Scan barcode
A review by meghan111
The Pillow Book by Sei Shōnagon
4.0
Heavily featured in Ruth Ozeki's novel [b:My Year of Meats|12349|My Year of Meats|Ruth Ozeki|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1388513889s/12349.jpg|265218], I picked this up and read it in fragments here and there, basically the same way it was written. Lists of precise, interesting things and anecdotes about court life in Japan in the tenth century. Amazingly modern. The aesthetic is interesting, the lines of poetry carefully transcribed and delivered to a paramour, the women waiting for men to steal into their bedrooms at night.
Hateful things: "One is telling a story about old times when someone breaks in with a little detail that he happens to know, implying that one's own version is inaccurate - hateful behavior!
Very hateful is a mouse that scurries all over the place."
Pronouncements: "A Palm-Leaf Carriage Should Move Slowly.
"Oxen Should Have Very Small Foreheads.
A Preacher Ought To Be Good-Looking."
Beautifully precise descriptions of nature and weather.
Hateful things: "One is telling a story about old times when someone breaks in with a little detail that he happens to know, implying that one's own version is inaccurate - hateful behavior!
Very hateful is a mouse that scurries all over the place."
Pronouncements: "A Palm-Leaf Carriage Should Move Slowly.
"Oxen Should Have Very Small Foreheads.
A Preacher Ought To Be Good-Looking."
Beautifully precise descriptions of nature and weather.