Murasaki Shikibu: The Tale of Genji (Landmarks of World Literature) [Paperback]

Richard Bowring (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0521336368 | ISBN-13: 978-0521336369 | Publication Date: April 29, 1988

Often thought of as the world's first novel, and certainly the first major work of world literature to be written by a woman, "The Tale of Genji" was written by a court lady writing in the early 11th century. This work outlines the background to her work and analyzes the text.

Editorial Reviews

Review

'... an erudite commentary encouraging the reader to investigate one of the most important Japanese texts by exploring a plethora of ideas in a guided but open manner.' Forum for Modern Language Studies --This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.

Book Description

Murasaki Shikibu's The Tale of Genji, written in Japan in the early eleventh century, is acknowledged to be one of Japan's greatest literary achievements, and sometimes thought of as the world's first novel. This introduction to the Genji sketches the cultural background, offers detailed analysis of the text, discusses matters of language and style and ends by tracing the history of its reception through nine centuries of cultural change. This book will be useful for survey courses in Japanese and World Literature. --This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.

Product Details

• Paperback: 128 pages
• Publisher: Cambridge University Press (April 29, 1988)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0521336368
• ISBN-13: 978-0521336369
• Product Dimensions: 8.7 x 6 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #4,271,736 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

3 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Covers everything with supreme efficiency, December 20, 2008

By 

G. Murray (Tokyo) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Murasaki Shikibu: The Tale of Genji (Landmarks of World Literature (New)) (Paperback)

Don't be deceived by the bland cover and the fact that it is part of a series into thinking there's anything half-hearted about this book. Concise and vigorous, it covers all aspects of Genji, including the relative merits of the main English translations, in only 100 pages. A fabulous tour d'horizon.

2 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Genealogical chart of characters, July 4, 2010

By 

worldinside - See all my reviews

This review is from: Murasaki Shikibu: The Tale of Genji (Landmarks of World Literature (New)) (Hardcover)

I must state at the outset: I have not read this book. Thus, I truly have no right to award any stars, so in good conscience I could not award 5 stars although I would very much like to have -- solely on the basis of the Genealogical Chart of characters the book contains.

Those of you who have read even three -- No! even two -- chapters of a "full" translation of "The Tale of Genji," which this is not, must have resorted to making notes and lists of the characters, their various "names" and titles, and their relationships to other charcters. I certainly did, and I started doing so while still in Chapter 1.

It was harrowing work ("Is this the same man as X, but in a different job?", "Does Y have a sister, or just another name?", etc)and prevented me from fully attending to the story itself.

So thank you, Prof Bowring, for this book which I will use, much as a raw Parisian tourist uses his/her tightly grasped guide to the Metro, when I return to my copy of Genji.