Sei Shōnagon (966–1025)

Written by Sei Shōnagan (966-1017), a lady of the Japanese court of Empress Fujiwara Teiji (Sadako), this is a journal which covers court life and her personal musings from about 991-1000. Shōnagan writes cleverly and with beautiful descriptions. She loves a good list (lists of Very Tiresome Things, lists of Things That Make One Happy), and is said to be history’s first blog writer. She is sharp-witted, observant, and somewhat capricious and cantankerous. She loves beautiful things, a show more good gossip, an illicit late-night meeting with a lover-provided he leaves quickly enough and not too quickly, with the appropriate amount of poetry exchanged first. She’s not fond of the lower classes, boring people and has many other irritations and personal peeves. This book would have been a lovely insight into court life in medieval Japan if I had not made the mistake of reading the translation by the pompous, over intrusive Arthur Waley. Many of the beautiful quotes I have read in other reviews are absent as he rather arrogantly decided to exclude anything he considered “dull, unintelligible, repetitive.” He even has the nerve to interrupt her writing, with something pretty much equivalent to “blah, blah” and go back to his own commentary. I just wanted him to get out of the way with his patriarchal, colonialistic crap (he describes the “intellectual passivity” of the Japanese and berates an “absence of mathematics, science, philosophy”) and let me read Sei Shōnagan. I would like to read another translation to enjoy more of her quirky lists and musings. show less

An unexpectedly lovely book. Full of details about life at the Japanese imperial court more than a thousand years ago, beautiful imagery, court gossip, anecdotes, poetry. Sei Shōnagon must have had an amazing visual memory - the descriptions of clothes are wonderfully detailed.
At times the author comes across as an obnoxious snob. A few pages later, there is a paragraph that is personal and poignant.
My favourite part of the book: the lists! Did I mentions the lists? "Things that make the show more heart beat faster". "Things that give a comfortable feeling." Etc... Give me more, please. show less

It's a scrapbook of observations and lists kept near the writer's pillow, not a book of erotica. Sei Shonagon was a lady in waiting at the Heian court of Imperial Japan (not a courtesan, as some editions say - I'm outraged by this and think she would be too.) She's a snob, can't stand poor people, old people, incorrectly dressed people, and is vain about her ability to quote classical poetry and make witty retorts. None of that made me dislike her at all - she's like the bitchy friend you show more sit in the corner with to make snide remarks at all the other partygoers - and it's all the more astonishing that she wrote this around the year 990 - 1000. She's a great writer. Her descriptions of weather, court ceremonies, court attire, etc., are beautiful. The descriptions of clothes and the flowers or seasons they evoke, especially, fascinated me. The details of the clothes are like Story of O without the spankings.

With a lot of footnotes and several appendices about Heian court life, which add a lot. show less

A compilation of observations, anecdotes, sentiments, scenarios and lists authored by a lady-in-waiting to Empress Teishi in late 10th century Japan. This book is a window into the values, leisure pursuits and love lives of Heian society, and should be of interest to both historians and the literary minded. The author herself, though arrogant, elitist and often a bully, reveals in her writing a refinement of wit, good taste, and charisma that maintains its appeal over the centuries and show more translation into English. In her reminiscences she never misses an opportunity showcase her erudition or favour with the Empress, but this, and her feigned humility, are in themselves entertaining for the modern reader. The book is also notable for what we don’t read about, such as political intriguing in the palace or the famines and epidemics affecting the Japanese populace at the time.

In producing this translation, Ivan Morris’s starting position is that the subtly of classical Japanese, with its poetic inferences and double meanings, cannot be directly replicated in English. His approach is one of free translation, with the intention of conveying the meaning of the text as it would have been understood by its audience at the time and does not attempt to literally reproduce each word or maintain sentence structure – which would often render passages incomprehensible, awkward or “falsely exotic”. Supporting this approach, are Morris’s endnotes which supply abundant contextual information including identification of historical persons, explanations of court protocol, decoding of poetry, and alternative translations of difficult passages. In fact, these notes are so valuable for full enjoyment of the text that it would have been preferable to have them as footnotes or on alternating pages side by side with the text, to facilitate parallel reading and obviate flicking back and forth between two sections of the book. His translation of the Sarashina Nikki is similarly annotated.

Overall, I have enjoyed this text enough to re-read and will at some point seek out the unabridged two volume edition published by the Oxford and Columbia university presses. I would also be interested to compare McKinney’s more recent (and reportedly more literal) translation. show less