Playboy Genji
One of my standing questions of japanese culture is about their main works of literature. Not knowing enough japanese to even read a simple book in the language, my knowledge about it is quite mediocre.
Sometimes I’ve asked myself what are, if there are any, the traditional romantic works of japanese literature. Romantic in the sense of a man in love with an idealized woman, for whom he suffers or perform great feats.
Today I was asking a japanese friend over the internet about that. She told me that she couldn’t remember any, only stories about filial love, or doing good deeds and receiving good rewards, but no stories about the love of a man and a woman.
Then she delivers this:
“I think there are no stories about “boy meets girl” [in japanese literature]. Sex and love were pretty taboo to talk about back then, I think. Well, there is the Tale of Gengi, which is pretty old and famous, but in truth Genji was just a worthless playboy”.
(the word in japanese was “fugainaipureiboi”)
For those not in the known, “The Tales of Genji” is actually THE first ’story’ written in japanese, and probably one of japanese most famous literary’s work. I’ve heard many things about it (yes, i need to grab an english translation and read it some day), but this is the first time I’ve heard anything like that about old Genji.
Cheers!
March 7th, 2006 at 7:48 pm
You can try to find “The Pillow Book”, a book written with only kana. This is said to be written a long time ago by a girl/woman as a diary, and kept in her pillow box.
Actually, please let me know if you get it :o).
March 10th, 2006 at 2:14 pm
I read the book “Bando de pardais”, which tells about genji and other fictional characters. If you liked Musashi, you’ll love this one. It seems that many people thinks that he was an arrogant playboy, but I’m to young to remember those times.
April 7th, 2006 at 4:31 am
Hi, thank you for stopping by my blog. For that storyline, you may try Haruki Murakami’s South of the Border, West of the Sun translated in English. I’m not sure it’s traditional love, but the man is really, really in love with the woman, but… When I first read it, I was too young to get it, though. じゃあね。