Customer Reviews

Okagami, the Great Mirror: Fujiwara Michinaga (Michigan Classics in Japanese Studies)

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This late 11th-early 12th c. Japanese text is, like another of William and Helen McCullough's fine translations, A Tale of Flowering Fortunes, a memoir of the life and career of the great Fujiwara Michinaga, who also figures prominently in Sei Shonagon's Pillow Book.

Okagimi is written in an unusual style, which, one might say, anticipates Truman Capote's In Cold Blood by nearly a millennium. Written as a purported record of of a series of reminiscences set down by an impossibly old man, it is told by a fictional character yet claims to be true history, and, indeed, in general Okagimi generally conforms to the known facts. The text consists of a series of vignettes taken from the lives of people whose lives impinged on Michinaga's, both contemporaries and predecessors, as well as a history of Michinaga himself. It very successfully gives a picture of political and social life in Heian Japan. Lively, informative, beautifully written (and translated) and very amusing.