Post by washi on Apr 10, 2015 6:30:03 GMT
2008 marks the 1000th anniversary of the completion of Genji Monogatari, The Tale of Genji, widely acclaimed as the most important piece of literature of the culturally brilliant Heian Period, and by some, all of Japanese letters. Many regard it as the world’s first novel.
Few details are known about Lady Murasaki’s life. She was born about 973, a member of the powerful northern Fujiwara clan, but the daughter of a comparatively minor court official, the Minister of the Bureau Civil Services or the Shikibu Shō. Her mother died when she was a child, and contrary to the customs of the times, she was raised by her father, who also broke tradition and allowed her to participate in the education of her brother in Chinese language, writing, and literature. She married at a late age for a Heian noble, in her early twenties, and had one child, who would become herself a poet of some reputation.
She began writing the Genji Monogatari in 1001, about one year after Fujiwara Michinaga, the most powerful noble in the court and by far the most powerful of all the long line of Fujiwara regents, had succeeded in having his daughter Shōshi named as empress, the first time in Japanese history when two imperial consorts where given equal top-rank status. Perhaps because of the high regard in which the early chapters of Genji were held (the chapters circulated as they were written, long before the book was completed) and perhaps because she was a member of Michinaga‘s clan (high-ranking Heian nobles made considerable effort to secure appointments of their own clan to court positions at all levels), she was given a position as a lady in waiting to Michinaga‘s empress daughter.
Names were seldom used in Heian society. None of the characters in her novel are given names, and the names we know them by today were provided by modern translators, including modern Japanese translations, in order to make the highly complex narrative more comprehensible. (Reading Heian period Japanese is certainly more difficult for modern Japanese than reading Chaucer is for the modern speaker of English, and many Japanese read it in the Arthur Waley English translation, until Japanese translations became available.) The ‘Shikibu‘ we know her by today was, of course, the position her father held at court. ‘Murasaki‘ (Purple, although ‘Violet’ may fall more comfortably on the English ear) was the word used to identify perhaps the most endearing of all the numerous subtly draw female characters in the novel, and was used as a kind of nickname for her at court.
As indicated above, her work on the novel is thought to have been completed in 1008. She also produced a diary and a collection of 128 poems, both of which are considered classics. She may have died as early as 1014, although her death is commonly listed as sometime between 1025 and 1031.
Ono no Takamura (802 - 853) was a court official, scholar, and poet. He was descended from Ono no Imoko, the early 7th century emissary who led Japan’s first diplomatic mission to China. Takamura had among his close descendants Ono no Michikaze, who first developed the Japanese style of calligraphy and who is still considered one of Japan‘s three greatest masters of that art, and Ono no Komachi, a major poet, and whose very name is even today considered a synonym for feminine beauty. Takamura was a man of considerable reputation, but is best remembered as the subject of a short work of fiction, the Takemura Monogatari , and also as the focus of many fantastic legends centered on his supposed relationship with the King of Hell.
Are these graves authentic? I‘ve read that there are reasons to support the assumption that they are, but I‘ve been unable to locate any informed speculation in English on either side of the issue. If anyone who sees this post knows about these matters, I would be grateful for help in answering this question:
- If these two graves are genuine, how does one account for the fact that members of two separate clans -- Heian Period nobles were customarily interred with members of their own clans at separate places -- and whose lives did not overlap, are buried side by side in what even by Murasaki‘s time must still have been a remote area?
Authentic or not, despite the numerous statues and memorials scattered all over Japan, as far as I can determine, this is the only place that lays claim to being Lady Murasaki‘s final resting place. In this millennial year, any visitor to Kyoto who has ever struggled through the lengthy text will probably want to stop by, burn a stick of incense, and perhaps say a little prayer of thanks and for the repose of her soul.
Reply to Noisette, May 16, 2008, who commented "It never occurred to me to wonder what the world's first novel was....":
My late wife, (who, like many well-educated Japanese), was well versed in Japanese culture. She told me with great pride, shortly after we first met, that the world's first novel was written by a Japanese person. I've thought about it for many years, and it was that statement that compelled me to slog my way through it. Much as I hate to disagree with someone who was probably smarter than I, and no longer able to argue, I think she was wrong.
Rob, Molly, and Pam make fascinating reading, but except for some death-bed conversions meant to placate the priggish readers who no doubt enjoyed their selfishness, concupiscence, or extreme virtue in the face of other people's delicious wickedness, nobody in those books learned anything that would make them a better or even a different person. If you think that Robinson Crusoe , Moll Flanders , or Pamela are novels, then you might well agree with my late wife, but if you think, as I do, that the exploration of how experience shapes character is at the heart of the form, then perhaps you'll be inclined to agree with me. For me, Tom Jones is still the first book to cross that line.
Murasaki's book is a little like the pre-Fieldiing books of English fiction, in that all of the characters remain static throughout the narrative. Genji, the Shining Prince, dies about a third of the way through the story. I was surprised, but not too sorry to see him go. I found his endless perfection boring, and I became impatient with his incapacity to exercise even a modicum of control over his sexual appetites, at least until I realized that he was the creation of a woman, and if she thought that this was correct behavior for the perfect gentleman, why should I care. (Someone might make a case that Genji is the world's first "bodice ripper".)
Still, I find the book has considerable merit. The latter part of the story is concerned with the rivalry of two of Genji's descendants, who's diametrically opposed personalities create psychological and philosophical dimensions that make for gripping reading, causing me to reflect that "half a Genji is better than one." Perhaps it's asking too much that characters grow and develop in a world which, so far as I can see, never gave too much thought to the idea that people can grow and become something other than they once were. At any rate, the brilliance of the work is undeniable. Just maintaining consistency in the over 400 characters over what in English amounts to about 1100 pages, in a work released serially, is a real tour de force. And the work must be the clearest window into the small but bright world of the Heian nobility.
As for the locations of the graves, a friend suggested that the two might have been related, that her mother or her husband, for example, might have been of the Ono clan. That's just a plausible guess, of course, but probably a better one than that a small woods north of town was some kind of Poet's Corner. I'll let you know if a better idea comes along.
Reply to myself, July 8, 2008:
I spent an interesting day in Kyoto today, gathering additional information for a post that seems like it will never get done, trying to resolve the accuracy in two apparently accurate but conflicting maps, and clarifying the conditions under which I would be permitted to use published images in the upcoming post. My second appointment was what is called in English "The Kyoto City Archeological Research Institute". The director of the institute, along with an expert in creating maps of historical archeological data, were kind enough to give me two hours of their valuable time, and they told me some fascinating things about the techniques they use in historical mapping. (It's a good deal more sophisticated than Google Earth, and I expect to include a bit about it in the yet to be completed post.) The book in question was 紫式部生きた京都 (つちの中から) :::: Murasaki Shikibu Ikita Kyōto (Tsuchi no Naka Kara), which in English might be something like The Kyoto That Murasaki Shikibu Lived In (From Under the Earth). They were very patient with my inadequate Japanese, as they helped me understand how to resolve my conflicting map problem. It was past 6 o'clock when I was ready to leave, and, almost as an afterthought, I asked them about the authenticity of the graves. With no pause, they both answered that they were spurious, without a doubt.
On the train home, I wished I had asked them a little bit of why they were so sure, but when it's late, and the people may the world's foremost experts, it requires a little more chutzpah than I was able to muster. (A little bit like asking "But how do you know, Mr. President, that they have weapons of mass destruction?", I suppose.)
So I'm convinced that the graves are not authentic, and I'll probably delete the post, but maybe not for a while yet. After all, Lady Murasaki deserves some kind of focal point for the thousandth anniversary of her achievement, and the post contains a somewhat interesting linking technique, and I want to explore a bit longer just how troublesome it is to maintain.
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First posted May 9, 2008. Last revised March 12, 2023.
