The Pillow Book of Sei Shonagon

Translated by Ivan Morris
Read: November 2008
Rating: Most delightful.

I think I like Sei Shonagon herself more than I like her writing. She’s a fantastic character in and of herself–willful, witty, clever, eager to entertain, proud, and quick to judge. All of this comes across through her own recounts of her days, which are honest in that she has written them, for the most part, expecting she will be the only reader. She isn’t soul-searching, she’s just keeping a diary. And she wants to be amusing here as well.

I love the lists. I love her sections like Pleasing Things, Squalid Things, Presumptuous Things, or People Who Seem to Suffer and Enviable People. They’re just collections of thoughts under the header, informal lists. Some of the jokes are lost on a foreign/modern audience, but this translation is able to get the puns across (however dryly).

The downside to all of this is that sometimes Shonagon goes into long recountings of events… and her main concern seems to be what people are wearing, or how their carriage is decorated. There’s only so many times I can feign attention for the six layers of colored robes worn by Her Majesty the Empress.

Worth reading, even if you skip some sections.