Order from a Major Online Bookstore
Ultimate Book Price Comparison Engine
Save Your Time And Money
| AnyBook4Less.com | Order from a Major Online Bookstore |
|
| Home | Store List | FAQ | Contact Us | | ||
| Ultimate Book Price Comparison Engine Save Your Time And Money |
||
 |
Title: Confessions of Lady Nijo by Karen Brazell, Karen Brazil ISBN: 0-8047-0930-0 Publisher: Stanford Univ Pr Pub. Date: December, 1983 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $24.95 |
Average Customer Rating: 4.8 (5 reviews)
Rating: 5
Summary: One view from the inner court
Comment: Nijo's autobiography is another wonderful chapter in the literature of Japanese classics. And, like all true classics, it paints a picture very much like some women of today.
The book is not organized as a story, or even as a particularly strong description of events. Instead, it's a first-hand description of moments that roused especially strong feelings, positive or negative. Nijo (not her born name, but the only name that has come down to us) wrote this book late in life, so the literal truth of events often seems layered under decades of nostalgia. The first passage, for example, takes pains to draw a teenage girl, tearful during her first nights in the emperor's bedroom. 'The lady doth protest too much' - that is about the last time we see her hesitate in accepting a man's overnight company.
After her heyday in court society, Nijo retreats and finally takes vows as a nun. She takes the robes and duties of nun in full, but her thoughts never settle into that role. I don't mean to say that she in insincere. Still, a part of her never lets go of the happy times in court. Although she carries out her religious duties, she keeps coming back for another look at the people and rites she loved. Gradually, the people from her youth move away and pass away. The court was all she knew; in the end she doesn't know even that any more. It's like the woman whose greatest day was being prom queen. Now in her forties, she lives by remembering a time and place that doesn't remember her.
Nijo conveys a pervading shallowness. She spends more time describing some outfits than the children she bears. She could have moved closer to the inner imperial circles; the retired emperor publicly acknowledged her first-born as his scion. Nijo never had aspirations so high, or never realized what could have been open to her. She was content for the child to be brought up elsewhere while her life drifted on as before.
The irony of the final sentence may be the happiest moment in the book. "... I have been writing this useless account - though I doubt it will long survive me." It has survived nearly seven hundred years. There is no real point to this book, but that is part of its charm. It is just a look at one woman's world and at the woman herself.
Rating: 4
Summary: A later Classical Japanese Diary and travel book
Comment: This book is set about 200 years after the events described in the diaries of Sei Shonagon and Lady Murasaki (and tale of Genji), however, this memoir reveals a world fossilised, doing it's very best to imitate the 'elegant' world shown in Lady Murasaki's masterwork Tale of Genji. What comes across is a very conservative society, and if you weren't told the dates of the events taking place you would believe they were set in the 10th or 11th century.
The writer of this memoir is a very independant and sensual woman - who took her lovers regardless of the consequences. The second half of the memoir details her travels around Japan's sacred shrines as a nun later in life. Lady Nijo constantly finds on her travels that the world outside Hein-Kyoto has changed since the days the poems she learnt at court as description of Japan's famous sights were written. Some of the old 'famous' sights have gone and she finds new ones to fill their hole.
If you've an interest in these old Japanese diaries and memoirs, this should be added to your list. It's a later, and lesser known book, but worth the effort of reading.
Rating: 5
Summary: A valuable work, readable by all
Comment: This book is important for many reasons. In terms of literature, it gives a glimps into the world of a court lady in a time when the court is disintegrating (late Kamakura Japan), showing the vibrant spirit of a woman looking back over her years. As a work of historical value, it shows one view of Japan before it plunges into the longest successive strugle the country ever faced: the Northern and Souther Courts period of the mid 14th century. A must read for those who want a look into what Japan became after the hayday of the Heian courts.
 |
Title: Japanese Inn by Oliver. Statler ISBN: 0824808185 Publisher: University of Hawaii Press Pub. Date: September, 1982 List Price(USD): $15.00 |
 |
Title: Gossamer Years: The Diary of a Noblewoman of Heian Japan by Edward Seidensticker ISBN: 0804811237 Publisher: Charles E Tuttle Co Pub. Date: June, 1974 List Price(USD): $12.95 |
 |
Title: The Pillow Book of Sei Shonagon by Ivan Morris ISBN: 0231073372 Publisher: Columbia University Press Pub. Date: 15 April, 1991 List Price(USD): $21.00 |
 |
Title: The World of the Shining Prince: Court Life in Ancient Japan by Ivan Morris, Paul De Angelis ISBN: 1568360290 Publisher: Kodansha International Pub. Date: June, 1994 List Price(USD): $16.00 |
 |
Title: As I Crossed a Bridge of Dreams: Recollections of a Woman in Eleventh-Century Japan (Penguin Classics) by Ivan Morris, Lady Sarashina ISBN: 0140442820 Publisher: Penguin USA (Paper) Pub. Date: December, 1989 List Price(USD): $13.00 |
Thank you for visiting www.AnyBook4Less.com and enjoy your savings!
Copyright� 2001-2021 Send your comments
