La Reina fans, it's so nice you are reading this blog about Women's History. Guess what else is fun to read? Novels? Guess who invented the novel? A Japanese lady 1,000 years ago.
I know that some make the case for some Roman fragments like The Satiricon and The Golden Ass. But speaking of ass, I'm sure you will love The Tale of Genji, the world's first real novel full of adventure and serial dating. This was the first such tradition until the Muslims got going in Spain and then the Catolicos stole their ideas a few centuries later.
So, the lady known as Murasaki Shikibu was born in 973 in the capital, Kyoto, to a family distantly related to Emperors. She was raised by her father, Fujiwara no Tametoki, who was an official in the Bureau of Ceremony (Shikibu-sho). She was given a traditional male education (Chinese works) and lived among very complicated and fashionably dressed rich people. Don't hate. It is reaqlly quite interesting to read long descriptions of every single layer of the clothes that people at court were wearing.
The Tale of Genji is the long novel for which Lady Muraski is famous. In English translation it runs over 1,000 pages and contains 54 chapters about the different love affairs of the Prince Hikaru Genji over several decades. A few centuries later a parody called "A Man who Spent His Whole Life Making Love" was written, and was also popular. Prince Genji liked women.
Some of the stories seem similar to modern life. At one point, Genji adopts a little girl, raises her, and after his wife is out of the picture he marries her. This is rather Woody Allen, don't you think?
Elsewhere an unhappy lover haunts Genji's wife (who doesn't like him anyway) which scares both spouses. This story has been interpreted as an example of how women can work together sorority-style to get back at men.
Lady Murasaki gave us many images of things that are beautiful because they are impermanent.
So are we.
The novel, however, is here to stay.
-E.M.
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