A review by staci_taylor
GenjiHeike: Selections from The Tale of Genji and The Tale of the Heike by Helen Craig McCullough, Murasaki Shikibu, Hiroshi Kitagawa

2.0

Supposedly, the Tale of Heike is the most notorious of stories in Ancient Japan... for me, it was a long read with dreary, confusing, and tedious Japanese names!! I enjoyed the Tale of Genji way more, even if its not as famous. This was written by one of the first female writers to take over literacy in a male world, but it definitely feels like a man wrote it -- props to her. I loved the intruding poems that randomly appeared... thought those were very beautiful and demonstrated the Buddhist morals that influenced the awesome Heian period.