More Research

So C. is starting up his _Mage_ campaign again, and by way of research I've dug out all the vaguely Japanese-related literature I've got and have also checked out Murasaki Shikibu's _The Tale of Genji_ from the university library. I found it pretty heavy slogging the last time I took a run at it - for someone who has to see someone a good half-dozen times before I remember their name (unless they do or say something particularly awe- or outrage-inspiring), a thousand-page novel with several dozen characters, each with four or five poetic sobriquets or official titles on top of their regular name - well, you can certainly understand my confusion. Fortunately, the library also had a study guide available - sort of like a more erudite version of _Coles' Notes_.

[Honestly, I'd really like to see the people at Coles take a run at summarizing the _Tale of Genji_. Although given how fragging lazy the average student is, it'd still probably be too long for some people. It leads to the interesting question of just how much you can dumb something down before it becomes a reductio ad absurdum: "The _Tale of Genji_ is about a Japanese guy named Genji who writes a lot of poetry and has sex with a lot of women. He dies about halfway through the book though, so the title really isn't all that accurate."]

Anyway, I ploughed through most of the study guide last night, and so far the thing that's got me the most intrigued is the fact that the entire story takes place before what most Westerners consider classical Japanese culture, what with the katanas and the Zen buddhism and the samurai bushido ethic and so forth. Honestly, imperial court life in Heian Japan sounds, on first reading, a lot like the French aristocracy centred around Versailles in the 16th and 17th centuries. The courtiers at Heian-Kyo, much like those at Versailles, spent most of their time and energy trying to outdo each other in sartorial splendour, gossiping, seducing people related to or favoured by the Emperor, and various other games of one-upmanship.

I've got the oldest English translation of the text, done by Arthur Waley between 1921 and 1933. Apparently it's less of a direct translation and more of a paraphrase, although having had a look at the first couple of chapters it's certainly very accessible. Two later translations, one from 1976 and one from 2002 are supposed to be more accurate, so perhaps I'll check out one or both of them just to see how pronounced the differences are.

It's interesting comparing _Genji_ with _Hagakure: The Book of the Samurai_ by Yamamoto Tsunetomo, which admittedly is more of a primer for young samurai than a novel. Still, the difference in tone within the space of just a few centuries is striking, especially when Tsunetomo spends a fair bit of time in _Hagakure_ complaining about how decadent samurai have become since the rise of the Tokugawa shogunate and the end of a long period of civil war. I can only imagine what Tsunetomo might have thought of the poetry-writing, wisteria-viewing, romance-addicted aristocracy of the Heian court.

18/1/07 - Added a link to an online copy of _Genji_, if anyone's interested. (It's linked on the post title, because apparently with the latest system upgrade Blogger no longer automatically makes links a different colour.)