The Tale of Genji
May. 26th, 2021 11:38 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ndrosenI have at last finished The Tale of Genji, sometimes called the world’s first psychological novel. As critics have been commenting on it for a thousand years, I am sure that I have nothing original to add, but I have made a few observations before, and will attempt to write a few words for the benefit of fellow Americans who have mostly not read it.
The lords and ladies of the Heian court, as portrayed in the novel, alternate between striving for the pleasures and distinctions of the world and wanting to renounce it, and become Buddhist monks or nuns. Old age and disappointment may make them more likely to want to cease attempting to attain worldly ambitions, and hope for Amida’s paradise; even younger people, though, can sometimes be devout. If one cannot yet renounce the world, then one can, if a wealthy courtier, pay for scripture readings and make splendid gifts to monks who are following the path which one cannot yet take oneself. I wonder what Gautama Buddha himself would have thought of all this.
The lords and ladies of the Heian court, as portrayed in the novel, alternate between striving for the pleasures and distinctions of the world and wanting to renounce it, and become Buddhist monks or nuns. Old age and disappointment may make them more likely to want to cease attempting to attain worldly ambitions, and hope for Amida’s paradise; even younger people, though, can sometimes be devout. If one cannot yet renounce the world, then one can, if a wealthy courtier, pay for scripture readings and make splendid gifts to monks who are following the path which one cannot yet take oneself. I wonder what Gautama Buddha himself would have thought of all this.
