The tale is an old one – dating back as it does to around 1021, it precedes the Norman Conquest by a generation – and yet it is surprisingly contemporary. Written by a noblewoman during the last period of classical Japanese history, and at a time when the imperial court of Japan was at the height of its splendor, "The Tale of Genji" may be the first great novel ever written; and it offers all the qualities and pleasures that great novels have delivered in the thousand years since its composition.
Not much is known about author Murasaki Shikibu, except that she served at court as a lady-in-waiting during the Heian period of Japanese history, and therefore knew well the court life about which she wrote in "The Tale of Genji." As translator Royall Tyler of Australian National University explains in an informative foreword, Shikibu was better-educated than most women of her time; she was fluent in written and spoken Chinese, even though women of her time were not supposed to know either. (Chinese was the language of the Japanese court, just as people in the Roman imperial court spoke Greek, and French was long spoken in the royal court of England; then, as now, fluency in a second language -- especially one associated with high culture -- was a mark of a superior education.) Because of her education, Shikibu was exposed to the magnificent heritage of classical Chinese culture and philosophy, all of which, combined with Shikibu’s own gifts for detailed observation of human character, informs "The Tale of Genji."
Genji himself is a prince – a son of the Emperor and a concubine, at a time when it is expected that the Emperor will have many children, both by his wives and as a result of, shall we say, more informal relationships. From early childhood, Genji distinguishes himself by his precocious talent and his extraordinarily handsome looks; and therefore the Emperor, feeling that a formal tie to the imperium will actually hold Genji back, declares Genji a commoner – an arrangement that will, in theory, give Genji a chance to advance further on the basis of his own merits.
Genji is young, handsome, charming, socially prominent, and rich; and therefore it should be no surprise that young women are attracted to him, and he to them. His romances are many, and modern readers may find Genji to be, in modern parlance, a bit of a player. The Japanese word for “philanderer” is, 女たらし, on’natarashi, and author Shikibu’s attitude toward Genji’s many affairs is interestingly complex. There is often a wish-fulfillment element to fiction, as there is to myth; and it is easy to imagine some readers of "The Tale of Genji," especially male readers, saying, “Well, if I were young, handsome, charming, socially prominent and rich, wouldn’t I…” At the same time, Shikibu unflinchingly presents a world where different rules exist for men and women when it comes to sexual behavior – a world rather like our own – and chronicles with a clear authorial eye the pain that Genji’s affairs cause for women like his first wife Aoi (the two are married when Genji is 12 and Aoi is 16). Moreover, some of Genji's "seductions" may seem, to a modern reader, more like rape. Yet Shikibu simply sets down her observations regarding her characters, and lets the reader draw his or her own conclusions.
Along with the romantic complications of Genji’s life, there are political complications as well. In the imperial capital at what is now the city of Kyoto, affairs of state are administered by a Minister of the Left and a Minister of the Right; and while those designations have nothing to do with the modern designation of “Left” meaning liberalism and “Right” referring to conservatism, it is no surprise that these two chief ministers may have competing ambitions, and may not always see eye to eye. In Genji’s case, the Minister of the Left is Aoi’s father, and therefore Genji’s father-in-law, and the Minister of the Right is a political rival to Genji. Genji is caught in bed with Oborozukiyo, the daughter of the Minister of the Right, and from that point forward, Oborozukiyo’s older sister, the Kokiden Consort who later becomes Empress Mother, becomes a bitter, implacable, permanent, and ever-more-powerful enemy of Genji.
The world of "The Tale of Genji" is a complex world, the rules and norms of which are likely to be unfamiliar to most Western readers. Therefore, it is good that translator Tyler provides detailed footnotes on every page of the novel, as well as a listing of the novel’s main characters.
I took up "The Tale of Genji" when my wife and I were spending a couple of days in Tokyo, on our way home from a relatively extended trip to China. In that connection, I freely admit that the copy of "The Tale of Genji" that I took along for our stay in Japan is the 319-page abridged version, not the unabridged 1216-page version. Reading the abridgement has whetted my appetite to read the whole thing. I know that Genji’s reverses and recoveries in this abridged version, including an extended period of exile from the imperial court, only hint at the larger story covered in the 897 pages that I have not yet read, a larger story that Shikibu ultimately takes beyond the life of Genji himself.
Walking along the crowded pedestrian market arcade that leads to Senso-ji, a Buddhist temple complex in Tokyo that dates back to the 7th century A.D., and looking on as worshippers dropped lighted incense sticks into a burner and breathed in the fumes in hopes of good health in the coming year, I felt that "The Tale of Genji" was singularly effective in helping me become acquainted with old Japan in all the intricacy and complexity of its culture. Beyond those travel-related considerations, however, "The Tale of Genji" is purely and simply a great novel. Any admirer of the great novelists of the world – from Dickens, Hugo, and Tolstoy to Toni Morrison and David Foster Wallace – should seek out this book, where the grand novelistic tradition first began.
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