The Tale of Genji, Volume 1 cover art

The Tale of Genji, Volume 1

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The Tale of Genji, Volume 1

By: Murasaki Shikibu, Dennis Washburn - translator
Narrated by: Brian Nishii
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About this listen

Murasaki Shikibu, born into the middle ranks of the aristocracy during the Heian period (794-1185 CE), wrote The Tale of Genji, widely considered the world's first novel, during the early years of the 11th century. Expansive, compelling, and sophisticated in its representation of ethical concerns and aesthetic ideals, Murasaki's tale came to occupy a central place in Japan's remarkable history of artistic achievement and is now recognized as a masterpiece of world literature.

The Tale of Genji is presented here in a flowing new translation for contemporary listeners, who will discover in its depiction of the culture of the imperial court the rich complexity of human experience that simultaneously resonates with and challenges their own. Washburn embeds annotations for accessibility and clarity and renders the poetry into triplets to create prosodic analogues of the original.

©2015 Dennis Washburn (translation) (P)2019 Blackstone Audio, Inc. Classics Fiction Genre Fiction

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All stars
Most relevant  
I was reading a biography where the subject had read Genji and as I’d never heard of it I looked it up. It’s a mammoth listen, and you have to pay attention to keep track, especially if the women. There are also points where you really don’t like the main character and I questioned why I was still listening, but continued anyway.

It’s a very different style where time is treated inconsistently, sometimes days take ages to describe and then suddenly it jumps and something really important has been skipped (I thought I’d skipped a chapter so re listened but I hadn’t), but that’s part of the charm.

I think it’s read really well, I thought I’d tire of the narrator after 35 hours but he was also compelling.

A couple of things to note, the chapters don’t seem to tie in at all with the chapters in the book. Also, I found it better to listen to the introduction and explanation at the end as it felt a bit overwhelming before I’d even started listening to the story.

Also, at done point I found Genji’s family tree online. I don’t recommend you look at it too early as it will contain spoilers, but once you’re well into the story it’s quite useful to get your head around some of the relationships.

Not my usual listen at all but would thoroughly recommend it. It’s not a passive listen.

Compelling listening

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It opens a world where the art of subtle considerations is key to success

Riveting

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A thousand-year-old masterpiece does not need too much introduction. The reason of review is to state 2 things (1) this is the BEST translation (2) Brian Nishii is the BEST voice artist. Please Mr. Nishii, read us more Japanese literature!

Beginning of World Literature

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What I love about this book is that it is so non linear, the heroes are morally grey and the book is the first case of the anti hero. When I listen to this it makes me think, why did she write this? There are many valuable secrets within this book and Brian nishi is a great narrator, if you enjoy the dream of the red chamber, the Chinese prose fiction master piece of an almost similar length, you will love this :)

Birth of prose fiction

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This translation and narration makes a story I suspect I would have found rather difficult much more accessible. The translation is lively and flows well. I found I really had to pay attention, but, though in some ways tricky, the story of Genji and the women he had an interestingly varied range of relationships with was worth it. Brian Nishii’s narration was really suitable and atmospheric.

Translation and narration make accessible

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I need to start by stating that my rating is not reflective of the book's value. It is a very highly esteemed piece of literature, possibly the first novel ever written (or what we know of and define today as a novel). It is definitely worth a read, if you are a very resolute admirer of ancient literature and cultures. Having read the reviews, I notice that a lot of people are able to appreciate it.
The narrator is great, I love to hear the Japanese names and the words pronounced in the authentic way.
Although the style has been made modern enough so it is easy to listen to, it requires that the reader completely sets aside modern expectations of relationships and male/female roles.
I am afraid that I could not do this, which was a great disappointment to me as I have read a lot of books that didn't agree with my world view and expected that I could deal with that. I couldn't. I haven’t even finished the book yet, and I am not sure that I ever will.
I came across a very long chapter where some men discuss how incredibly hard it is to find a decent woman. What they describe in stories of their experiences with women is basically an utterly abominable treatment of them with the expectation that they would tolerate everything without ever giving the slightest signal of disagreement or unhappiness. (I loved the story of the woman who bit her lover's finger in anger and his complete helplessness in understanding why this happened.)
I finally lost my patience when, having heard lengthy descriptions of how highly intelligent and well educated and perfectly poetic the ideal woman needs to be, it turned out that actually, there was an awful lot of things wrong in their thinking with women of that kind of sophistication.
Most of their descriptions of women come across as if out of thin air, basically their own fabrications of women they actually knew nothing about and didn't care much either.
Here goes. One man relates this story to his friends of a mistress he used to have, who started to get abused by the man's wife and his wife's family. (They are all married with several mistresses, who always get ditched and replaced by new ones.)
She was very distressed and couldn't seem to stop crying. He tries to console her with some very sophisticated poetry.
However, as that didn't seem to do much for her, he left and decided that if poetry recitals didn't work, surely ignoring her for a few weeks would. Then, after some time, he decides to peek in on her and their child and found that she had moved! With no explanation! Without as much as a forwarding address! Imagine that, the silly cow! If she had only told him how distressed she had been, he would have supported her more! Clearly, her fault!
I got so annoyed at these useless male characters that I started to think maybe this was meant to be a satirical writing. I did not find any reference anywhere to the book being a satire, though, so it probably isn't meant to be one. As much as I can tell, this is all dead serious.
This was when I thought that maybe the book was not for me, but I decided to give it some more reading (listening).
Genji didn't contribute much to these discussions at the time after all. Maybe he would turn out to be a bit brighter. I was also very interested what the women would contribute, surely they would have a say later. The novel was written by a woman after all!
After over 10 hours of listening, I only got to know that Genji is tragically spoilt and hopelessly flawed as a human character and might just be the worst among all of them.
What became more than I could then deal with were the details of his sick affections for a little girl. Though it is mentioned that (so far as I read) he had not slept with her, I could not read on. I really don't see why I should be interested in this very sick person even if he is the most beautiful man that ever lived, as he is constantly described by the writer.
I think I might be returning this one.

Disappointed

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