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A review by studiomikarts
Hojoki: a Buddhist Reflection on Solitude, Imperfection and Transcendence by Kamo No Chomei
inspiring
reflective
sad
4.0
This was an interesting book, providing the original Japanese text side-by-side with a new English translation of a 13th century Japanese hermit's writings. I loved how there were endnotes and interior figures adding historical context, making it easy to sympathize with the original author. As an intermediate student of the Japanese language, I first tried reading the Japanese as I went along, but the older pronunciations and unknown kanji made that difficult. That, on top of how interesting the story itself was--I just wanted to find out what happened next!
Happily, when I finished reading the English translation, at the end of the book there was a link for audio files, which were free to access! I immediately went through and listened to each chapter in Japanese, doing my best to read along. It's awesome that this resource is available because it's WAY easier to follow this old style of writing with a narrator to guide you. The inclusion of furigana would have been welcome to me, but I could see it being annoying for higher level Japanese readers (just how Romaji is annoying to me) so this seems like the best way to make the text accessible to all levels of Japanese language students.
As for the author and the text overall, it's not as deep or profound as I expected. It's actually quite pitiable. It's the experience of a man who saw countless horrors and turned his back on the world in despair. I feel sympathy, not inspiration, even when considering my own life of horrors. However, I did pluck a couple lovely and useful quotes from among the disaster and darkness, which I will share here:
Happily, when I finished reading the English translation, at the end of the book there was a link for audio files, which were free to access! I immediately went through and listened to each chapter in Japanese, doing my best to read along. It's awesome that this resource is available because it's WAY easier to follow this old style of writing with a narrator to guide you. The inclusion of furigana would have been welcome to me, but I could see it being annoying for higher level Japanese readers (just how Romaji is annoying to me) so this seems like the best way to make the text accessible to all levels of Japanese language students.
As for the author and the text overall, it's not as deep or profound as I expected. It's actually quite pitiable. It's the experience of a man who saw countless horrors and turned his back on the world in despair. I feel sympathy, not inspiration, even when considering my own life of horrors. However, I did pluck a couple lovely and useful quotes from among the disaster and darkness, which I will share here:
If something needs doing,
Why not be your own servant?
True, it requires effort,
But it's better than being obliged to another.
When you need to go somewhere, walk.
I exert myself,
But never to excess.
So even when fatigued,
I'm not distressed.