Occasions for Writing Poems: The Pillow Book

I finished The Pillow Book yesterday before bed, and it was really lovely. This passage especially suited my summertime mood and the humid weather (that has thankfully lifted since):

During the hot months it is a great delight to sit on the veranda, enjoying the cool of the evening and observing how the outlines of objects gradually become blurred (Shōnagon 200).

This is definitely a book of careful observations. It doesn't surprise me that Molly felt most connected with the lists of things from the natural world. That's one of the aspects of Shōnagon as a "character" that interest me... she is the sort of woman who keenly feels the difference between "the moist, gentle wind" of the Third Month and "the cool, rainy wind in the Eighth and Ninth Months" (Shōnagon 193). That's not a distinction I personally can relate to, but I enjoy becoming immersed in a voice that does.

Shōnagon's certainly not always likable... she can be snobby and at times cruel. One of the more hilarious moments for me is in her list of "Unsuitable Things" where she bemoans the elegant effect falling snow can give to simple houses that don't deserve it:

Snow on the houses of common people. This is especially regrettable when the moonlight shines down on it (Shōnagon 71).

I must confess that my primary interest lies more in these aspects of character... and especially relationships. I found the courtroom and bedroom politics fascinating! I wish I could appreciate the plum blossoms and the child eating strawberries half as much as the lover sneaking away with dawn's dew... but it just doesn't hold the same appeal! The observations and images leant the book beauty, the gossip kept me reading :)

I usually do remember books pretty accurately, which is why The Tale of Genji's disappearance from the memory banks is particularly disturbing. But I guess I didn't connect with the book too powerfully in my younger years. Maybe someday I'll return to it... but for now I'm pretty excited about reading Basho alongside Kimiko Hahn's Narrow Road to the Interior: Poems. And since we might be doing Hahn as a group when it's Molly's turn to host, Matsuo Basho's Narrow Road to the Interior: And Other Writings going to occupy my next "Japanese literature slot" when I've sifted through some more Woolf and tattoo research books...

Here's one last quote to leave us all with:

When I woke up late at night, the moonlight was pouring in through the window and shining on the bed-clothes of all the other people in the room. Its clear white brillance moved me greatly. It is on such occasions that people write poems (Shōnagon 213).

cited: Shōnagon, Sei. The Pillow Book of Sei Shōnagon. Trans. Ivan Morris. New York: Columbia University Press, 1991.