Tale of Murasaki : A Novel

by DALBY, LIZA

• ISBN13: 9780385497947
• ISBN10: 0385497946
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2000-06-01
• Publisher: Nan A. Talese

Summary

Out of the life and work of Lady Murasaki, the author of, the world's first novel,The Tale of Genji, Liza Dalby has woven an exquisite and irresistible fiction that with rich, nuanced authenticity and lyrical drama, brings an elaborate past world to vivid life. The sensitive and modest daughter of a mid-ranking court poet, Murasaki Shikibu staves off loneliness with her active imagination, telling stories about the dashing Prince Genji to her close friends. At first, they are their private entertainment, but soon Genji's amorous adventures are leaked to the public and Murasaki is thrust into the life of a kind of 11th century Japanese celebrity. She is compelled by a charismatic regent to accept a position at court regaling the empress with her stories. At court, Lady Murasaki becomes caught in a vortex of high politics and sexual intrigue, which begins to reflect itself in her stories. In this way, she comes to write her masterpiece,The Tale of Genji. But this is much more than just an elegantly plotted historical novel.The Tale of Murasakiis a beautiful work of literary archaeology. Dalby, the only Westerner to have become a geisha and the author of the definitive book, Geisha, subtly reconstructs the fashions, sensibilities, manners, and preoccupations of 11th-century Japan. The result is a vivid portrait of a woman and her times, the most splendid in Japanese history. InThe Tale of Murasaki, Dalby transports her readers to an exotic world and time and wraps them in a story that speaks clearly across the centuries. It is a dazzling literary achievement and a truly unique and wonderful reading experience.

Author Biography

Liza Dalby is an anthropologist specializing in Japanese culture.  As the only Westerner to have become a geisha, which she did as research for her Ph.D. and her books <b>Geisha</b> and <b>Kimono</b>, she is a consultant for Steven Spielberg's upcoming film adaptation of Arthur Golden's <b>Memoirs of a Geisha</b>.  She lives in Berkeley, California, with her husband and three children.

Table of Contents

Foreword	xv
Dramatis Personae	xvii
Katako's Letter	1	(5)
My Gossamer Hermitage	6	(1)
Kagero-an
The Early Journal	7	(6)
Nikki no hajime
Chifuru	13	(14)
Chifuru
Night of the Hazy Moon	27	(6)
Oborozukiyo
Morning Glory	33	(6)
Asagao
Willows	39	(5)
Yanagi
Ruri, Blue Like Lapis Lazuli	44	(17)
Ruri
The Cuckoo	61	(10)
Hototogisu
Worms	71	(5)
Mimizu
The New Year	76	(14)
Shogatsu
A Travel Journal	90	(8)
Tabi no kiroku
The Pillow Book	98	(9)
Makura no Soshi
Bright Country	107	(10)
Ming-gwok
The Snow, the Moon	117	(7)
Setsu getsu
The East Wind Melts the Ice	124	(6)
Higashikaze
Tales of China	130	(7)
Kara Monogatari
Exile	137	(4)
Nagashi
A Clear Day in Rainy Season	141	(13)
Satsukibare
Heart Piercing Autumn	154	(12)
Kokorozukushi no aki
The Exorcism	166	(5)
Oni no kage
The Thaw	171	(6)
Tokemizu
The Northern Personage	177	(28)
Kita no kata
An Ink-Black Haze	205	(16)
Sumizome ni kasumu sora
Kerria Rose Unfaded	221	(11)
Usuki to mo mizu
Mottled Bamboo	232	(6)
Karatake
Above the Clouds	238	(15)
Kumo no ue
Out of Darkness	253	(8)
Kuraki yori
Pent-up Waters	261	(7)
Odae no mizu
Lady of the Pillow Book	268	(7)
Sei Shonagon
The Maidenflower in Bloom	275	(7)
Ominaeshi sakari
Grass Under Snow	282	(7)
Yuki no shita kusa
Gathering Cherry Blossoms	289	(7)
Sakuragari
The Moorhen	296	(14)
Tataku kuina
Birth of a Prince	310	(9)
Atsuhira
Full of Moonlight	319	(7)
Hikari sashisou
Waterbirds	326	(5)
Mizutori
Ten Thousand Years, a Thousand Autumns	331	(8)
Mannen senju
Our Little Murasaki	339	(5)
Wagamurasaki
Floating Sadly	344	(6)
Ukine seshi
The Gosechi Dances	350	(9)
Gosechi no mai
The Close of the Year	359	(6)
Toshi kurete
The Spider	365	(6)
Sasagani
The Small Pines in the Field	371	(5)
Nobe ni komatsu
The Virgin Priestess	376	(7)
Sai-in
Uji	383	(15)
Uji
Katako	398	(3)
Epilogue	401	(20)
Author's Note	421	(4)
Acknowledgments	425

Excerpts

Katako's Letter

I was pregnant with you when my mother died, but my condition was far from normal. I was often overwhelmed by waves of nausea. The only thing that held them at bay was a fresh citron. Scratching the bumpy yellow yuzu skin released a tiny vapor of citrus essence to inhale and quell my rising gorge. But most of the time I simply surrendered to queasy lassitude. I had to tuck emergency drafts of yuzu and tangerine peel in my sleeves to get through my mother's funeral. She had been living in seclusion for some time. Some people, on hearing of her death, were surprised that she had still been alive.

Your grandmother was well known as the lady who wrote the Tale of Genji. That novel of romance and poignant observation appeared like a bright full moon floating out of a dark sky. No one had read anything like it before. It brought my mother fame and notoriety in her day. Still, I was surprised at the crowd that gathered for her final rites. At least a dozen ladies endured the inconvenient all-day trip to Ishiyama Temple. They must have been Genji readers who preferred the life they found in my mother's stories to their own dull husbands or difficult situations.

I'm sure my mother became a recluse in order to disentangle herself from Genji. The work had come to envelop her life. Yet Genji was also her child. She had created and nurtured it, but then, as children do, it grew up and eventually slipped from her control. I was a much more compliant child than the book. I never gave her as much cause for concern as did Genji.

Perhaps because people were infatuated with the heroine of her novel, they confused my mother with that character. She was nicknamed Murasaki when she entered Her Majesty's service. Readers of the tale seemed to think they knew her because they knew Genji's Murasaki. I think my mother grew tired of the letters and visits from people of all ranks, including imperial personages, whom, of course, she could not ignore. It had gotten to the point where readers became so involved with her characters that they importuned my mother to create particular scenes to satisfy their imaginations. They came to expect things of Genji, and my mother grew equally tired, I'm convinced, of meeting their expectations and thwarting them.

She had even been invited to join the empress's entourage because of Genji. It must have seemed a miracle to her, a bookish widow, to have been lifted out of obscurity into the conspicuous brilliance of that imperial salon. Genji writing brought her to the attention of the regent Michinaga, the man who controlled emperors and ruled the country in fact if not in name. Whatever my mother's relationship to Michinaga may have been, Genji was largely responsible.

One bears children and eventually launches them into society, praying they will make a favorable impression, attain a suitable status, or at least not be an embarrassment. Perhaps one has taught them something that will give them the strength to suffer the karma they were born with. Yet eventually children will do as they will. The influence of previous existence will play out in ways we cannot possibly know. As a parent, one accepts this. But a work of fiction is a perverse child. Once created, it makes its own way without apology, brooking no influence, making friends and enemies on its own.

Perhaps it's not so different from a flesh-and-blood child, after all.

The Genji tale was like an elder brother to me from the time I was born. It was always taking up my mother's time, demanding her attention like any selfish boy. It never went away or lessened its demand. As jealous as I was when I was young, eventually I, too, fell under Genji's spell.

We did not meet often during the years my mother lived as a nun. My own career at court was developing moderately well, and I was then under the protection of Counselor Kanetaka, a nephew of Regent Michinaga. It was his child--you--I carried at the time of Murasaki's death.

I thought I should probably never marry. How was I to know the fated connections and promotions that were to come my way? I was not worried about my future, because my mother was not. She would not have abandoned me at sixteen unless she felt my prospects were secure.

The faint scent of cherry blossoms will always remind me of my mother's departing this world. As we left the sand-strewn funerary plain at dawn, we passed stands of blooming cherries in the morning fog. Then, as the sun warmed the earth and the fog melted away, a soft smell filled the air. No one thinks of sakura for its scent--it hasn't the strong honey odor of plum--but out in the countryside, in such masses, sakura seemed to have a subtle fragrance.

I was carrying the urn with Murasaki's ashes to take back to our family temple. My grandfather Tametoki should have been in charge, but, mortified at seventy-four to have outlived his children, he shrank from taking an official part in the ceremony. Shaking his gray head like one of the querulous macaque monkeys we saw on the mountain roads, my grandfather lamented the fortune of his continued good health as much as his daughter's death.

The following month I journeyed for the last time to my mother's retreat near Kiyomizu Temple to gather her things. I knew there would not be very much because she had already given away her musical instruments, her books, and--of course, long since--all of the fine silk clothing she had worn at court. There were some good padded winter robes, which I donated to the temple, as well as the sutras she had been copying in her graceful calligraphy. I managed to find the only things I wanted--her dark purple inkstone, a set of writing brushes, and a Chinese celadon brush rest in the form of five mountains. As I knelt at her low writing table, I noticed another bundle of papers, rolled tightly and wrapped in a scrap of chartreuse silk. Thinking these to be old letters she had kept for the paper on which to copy more sutras, I decided to take them with me for my own writing practice. Paper is not cheap, and I thought I might as well put it to the use my mother intended. The priest was disappointed. These people are always on the lookout for extra paper.

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Excerpted from The Tale of Murasaki: A Novel by Liza Dalby
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