Tale of Genji: the redemption of the commonplace and the community of aesthetes

April 2, 2007 in Uncategorized
Tags: Japan, Literature

by Chris Miller

Three months ago, I began reading “Tale of Genji” – and three weeks ago I sent the first draft of this essay to Sir G for guest-presentation on Heaventree. But Sir G has been too busy traveling to post anything — and in the meantime I’ve kept re-writing it and, well, this is the third version.

The problem is that, according to Ivan Morris in “The World of the Shining Prince”, 10,000 books about Genji have already been published (which would amount to one for almost every month over the past thousand years since it was first written); so I’m wondering just what I could say that hasn’t been said many times over.

But I suppose I’ll ramble on anyway. Even if everything that could be said has been said about Genji – with every generation there are new eyes looking at it.

*

What makes the book so special (to me) is the historical period onto which it offers such an insider’s view – or more specifically, a view of that small community who lived at the top of Japanese society – remarkable for their very special lifestyle, uniquely dependent on aesthetic practice and judgment.

As exemplified here:

“Genji danced the Waves of The Blue Sea. His partner was To no Chujo [boyhood friend and eventual patriarch of the Fujiwara clan], who, though he excelled most performers in beauty and skill, paled into insignificance next to the prince, like a scrubby bush beside a flower in full bloom. As Genji danced, the rays of the setting sun fell on his body, and at that moment the music swelled up in a crescendo. It was a brilliant climax. Familiar though the dance was to the onlookers, they felt that never before had there been such loveiiness of movement and expression, and the accompanying music seemed as melodious as the music of the Kaalavink birds in Buddha’s Paradise. Moved beyond words by the beauty of the performance, the Emperor burst into tears.”

The scene quoted above is typical of the earlier chapters of the novel — and don’t you just wish you there!

But, in fact, you’re not there – and happy as I was that these people were enjoying themselves – Chris Miller don’t get to actually see or hear anything. Which may be why, thirty years ago when I first tried to read Genji, I kept falling asleep.

But now that I’m older – and more acquainted with the anxieties and sorrows of the world – I was sucked into the storytelling – leading me to conclude that these more commonplace feelings are the engine that drives the narrative, especially as it matures (along with the author herself) over the next thousand pages.

The story began with Genji, the shining hero, for whom the women provide various, colorful episodes in his young life.

But who cares about what happens to Genji or any of the men? They help their friends, ignore their enemies, and chase women who mostly find it impossible to resist. The only drama for them was avoiding the pain of boredom.

It was the women here who had the eventful lives – as evidenced in the very first few pages when Genji’s mother was effectively killed by the jealousy of her lover’s (the emperor ) primary wife ; and that drama – caused by woman’s vulnerability – continues to the very last, unresolved, episode.

There’s no question these women had a beautiful lifestyle. But there was also an unrelenting vulnerability, producing endless anxiety – and sometimes anger that continued even after death. (Creating the eerie vengeful/ killer ghost story which effectively ties together the three generations of this lengthy tale).

We readers are told about the beautiful life style – but we actually get to feel the vulnerability, anxiety, and anger (who couldn’t be angry with that pious dolt, Kaoru? Even he’s angry with himself) – and that’s why I propose that “Tale of Genji” succeeds as a meditation (toward redemption) of the difficulties of life — that were all too ordinary for the over-sheltered but under-protected women of the Heian court. (Once a man got past her flimsy silk screen, she was basically his).

This is why, I suppose, Sir G. prefers the more feisty, up-beat, short sketches of Sei Shonagon to the fatalistic symphony of Lady Murasaki. (Doesn’t she remind you of Mahler? The short, sweet melodic passages within an endless dirge of impending doom?)

(Waley even speculates that Murasaki caricatured Shonagon as a bantering, unusually outspoken (uppity) attendant late in the novel).

But I prefer Murasaki — accepting those difficulties of life (boredom for men - anxiety for women) as perhaps necessary for a peaceful civilization — where one can devote full attention to the arts of drawing, music, and poetry, instead of the martial arts of war or business. (I love the songs of suffering women - ever since I first listened to Billie Holiday).

*

And yet.

It still is the aesthetic world of Heian high culture that gives this tale such impact in our time because our high culture is so ideologically anti-aesthetic, demoting aesthetic discrimination (i.e. taste) to the level of personal opinion; and discrimination is limited to other areas of life – like food, sex, and inter-personal relationships among equals. (And it’s interesting – that Murasaki doesn’t talk about food at all – or even sex – despite how much our Shining Prince is getting).

It’s a real culture clash for us to enter this world where excellence is expected – in the same person! – in so many areas of expression: calligraphy, painting, music, dance, poetry, clothing – and most unforgettably: perfumery.

In our age – a person like myself is an out-of-control aesthetic guy. I spend my entire work day listening/judging unfamiliar music – and the rest of the time either practicing, viewing, or commenting on visual arts. But all those other arts are way beyond me – and I’m sure that the Shining prince and his girlfriends would all agree that I look funny, smell bad, every day is “a bad hair day”, and let’s not talk about my poetry.

All royal courts are extraordinary worlds – centered, as they are, around those semi-divine beings on whose health, happiness, and choices hang the destiny of a people, if not the entire known universe. They summon – because they need – the best of everything – so everyone can share in the belief of their divinity. And long after they have
crashed, the record of their success can still be seen, heard, or read in all the things that were made for them; with that special quality that we might call “poetic”

The Heian court was no different.

But still – it was quite different, wasn’t it? Factional losers weren’t strangled or beheaded – they just had to take an extended vacation in the country. And everyone wanted to become a monk or nun – maybe not right away – but whenever the world seemed less enjoyable.

So if some strong individual ambition was thwarted – rather than raise a rebellion – the preferred option was to shave the head and lead a life of prayer. Has any court – at any time – ever been as entranced by an other-worldly vision as 10th C. Japan was by Buddhism?

If we think of the desire to control the world by force as an expression of masculinity –
this might be considered the most emasculated civilization ever known. Perhaps it was brought into being as a divine response to the million prayer-for peace filled pagodas distributed by the 8th C. Empress Shotoku in the wake of a factional war? (We’ve got one of them here in Chicago!)

*

There were so many ways in which Genji was enjoyable, but what strikes me most now – after just finishing – was the gradual change, not in the characters, but in the storytelling, where cliff-hanging drama does not appear until the very last notes, as – cruelly – the author compelled me to quickly finish that which I never wanted to leave.

Ivan Morris reports that many of those 10,000 Genji books address the problem of completion. The story seems to end so abruptly, we wonder whether Murasaki was finished writing it. Waley says yes; Morris says no; I say that Genji was Murasaki’s life, and she didn’t want either one to end. Like the author of that other monument of Asian fiction, “Dream of Red Chamber” (who also couldn’t finish) – Murasaki was not
a professional writer. She was not writing just another entertaining monogatari – she was living through her book. Which is what makes it feel so convincing.

By the way, a wonderful little review can be found here by the world’s greatest hipster, Kenneth Rexroth – contemplating the “ghost story” by introducing us to yet another wildly eccentric Chinese philosopher, Wang Ch’ung..

And now I will step down from the Heaventree podium, and ask the rest of you for your reactions to Lady Murasaki’s tale.