The Tale of Genji by Murasaki Shikibu - Part II

Our theme book for 2025 is from medieval Japan, The Tale of Genji. Our preferred edition is the Everyman's Library version, translated by Edward Seidensticker.

For Part II, please read Chapters 15 - 34, pages 304 - 621, The Wormwood Patch to the end of New Herbs, Part 1. Please know that you are welcome to join our discussion at any time during the year. Of course it helps if you've read the section we're discussing, but it's not required.

"In the early Eleventh Century Murasaki Shikibu, a lady in the Heian court of Japan, wrote what many consider to be the world's first novel, more than three centuries before Chaucer. The Heian era (794-1185) is recognized as one of the very greatest periods in Japanese literature, and The Tale of Genji is not only the unquestioned prose masterpiece of that period but also the most lively and absorbing account we have of the intricate, exquisite, highly ordered court culture that made such a masterpiece possible.

"Genji is the favorite son of the emperor but also a man of dangerously passionate impulses. In his highly refined world, where every dalliance is an act of political consequence, his shifting alliances and secret love affairs create great turmoil and very nearly destroy him."
~ Copied from the fly-leaf of the edition mentioned above.

As always, if you RSVP as a "yes" and then realize you cannot be present after all, please update your attendance record on this site so that we know not to expect you. Thanks.

Photo by: M. Oliver / SAM Asian Art Museum: Illustrations of Genji Monogatari, Part 1, 17th Century Handscroll