Customer Reviews

Murasaki Shikibu: The Tale of Genji (Landmarks of World Literature (New))

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

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.

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.