The Tosa diary / [Hardcover]

Tsurayuki, Ki (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: January 1976

Written with artless simplicity and quiet humor, The Tosa Diary is the story of a fifty-five day journey by ship from Tosa to Kyoto in AD 935.

--This text refers to the Paperback edition.

Editorial Reviews

Language Notes

Text: English, Japanese --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

About the Author

Ki No Tsurayuki, a nobleman and writer of prose and poetry, died in AD 946.

--This text refers to the Paperback edition.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 148 pages
• Publisher: Classic Books (January 1976)
• ISBN-10: 0742641481
• ISBN-13: 978-0742641488
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6.1 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 3.2 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Are We There Yet?, August 10, 2006

By 

Crazy Fox (Chicago, IL USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Tosa Diary (Tuttle Classics) (Paperback)

You know, there's always some level of hype about the "latest translation" and all, but this wonderful translation of "The Tosa Diary" by William Porter, originally published in 1912, demonstrates that we are not always so much more clever than those who came before. Porter is carefully faithful to the sense of the original while capturing its tone and mood in English with great talent. And his method of rendering the waka poems scattered throughout the story is inventive and interesting--though sometimes understandably a bit strained; he has taken the original and fashioned it into something that is true both to waka poetics and to the English poetics of his time (before T.S. Eliot, Ezra Pound, and all that jazz), with a rhyming couplet at the end corresponding to the way the last two lines of a waka break off from the first three thereby completing the poem with a flourish. Compare his rendering of a poem by Ariwara Narihira with Helen McCullough's more conservatively literal (though not inferior) rendering, and you'll get a sense of Porter's distinctiveness here:

Porter: "If the cherry trees/Nevermore burst forth in bloom,/'Twould be better far;/For the saddest time of all/Is the spring, when petals fall."

McCullough: "If this were but a world/To which cherry blossoms/Were quite foreign,/Then perhaps in spring/Our hearts would know peace."

As for the story itself, it is a fairly interesting early attempt at prose narrative, though it is pretty uneventful and kind of drags in spots (one almost wishes the much-feared pirates had actually caught up with Tsurayuki's boat). The thing I found most significant about the tale, though, was the manner in which Ki no Tsurayuki here fleshes out in narrative form the principle he elucidates in the first paragraph of his preface to the "Kokinshu" waka anthology, i.e. poetry being the expression of people's emotional reactions to their experiences and sensual perceptions. Here we see that principle in action all along this otherwise rather tedious trip back to the Capital. Certainly, such moments were Tsurayuki's primary focus and interest, not "Pirates of the Inland Sea" per se.

This book also has the original Japanese text on one side with the English translation on the other, so it is really handy for students of Japanese literature.

4.0 out of 5 stars The journey home, May 30, 2010

By 

Phillip Kay (Sydney) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Tosa Diary (Tuttle Classics) (Paperback)

THE TOSA DIARY was written in 935 by a famous Japanese scholar, poet and government administrator named Ki no Tsurayuki who lived in the reign of the Emperor Sujaku. Tsurayuki had served a term as Governor of Tosa on the island of Shikoku and while returning to the capital Kyoto he kept a diary to mark the journey. It is the earliest surviving work of Japanese prose.

Other diaries of this period exist. The great novelist known as Murasaki Shikibu (the first name is a nickname taken from her book Genji Monogatori, the second is an honorary term her father was entitled to) kept a diary over the years 1008 ' 1010. Sei Shonagon (again the names are ceremonial ones not personal) was a court attendant during the same period and kept a diary known as the Pillow Book. These diaries were widely circulated to show the refinement and culture of their writers. They are full of personal observations and details of court procedures unknown from any other sources.

The Tosa Diary is written in a style of sophisticated simplicity. Tsurayuki writes as a woman would, without using Chinese characters, in hiragana, and his language is thus simple, everyday style, not literary. His book is a short one, 60 pages in my edition. The journey took less than two months to cover the 200 miles distance, rowing most of the way and stopping frequently for hospitality and shelter from bad weather. To while away the time the passengers composed tankas, as they would have done at home or at court.

There are almost 60 tankas in the Tosa Diary, forming about half of its content and making the diary more like a poetry collection than we would expect. The tanka was a verse form of 5 lines and 31 syllables in the rhythm 5-7-5-7-7, and composing these extempore was a polite accomplishment of the culture (like doing YouTube videos today). There were many poor examples, which were mercilessly mocked and satirised. Good ones were very highly admired.

Among these tankas in the Diary there are a number which express personal emotions, perhaps the reason why the diary was written in hiragana. Tsurayuki was accompanied on his journey by his wife and small daughter. On one occasion he is delighted and proud when the child recites quite an accomplished tanka. But he and his wife are in mourning for another daughter, who died in Tosa at the age of nine. The grief he expresses seems very real.

These versions, made (with apologies) by the translator of my edition William Porter, give some idea of sense if not of poetry:

Though I now return
To my home the Capital
Sad it is to think
One for whom I mourn in vain
Never will return again

And again:

Could I e'er forget
What is past I still should grieve
If she were not here
Seeking for her I should say
'Where's my little girl today?'

And once more:

In the midst of life
Cares in plenty though there be
Yet the little child
Whom I loved beyond compare
Was by far my greatest care

There are many other examples, along with poems which express delight at the seasons and the blossoms and make comments on places passed during the journey. In the same way the prose portions of the Diary sometimes give amusing details of people afflicted with seasickness or make tart comments on the behaviour of the steersman, but also tell how Tsurayuki tries to cheer up his grieving wife. The diary ends with the comment (Tsurayuki writes of himself in the third person) 'His sorrows, which he can never forget, are more than he can ever express'. Then the final words: 'Well ' this must be torn up at once'.

We must be thankful it wasn't, and that this glimpse of an intelligent and sensitive man from a distant era can still make sense in our own.