The Tale of Genji
”The Tale
of Genji” is a thousand year old Japanese story, which apparently is still
today used as leisure reading in Japan. Having read it I understand why. This
is juicy stuff and thematically relevant even today.
At 180
pages my copy turned out to be an extract of the much larger novel, but I think
it covered enough ground to give me the bigger picture and as it was starting
to get repetitive I am okay to make the cut where my edition ended. This
version covered the period from Genji’s birth to his wedding with Murasaki.
“The Tale
of Genji” is essentially a Cassanova story. Genji is a prince at the imperial
Japanese court who seems to spend most of his time courting women. With dashing
good looks, youth and the status and wealth of being a prince he has plenty of
women pinning for him. Yet Genji insists on seeking out the most impossible
courtships. The stranger and more difficult the better and he really gets around.
I lost
count on the number of women he is courting at any one time. It is indeed the
most challenging element to the story because like Genji the narrative also
juggles multiple women at any one time and I am far from certain that I have
been able to separate each of them out from the others. Genji has a thing going
with the emperor’s (his father) fiancé Fujitsubo, which results in a child. He
has another thing going with Princess Rokujo, widow to the emperor’s brother all
the while he is married to Princess Aoi, the daughter of a minister. But that
is only background to his external chase of women, which is the bulk of the
story and these women cover the entire range. From an elderly maid to a secluded
and stunted princess. Mysterious women in the dark and chance encounters.
Genji is
very eloquent and with his wit and charm he gets far, but curiously most
interaction with all these women, at least what we are witness to, is through
exchange of poetry. I am sure this is a cultural artifact and likely also something
added to the story to give it a romantic spin, but for a modern, western reader
it is almost comical how dialogue is performed through exchange of poetry. It
also gives a very romantic hue to Genji’s character making him seem gentle and
desirable.
Yet it is
difficult not to see Genji as a tragic and probably even pathological womanizer.
Most of his affairs end in disaster, particularly for the women. As far as I
can tell every single one of them suffers from his attention. One dies,
attacked by a vengeful spirit for her “transgression”, Fujitsubo is petrified
for fear the emperor should find out Genji is the father of her child. The
weird Suyetsumuhana is driven almost insane by his attention and Aoi his wife
finally dies, apparently from frustration with Genji.
There is
definitely a warning in this that this sort of promiscuity leads to disaster
but I do not feel that this sentiment is carried through. The story seems to be
quite impressed with Genji, that he is an awesome dude for all his adventures
and it insists on showing him in a good light.
I am not as
impressed with Genji as a person. One thing is that he is courting a lot of
women, but he has a real problem letting go. Instead of cutting clean to finish
his relationships he insists on continuing them long after he has moved on to
someone else. Thus he ends up having up to six or seven relationships going at
the same time. We are supposed to think that he acts out of kindness to the
women, but in actuality it is cruel beyond measure as the women are left with
the hope that he might come back to them. We are also supposed to think that he
seeks other women because his wife is cool to him, but we are not only talking
one other affair. If Aoi has even an inkling of what he has going on she should
be royally pissed off.
I can
follow the story’s sympathy or at least its awe of Genji some of the way. His
activities are impressive by any standards, but I finally lose it for him when
Murasaki becomes involved. He meets Murasaki (the apparent author of the novel)
while she is a child and takes her under his wings. There is definitely a
Lolita thing going on from his point of view, but she sees him as a step-father
and gives him the trust of a such. This trust is in the last chapter violated
when he marries her and as is hinted at is having sex with her. Murasaki is at
this point hardly more than a child, certainly mentally, and there is no other
way to look at it than as a pedophilic violation. The act leaves Murasaki as destroyed
as all the other women and no wonder. The only thing at Genji’s defense is that
as a privileged child he was spoilt and could get away with anything. No
boundaries means no limits and maybe he did not know better. Still, it is a
lame defense.
The best
thing about “The Tale of Genji” is the portrait of medieval Japan, especially
the focus on something else than samurai and war. There is a treasure throve of
cultural information here and the remarkable thing is that it is actually not
that far removed from our world. I like Japan and Japanese culture and this was
a gold mine.
The worst
thing is that this feels like a whitewash of a pedophilic womanizer. Tiresome at
length and horrible at the end.
