When I embarked on an adventure centred on The Tale of Genji a few years ago, and as part of that project read and ranked the various translations of the work into English, top of my list was the Royall Tyler version. Given that decision, it will come as no surprise that I’ve been on the look-out for more of his work (including a recent read supplementing his earlier translation of The Tale of the Heike), and there was one book in particular I was hoping to get around to trying during my #JanuaryInJapan reading at the start of the year. Unfortunately, it didn’t quite arrive in time, so it’s had to wait its turn, but I managed to set aside a few days for it recently, and it certainly proved to be worth the wait. A book that takes a closer look at certain aspects of the Tale, it also provides a few surprises, even for those of us who think we know the story fairly well…
*****
A Reading of The Tale of Genji comprises seven essays Tyler wrote at various points on Murasaki Shikibu’s classic of world literature. The writer himself denies that they form a coherent whole, and they’ve all appeared before in a work entitled The Disaster of the Third Princess. This version of the book is a lightly edited, updated edition running to almost three-hundred pages, and an informative, entertaining work it is, too.
In Tyler’s introduction, he sets out his aims:
Rather than introduce The Tale of Genji in a general way, these seven essays offer a few fundamental perspectives on a work that has stood for a thousand years as a rich and varied masterpiece.
‘Introduction’, p.9 (Blue-Tongue Books, 2016)
That said, he then goes on to provide a gentle warning for potential readers:
No interested reader should find them unapproachable, but they admittedly assume a degree of familiarity with the work.
I’ll second that view. With an in-depth approach to events scattered throughout the Tale, this is not a book for those yet to embark upon a journey through Genji’s world.
The first essay, ‘Genji and Murasaki: Between Love and Pride’, by far the longest piece in the book, analyses the relationship between our shining hero and his long-suffering ‘wife’. Tyler analyses their many ups and downs with a focus on three particularly trying moments, namely Genji’s relationships with the Akashi Lady, Princess Asagao and the Third Princess. It’s all very nicely done, with the writer showing Genji’s gaslighting for what it is:
Genji’s dramatic, relatively unfettered life, one that could only be a man’s, is not comparable to Murasaki’s, restricted as it has been by all that a woman must uphold and endure. He seems to imagine that, even now, she will believe she has no troubles just because he tells her so. His speech, which may also owe something of its tone to the pressure he himself feels, is a provocation that Murasaki cannot let pass without renouncing her own integrity and even her identity.
‘Genji and Murasaki: Between Love and Pride’, p.65
Tyler provides a convincing overview of Murasaki’s view of Genji’s romantic issues, and the effect they eventually have on her.
That one is fairly straight-forward, but elsewhere Tyler goes, if not into uncharted territory, then certainly slightly off the beaten path. The next chapter, ‘Genji and Suzaku: The Disaster of the Third Princess’, is the first devoted to a particular theory, in which Tyler claims that the rivalry underpinning the whole Tale is the relationship between Genji and his elder brother, Suzaku. The Shining One, despite being a mere commoner, can’t help but overshadow the actual emperor, and we’re shown a number of occasions where the younger brother has his own way (especially with women…). This culminates in the disaster that is Genji’s marriage to Suzaku’s favourite daughter, the Third Princess, which brings misfortune to all involved.
Perhaps the most intriguing of Tyler’s theories concerns Ukifune, the heroine of the final chapters of the Tale. As those who have read the book will know, she gets into a spot of bother after having intimate relations with both Kaoru and Niou (two young studs of the new generation), and ends up throwing herself into the river – or so we assume. In fact, in ‘Genji and Suzaku: The Possibility of Ukifune’, Tyler argues that while this is her intention, she is actually possessed by a spirit and transported to the spot where she’s eventually found. And the identity of the spirit? Well, that would be giving too much away, but rest assured that Tyler has a theory, and the details to back it up!
Some of the other essays included here go off in a different direction, showing connections between the Tale and other works of Heian literature. In ‘Genji and the Luck of the Sea’, the focus is on drawing parallels between Genji’s spiritual encounters with the God of the Sea and earlier mythical tales. Meanwhile, ‘Two Post-Genji Tales on The Tale of Genji’ goes in the opposite direction, with Tyler using later stories to back up some of his claims about what’s really happening in the Tale.
A Reading of the Tale of Genji is, of course, Tyler’s reading of the story, and as we’ve already seen, he’s not afraid to go against the flow in support of his theories:
One theme in Genji scholarship has to do with interpreting motifs and passages throughout the tale in such a way as to integrate Part Three [the post-Genji chapters] more convincingly with what precedes it. Schalow’s parallel between Genji and Kaoru (each with his “foundational relationship” and his series of “multiple substitutions) illustrates that trend.
It is natural that many scholars should prefer to grasp the work in this manner and so affirm the integrity of the whole. In practice, however, there are many reasons to find Part Three unusual.
‘Pity Poor Kaoru’, p.188
On occasion, Tyler can be slightly dismissive of theories he doesn’t agree with. In ‘Pity Poor Kaoru’, for example, he’s quick to play down Norma Field’s theory of ‘substitutes’ (as described in her book The Splendor of Longing in The Tale of Genji), arguing that there’s a substantial difference between Genji’s and Kaoru’s quests for replacement loves. However, on the whole, he’s quite happy to simply agree to disagree – The Tale of Genji is a work of such ambiguity in places that there’s ample room for competing interpretations…
The final essay, ‘Feminine Veils over Visions of the Male’, in some ways overlaps with the ideas presented in another Genj book I read a while back, Reginald Jackson’s A Proximate Remove: Queering Intimacy and Loss in The Tale of Genji. Here, Tyler explores several scenes in the Tale where characters express a desire for a male character to be female, or express a belief that their beauty is wasted on a man. It’s an interesting piece, and certainly suggests that as much as Genji and his friends enjoyed chasing women, they certainly had time to hang out with the boys, too.
A Reading of The Tale of Genji is a book I thoroughly enjoyed, and I suspect anyone who, like me, slipped down the Genji rabbit hole some time ago, will appreciate Tyler’s musings on the Tale. The only problem is that Tyler is such a proficient academic that he makes sure to include a bibliography of all his reading, in both Japanese and English, and that, alas, is a rather dangerous thing to do around me. You see, there are several books on that list that are just crying out to be read – I suspect I won’t be escaping from this rabbit hole any time soon…