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The Rest Is History
The hosts highlighted the book as an extraordinary medieval work, noting its wit, charm, and the vivid, playful personality of its author, especially in the Penguin Classics translation that situates it amid court politics. They praised its originality and likened its humor to that of P.G. Wodehouse, and announced they would explore it further in a later episode. The overall tone was an enthusiastic endorsement.
Episode: 561. The Golden Age of Japan: Secrets of the Imper...
The hosts praised it as a remarkable medieval masterpiece full of wit, charm and the author's vivid personality on every page.
I would argue one of the most extraordinary passages of prose you will ever read. It is the beginning of a really, really remarkable and original masterpiece called The Pillow Book...
And what shines through on every page is the wit, the brilliance, the sophistication, the charm, and the individual personality of the author in a way that I don't think I've ever encountered with any other work of medieval literature.
The fun of reading the Pillow Book is that Sei Shonagon is very, she's very playful. You can never entirely trust what she's saying, I think.
In the Penguin Classic translated by Meredith McKinney, she places the Pillow Book in the context of a political crisis at court that was directly threatening Seishonagon's position there.
It sounds a weird parallel, but I thought of P.G. Woodhouse writing Bertie Worcester in the 30s. It's that this world of kind of genial humour has no place really for depressions or wars.
Episode: 560. The Golden Age of Japan: Lady Murasaki and th...
The pillow book was announced as the next title the hosts plan to discuss in a future episode.
Wonderful. Thank you very much, Tom. So that book is the pillow book, and we'll be talking about that next time.
Episode: 658. Dawn of the Samurai: The Shadow of the Sword...
The hosts compared the lack of war scenes in The Tale of Genji to a similarly peaceful work, The Pillow Book. They used it to illustrate courtly culture with little martial content.
It's the same with the Pillow book, isn't it?
Episode: 659. Dawn of the Samurai: Bloodbath at the Bridge...
The newsletter was also likened to The Pillow Book for its elegance and balance.
a lot of people have been saying that the new newsletter is comparable probably only to The Tale of Genji and The Pillow Book in terms of elegance of composition, in terms of the wealth of information, the information about medieval Japan, and just the sort of general sense of beauty and poise and sort of beautiful balance to it.