The Pillow Book [Paperback]

Peter Greenaway (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: December 2, 1996

The Pillow Book is director Peter Greenaway's deeply felt acknowledgement of the fact that film today, a full 100 years after its birth, is still driven by text and supported by literature.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Peter Greenaway's Pillow Book is Sei Shonagon's tenth-century story redux. Shonagon's protagonist is recast as Nogiko, a beautiful young writer. As a child, Nogiko was affected by two seminal experiences--her father writing on her face each birthday, and her mother reading to her from a thousand-year-old "pillow book," a diary kept by its author (also a woman named Nogiko) in the drawer of a wooden pillow. As a grown woman, the contemporary Nogiko is obsessed with finding lovers to write on her body. After each physical encounter with a lover, Nogiko painstakingly transcribes what he has written, even if it means using mirrors to decipher those characters on parts of her body such as the small of the back or the eyelid. Nogiko's efforts to preserve her lovers' writings and her need to continue the tradition illustrate the physical and sensual power of literature. This book includes Greenaway's original screenplay (before the final movie edit), color stills from the film, and Greenaway's illuminating notes on the story.

Product Details

• Paperback: 150 pages
• Publisher: Dis Voir (December 2, 1996)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 2906571520
• ISBN-13: 978-2906571525
• Product Dimensions: 7.4 x 8.5 x 0.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 11.4 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,462,608 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A work of art about a work of art, based on art, November 1, 2001

By 

Megami (Darwin, Australia) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Pillow Book (Paperback)

This is a hard book to review on its own for me, as it is the book of one of my most favourite movies, of the same name.
Peter Greenaway set out to make a movie very loosely based on the Pillow Book of Sei Shonagon, a court lady of the Heian period of Japan. This book contains the script of the movie, along with pictures. But it is more than a movie script, it stands alone as a work of art. It is, for me, an exploration of the beauty of the written word, for both what it represents (the story told by the word)and the sheer beauty/art of the words (the calligraphy).

It is hard to write about this book (and movie) without sounding like a pretencious tosser! But believe me, if you love art, beauty, the orient, or Ewan McGregor (there are a lot of you out there)you are sure to appreciate something from, if not all of,the Pillow Book.

5.0 out of 5 stars Word and Flesh, A Sensual Delight, September 18, 2001

By 

azindn (Arizona, USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Pillow Book (Paperback)

The genius of Peter Greenaway is found in the pages of this book which provides some of the text glossed over in his edit process of the film, The Pillow Book. Most delightful is the process of this curator, painter, poet, film maker and author as he crafts the film loosley based on the writings of Sei Shonagon. In adding the text of the thirteen poems which are illuminated so vibrantly in the film, a new dimension is added to a film that is a jewel. In particular, the words of the main character, Nagiko to her dead lover, Jerome are in themselves, a poem of immense beauty and visual splendor. The companion to thefilm, it is a must for every library

8 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars the intimacy of language, August 11, 1999

By 

J. Uhlich (Alameda, CA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Pillow Book (Paperback)

While it cannot match the visual orgy that characterizes the movie, this book (and what else to call it? names are complicated, in the interplay between cinema and print) serves to reveal some of the skeleton beneath the flesh: anatomy of the limits of language, the ordering of a work concerned with the order we confine our thoughts to. Handy for those who aspire to Greenaway's puzzle-box classicism; quote fodder for those who seek to dissect his repetitive themes of sex, catalogues, fat men, water, and repetition (to name a few); but nothing in this book can do more than hint at the luscious sensuality of wet paint on bare skin, the towering beauty of written characters, and the disaster than comes when we pin all on a medium of communication that is ultimately without value or significance.