 hello everyone so this video is a little bit of a mea culpa and it's a video i wanted to make because i feel like i wasn't fair on one of my latest videos if you saw the video about the books i've been reading i mentioned one particular book that i was still in the process of reading called called the tale of genji and i said i was getting kind of sick of it because all it talked about was this guy genji who kept hooking up with girls left and right without bearing any of the consequences and and i seem and i felt annoyed at it let's say but it is a classic it's probably the main classic book of japanese literature and i felt that i would being kind of close minded and not very fair toward it so now since i finished it i wanted to talk a bit more about it and hopefully give more of a fair view about the book itself about the story as well well so before we get started you probably noticed my product placement over here i oh my shadow's covering it there we go just move everything okay and my my shadow's covering i might have to maybe i should move it at some point anyway there we go so the tale of genji is a book once again that was written around a thousand years ago i think in the early 1000s in japan this is during the heyan period was called the heyan period now this was written by a lady who we now call uh lady morasaki she wrote this book basically throughout her life so obviously it wasn't written all just in one year was written throughout a long period and it is a very long book and it's like it says it's the tale of genji now i read the tyler translation royal tyler is his name see this is how long the story is i also have however because i found it for a dollar 50 i found it very cheap at a local used bookstore the arthur waley translation this was written in the 1950s i think and uh these are the two main english translations of this book so since this was cheap i was curious about it this only has the first seven chapters and then i continued with this one i have to say i prefer this one this english is already a bit old-fashioned uh even though it's the 1950s but you know he's trying to write in the more of an old-fashioned way i guess but this version i thought was great because it um it has so much annotation down here below which you really need to follow a lot of this stuff and also what i found most helpful was at the beginning of each chapter it says the people involved a list of people involved and what their position is and it kind of says how it relates to earlier chapters this is very useful because people are referred to not by their name but by their position and their position tends to change as they get promoted throughout the story and everything so when they're referring to his highness of war or the lady of something you kind of have to keep track and wait oh that guy was the counselor but now he's a highness of war so there'll be a chapter where they're talking you know his highness is talking to his excellency who's also talking to his majesty and i can't remember who's who so that really helps also at the end of the second book no this is the first book so at the end of the second book they have a chapter by chapter brief summary of i mean they have a lot of notes on everything which is which helps a lot and is but here they have a chapter by chapter summary of the main points of everything going on which also helps because it can get confusing after this much reading so i just wanted to discuss it a little bit more in detail because i felt like i wasn't fair that time and to kind of just dismiss it the way i did and uh and it is a classic there's a reason why it's a classic so i wanted to talk about it a bit more it was also and it was kind of it was closed minded of me just to say oh this guy you know to dismiss it due to sexism now that might sound weird because being sexist is closed minded but we have to remember that it was a different time in a different place and it was written by a woman and so just because you have a guy going around hooking up with a bunch of ladies not treating them well at all because they basically have no power and he has all the power etc is not a reason to dismiss it out of hand if it is a classic and there's obviously a lot more going on and it is a um it's a very interesting book about life during the heian period in japan about the court life about how they lived and i think it's really well portrayed especially after reading so much of it you really get to enter their world and so i did find that very fascinating so i wanted to talk a bit more about that unfortunately to talk about i will have spoilers if spoilers on a 1000 year old story are possible so if you don't want to hear the the spoilers then you should probably skip ahead now oh actually right before i say that i should say i so just now i also dismissed the arthur waley translation it's actually very good and uh Jorge Luis Borges who you probably know Borges the uh the argentine the argentinian author he recommended that all his readers read this uh read the tale of genji and he was talking about the waley translation obviously it is a good story and it's highly recommended and so that's also why i felt it was unfair of me to dismiss it out of hand anyway if you don't want to hear any of the spoilers you should you can skip ahead to this time here i will put a time here because i don't know yet but once i'm editing i will know now once again this is the story of a guy called genji this guy called genji he's related to the emperor but he's not the emperor and he's considered quote unquote a commoner because he's not of the main emperor line and in fact his father was the emperor but his mother was a concubine so he wasn't in line to be the emperor but he was very closely related and then there are a bunch of intrigues and things going on i should mention there are no war scenes no military campaigns nothing along those lines this is not that type of book and it shows also that this was not that type of court this was a very literary court a very leisurely court these are high class officials during a relatively peaceful time in japan and so all they spend their time on is court intrigues um relationships they have poetry competitions painting competitions they the way they speak is extremely poetic obviously religion plays a big part as well so these are all the things that are going on in here and obviously people growing going through life and dying in fact two-thirds or three-fourths of the way in this whole story genji himself dies but the story keeps going on it continues and in fact it continues with his kids in the next generation and and so on and so forth so it's a tale of genji and then some actually and well and here's one interesting thing i want to show you so the interesting thing is they never actually mentioned that kenji died that genji dies what they have is one chapter called vanished into the clouds and then that's it there's nothing in that chapter and it goes right on to the next chapter called the perfume prince and that starts the basically the second part of the story after genji's death and it's very interesting so they never mentioned genji dies but all they have is an empty chapter called vanished into the clouds which i find a very interesting literary device like even if it had been a modern author if someone like you know one of the authors i like umberto echo or uh or um robertson davies or herald cream or a comma or someone like that if they just had a chapter that had vanished into the clouds or just an empty chapter and then they continued without the main protagonist or there and you kind of just understand after a while that he died i mean it's i don't know as far as i know it's never been used and it seems like a very interesting literary device they might have done this for other reasons here maybe you don't want to mention that the main guy died or something but or maybe it was understood but i don't know i find i find that very interesting and and then it started with the second part of the story and i actually enjoyed that second part or the last one third of of the whole story more i felt more was going on and it was it made more sense there was more of a plot so let's say that followed one specific line rather than a bunch of disparate things that don't many times don't lead in very many places but they kind of just wind back and forth so the first two thirds is a bit more like that i guess it's a bit more like life because that's how life occurs the last third i felt had more of a central plot and things revolved around that more and so i did enjoy that a bit more probably um and and another point i should mention is that as i said before it's very confusing because everyone's referred to by their title it's very rare that they refer to themselves to each other by their name and that's actually on purpose back then in japan in the heyan period in the court you did not refer to people by their name and if you're talking to someone and if i'm talking to someone and his name is fred and he's the high counselor i won't say hey are you going to the party tonight i won't say hey is fred going to the party tonight but i will say hey is the high counselor going to the party tonight and if i'm the high commissioner he'll be like oh is the high commissioner going to come you know i'll be going is the high commissioner going to come as well and so people were referred to each other and other and and third parties by their title more so more than by their name or even you so tyler wanted to bring this out more in in the in the translation so he he keeps in that tradition which does make it confusing but it also helps a lot into entering into their mentality into their way of life because obviously this is a very formal world that they live in if you're referring to everyone around you by their title and by and we're also referring to third parties as by their title then obviously this is a very formal world and and it gives an idea of that after a while that you're reading this you really get to enter their world more so i did appreciate that even though it kind of made things a bit more complicated once you learn how to navigate it once you learn how to use the things at the beginning of each chapter try to keep track of everyone then it definitely does help i should also mention that at the beginning of the of the waley version there is a family tree this is a short family tree because i don't think it goes until yeah it's just the first part for these first seven chapters i don't know if it was an integral part if it was included in the waley version or if they just added it for this edition here of the book the dover edition but i found that useful at the beginning as well um i wish they had a family tree in this one of course after a while it becomes so intricate that it wouldn't be worth it because not only are they're getting married and having kids but they're having second wives and every now and then this guy hooks up with another guy's wife and they have a kid but kind of don't tell the husband and the husband never even finds out and then later this happens and the same thing happens well in fact that was one of the things that annoyed me because that's what genji does to a guy who he considers a friend he sleeps with his wife they have a kid and which is very obviously genji's kid but he never tells the guy that he cuckolded the guy whose wife he slept with of course later on in life genji has another what do you call them courtesan mistress a lady who's with him but then he finds out that his best friend's young his best friend's son actually sleeps with her and together they have a kid who genji has to pretend is his but it's not really and so i guess that's his comeuppance that's karma getting back to him but anyway uh that's pretty much it i know my review was here and there in the end i really did like it i think on good reason i gave it four stars probably 4.5 total also not much happens on the other hand it's a 1000 year old book and if you want to enter into hay and court life and see get a glimpse into that time and that place then you can't do any better than this and it's a huge read obviously this is not short this is not easy this is not light so it is a commitment what i would do and what i did at the beginning probably should have stuck to it was just to read a bit and then i would read something else then i would come back to it then something else and come back to it or toward the end what i did was i just had it by my bedside so during the during the day i was reading other things you know if i travel the book i carry around with me obviously something lighter but then a night time before going to sleep i'd be reading this i do recommend at some point if you're interested in japanese literature and the classics and if or if you want to read a classic that's not from your country or that's not western maybe that you haven't heard of or you don't hear much of then the tale of genji is definitely a good place to go it's because like i mentioned in the other thing every country every society every place has its own classics say in the english language it'll be shakespeare in italian we have dante bocaccio in in france they have we have molliere ravele and so every everyone has their own classics their own first classics let's say that first came out and in japan this is pretty much it there are other novels other books that were written before and during and after but this pretty much takes the cake do that later i don't know why i'm trying to do that now that's all i hope i didn't leave you with a sour taste in your mouth this is actually quite a good book a very good book there's a reason why it's a classic many reasons why it's a classic and so if you do feel up for a challenge definitely check it out the tale of genji i recommend the tyler translation but probably the waley translation is just as good and obviously most videos i talk about freelancing and i talk about freelance translation this is just an in between video where i wanted to discuss this in between other videos that are happening and i feel like i feel very awkward with that behind me because i'm a bit off to the side and i keep wanting to go into the middle to talk to you but i know i should be staying on this side and balancing it out with my book but i'm definitely not used to that i'm probably fine some different way to do this for the future but that's about it for now i'll talk to you next time in the next video where we will talk about freelancing and with more tips and tricks about freelancing in general so stay tuned until then bye