The Tale of Genji

[ndrosen]

I have made some progress on The Tale of Genji, and I must say that if there had been a MeToo movement in tenth century Heian-kyo, our hero would have been in serious trouble. When a (married) woman whom he more or less raped (it isn’t clear exactly what went on between them, but she reluctantly went along with sex rather than commit the grave Japanese sin of making a loud fuss) wants nothing further to do with him, she is described as a cruel woman. This, in a novel written by a woman; I wonder whether a bit of irony is intended, or whether the court lady who wrote the book had accepted the values of her society to the point of thinking ill of a woman who refused to continue an affair with such a beautiful and high-ranking gentleman philanderer.