The Pillow Book of Sei Shonagon

[pegkerr]

I asked kijjohnson what I should read for a good introduction to Heian Japan (she's the go-to girl for answering questions like these) and she answered The Pillow Book of Sei Shonagon. AND sent me a copy (it's thoughtfulness like this that makes me love her so). How did I get through forty-five years without reading The Pillow Book of Sei Shonagon? I am immediately seized by a compulsion to make lists:

Hateful Things
Badly trained dogs which jump up at one when one comes for a visit. How inconsiderate their owners are, who have inflicted such ill-trained rudeness on a guest!
Very hateful is a mouse that scurries all over the place [on this one agrees with Sei Shonagon]
Bats flying around one's room at night when when is trying to sleep--how hateful!
Discarded cigarette butts in dirty snowbanks
Persons who leave wet towels on the floor
Persons who cough continually during a music concert, who do not leave or attempt to stop themselves by sucking on a cough drop, very inconsiderate

Adorable Things
Young children sleeping
Pansies
A boy tossing sticks for a dog to fetch
A baby eating a first birthday cake, smearing frosting on its face

Things That Give A Clean Feeling
Lavender
Bars of new soap, wrapped in paper
New shelf paper
Pine needles
Cedar balls tucked into a drawer

Edited to add: Kij, take note: Here's The Pillow Book written in blogspeak! Thanks, whumpdotcom for the link!

Comments

[wintersweet.livejournal.com]

I think it has that effect on most people. *G*
If you decide to tackle _Tale of Genji_ at some point, see if you can find/check out _Bridge of Dreams_ and _World of the Shining Prince_ to go with it. Either Seidensticker or Tyler should do for a translation of _Genji_.

I love the Heian period.

[kijjohnson.livejournal.com]

Yeah, Bridge of Dreams and WotSP are both fabulous. I like the Tyler Genji better, but Seidensticker is the one I read first.

[wintersweet.livejournal.com]

Me too.

Well, actually, no, Waley's the one I read first, on my own, but Seidensticker was the first one I did in a class, so the feels like the first time I really *read* it.

[whumpdotcom.livejournal.com]

Simon Cozens started a translation of the Pillow Book where Shonagon wrote the voice of a Live Journal user, unfortunately he's not kept it up, and the comments are full of spam.

Simon's a world-class Perl geek and Japanese speaker, but he's put it on the back burner to go be a missionary in Japan.

[callunav.livejournal.com]

Can I add this entry to the list of adorable things? Please?

[pegkerr.livejournal.com]

*chuckles* One would be charmed.

[jonquil.livejournal.com]

You also want Ivan Morris's "The World Of The Shining Prince", which is a guide to Heian Japan written so that people could better understand The Tale of Genji. Fabulous, fabulous book, and you'll recognize some quirks that Lois McMaster Bujold reused for the Cetagandans.

[tenebris.livejournal.com]

I read The Pillow Book two years (or so) ago in a class, and loved it a lot. I made a ton of lists then, too, because they're awesome. (There's a Pillow Book LJ community on LJ, too, BTW.) In fact, everytime I want to make a list like that, I think of it as Sei in my head, brush ppised and ready to go.

Reading about her in comparison to, say, Murasaki, is a HOOT. I believe they have some of Murasaki's (Shikibu, author of Genji) diary translated, and you should also check that out. Actually, let me just go ahead and put in a plug for Donald Keene's anthology of Japanese lit, first volume (the early Japanese stuff). It's got a ton of great poetry, excerpts from Heian diaries, and "Essays in Idleness," which I think you would appreciate a lot. I'd bet you could find it at your local library; it's used fairly regularly as a primer text.

[jonquil.livejournal.com]

Penguin has Murasaki's diary in English. They didn't like each other much; Murasaki says something like "she [Shonagon] died in obscurity; what can one expect of such a character?"

Even in translation, Shonagon has so much voice; she leaps off the page, vivid and alive, like Boswell's Johnson.

[birds-sing.livejournal.com]

I need to find my copy of that and read it again. It's never quite the same when you're reading it for a paper, you know?