan, just again remember that he's writing from a specific viewpoint and isn't always the most thoughtful toward women (something that the introduction to the book, by one of his former female students, points out). But it's still a brilliant, super readable book, and one of my favorite nonfiction books.

Thoughts before reading:

This book is 72 hours of raw audio, 36 hrs when you listen at double speed. I have set the very ambitious goal of reading this in one month. Although, I don't want to get overwhelmed, so I think I'm going to split it into four parts, read each part over the course of a few days, then take about a week break to read other stuff in between each part.

I am really hoping to like this book, and hopefully this structure will help me do that without getting overwhelmed.

Read:
Well my plan took twice as long as I'd have liked and my plan fell through about 1/3 of the way through bc I started getting bored. I'll save the full review for my channel, but in short:
The first 1/3 was really interesting, but it started to feel repetitive and drawn out. It was still a super fascinating look at the society and culture of the time which was ultimately what pushed me not to give up on it. I'm glad I didn't stop even if my enjoyment waned significantly.
3/5, but only out of the appreciation of the content more than raw enjoyment.

5 stars for Arthur Waley's engaging translation.
It is, imho, the best translation for those who have never read The Tale of Genji before.
I'd read the Waley translation before but prefer how it is now split into six parts, a division absent of course in the original manuscript.
What a magnificent story!

El primer volumen es largo, pesadísimo por el formato de tapa dura escogido por Atalanta, pródigo en infinitas notas, difícil de leer, imposible a la hora de establecer los parentescos (sobre todo porque casi nunca aparecen sus nombres) y sí aparecen diversos tratamientos que van evolucionando (Su excelencia, Su gracia, Su alteza…), la historia tiene siglos de antigüedad y no lo puede ocultar; además nos pilla muy lejos de nuestra cultura occidental; a pesar de todo esto, considero imprescindible leer una vez en la vida esta obra, patrimonio de la cultura japonesa, todo un deleite para los sentidos escrito de una forma inteligente, sutil, cargado de referencias a su cultura. Una verdadera hazaña.

(DNFed on page 597, 51% of the way through the book.)

A lot of people have been waiting for this day for a long time. I've been reading this book for over a year and have gotten so hopelessly stuck I think I have to admit it: I'm not finishing Genji this time around.

That's not to say you shouldn't read it, though. Genji is a beautiful, sprawling, almost voyeuristically believable story of a flawed dude and his travails through womanizing, and as much as the prose can be difficult to decode, the events of the novel are gripping and memorable as they flow from point to point. If you're interested in Japanese art and literature on any level, it's a must-read, and I'd argue if you're someone who goes for history of literature on a broader scale it's a must-read for that as well, as what is commonly considered the world's oldest novel (~1000 CE).

Part of the reason for the impenetrability of the text is that it's in translation, from archaic Japanese at that. Another part is the fact that it's a historical fiction novel (how wonderful for the world's first novel to be historical fiction!) and from the perspective of a court lady regaling her mistress. This means that names are (as was tradition) nearly entirely elided in favor of epithets such as "the lady of the wisteria" and "the lady from Akashi." In that sense, my difficulty with the book is in fact a measure of its effectiveness, and I do wish I was able to just Get Gud enough to swim through everything here.

The poetry deserves a shoutout at this point because I did understand that, and primarily due to the fantastic translations and notes in my edition. I'm not a poetry person, but it was very accessible here, and simultaneously evocative of not only imagery but sense itself: scent, touch, sound...

And the way poetry is used, as communication and romance, is lovely. You can judge not only a character's skill but their personality from their poetry, and in a setting where everyone is hidden from each other by screens (the slightest GLIMPSE is erotic!), each whisper seems to take on additional hidden meaning. I have to admit I haven't seen anything use distance, subtlety, ambiguity quite like this, and I'd like to see more in my casual simple-prose reading.

It's easy to (as I did above) therefore kind of see this book as One Big Romance, which in a way it is, but of course it is also so much more-- it's not just about Genji's perspective, and not just about his flings, and not just about him in general. Not least of the evidence towards this is the complexity of morality in the novel; I know I'm being a bit backwards but there's almost something of Lolita in Genji's kidnap and romance of the child Murasaki. Then, too, the details of Murasaki's age made me reflect on all sorts of things-- the often arbitrary age of consent, the way (and when) children of the past became adults, the power of the family arrangement to manipulate young women... The complexity of morality in this book (Genji's actions of this sort are often waved off as just him being himself, which sheds a light on how women of the time may have viewed these unique sorts of misfortunes) allows for so much thinking and discussion.

It would be tempting, with another book, to go-- well does Genji ever experience CONSEQUENCES for these things? Do the women fight back? Does a modern-day feminist ever pop up to remind us these things are wrong? And the funny thing is, Genji suffers all the time-- he just chalks it up to past lives, as is fair enough based on the spiritual beliefs prevalent in Japan at the time (and to some extent now). These consequences are also, if they come for his behavior, generally implied to be for folly and not cruelty.

At the same time, in a very real sense Genji is only a prism for the motivations, dreams, and agencies of his lovers to be made visible: in that sense, The Tale of Genji is really a tale of every woman Genji has ever been with, and sometimes those women's relationships with each other.

Echoed throughout the reviews here is the phrase "challenging and beautiful," which I find exactly right for something this long, subtle, and lusciously elegant. It's a rewarding book, and one I dearly hope more attuned people than I will continue to finish; I even hope I can finish it someday!

So why am I DNFing? A simple lack of additional materials. While the foreword in this book is excellent, what I really needed was a chapter-by-chapter summary to help me understand the individual events of the novel and their significance. That existed up to a point, but where most abridgements end they dropped off, and I could no longer find even blog posts recounting their individual-chapter experiences. EDIT: Of course as I write this sentence I uncover one. Augh! Well, I'll return to it when I can. I'll let myself rest for now.