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A review by casparb
The Pillow Book by Sei Shōnagon
4.0
4.5
When we read texts older than about half a century, I tend to find that it's the details, the human details that work best. Hector's bathtub in the Iliad, Launcelot's 'clattering' in Le Morte D'Arthur, Bashō's poetry and the geographies in Phaedrus speak to this. Sei Shōnagon's Pillow Book is composed perhaps entirely of such details. It's entirely beautiful. The zuihitsu genre impresses me deeply as a conversation between poetry and prose, and I do wish to see more engagement with it in the West - Oli Hazzard's new book aims to do exactly that (I am informed).
The book opens with the pinkness of a sunset from a millennium ago. Details - temporality everywhere.
[257] "Things that give you pleasure -
-It's very pleasing when someone you don't know well mentions an old poem or story that you haven't heard of, and then it comes up again in conversation with someone else. If you come across it later in something you're reading, there's the delightful moment when you cry, 'Oh, is that where it comes from!', and you enjoy recalling the person's mention of it.
-Then there's the pleasing moment when you've heard that someone who matters a lot to you and who's far from you - perhaps in some distant place, or even simply elsewhere in the capital - has been taken ill, and you're worrying and wringing your hands over the uncertainty, when news arrives that the illness has taken a turn for the better.
-Someone you love is praised by others"
She's a spectacular writer and poet. O translation.
When we read texts older than about half a century, I tend to find that it's the details, the human details that work best. Hector's bathtub in the Iliad, Launcelot's 'clattering' in Le Morte D'Arthur, Bashō's poetry and the geographies in Phaedrus speak to this. Sei Shōnagon's Pillow Book is composed perhaps entirely of such details. It's entirely beautiful. The zuihitsu genre impresses me deeply as a conversation between poetry and prose, and I do wish to see more engagement with it in the West - Oli Hazzard's new book aims to do exactly that (I am informed).
The book opens with the pinkness of a sunset from a millennium ago. Details - temporality everywhere.
[257] "Things that give you pleasure -
-It's very pleasing when someone you don't know well mentions an old poem or story that you haven't heard of, and then it comes up again in conversation with someone else. If you come across it later in something you're reading, there's the delightful moment when you cry, 'Oh, is that where it comes from!', and you enjoy recalling the person's mention of it.
-Then there's the pleasing moment when you've heard that someone who matters a lot to you and who's far from you - perhaps in some distant place, or even simply elsewhere in the capital - has been taken ill, and you're worrying and wringing your hands over the uncertainty, when news arrives that the illness has taken a turn for the better.
-Someone you love is praised by others"
She's a spectacular writer and poet. O translation.