A few years ago I read The Tale of the Lady Ochikubo and was astonished to find a book that read like an eighteenth century English novel in early mediaeval Japan. I returned to Heian Japan to read Sei Shonagon’s The Pillow Book, which I found a fascinatingly contradictory piece of work. The most obvious contradiction is how it manages to be both a depiction of a culture, alien by both time and place while also being (and a hate to say this) curiously relatable.
Shonagaon writes about the court culture of Japan almost a thousand years ago. Athelstan was the king of England when she was writing this, and the lives of those Anglo-Saxons, even with the information of the chronicles, seem astonishingly distant. Yet, despite that distance in time, place and culture in general, there are so many times when I smiled with recognition at what Sei Shonagon had to say (though I equally had to look up the notes to try and understand what was happening).
This dichotomy seems to exist because the book has two main modes. The first is an anecdotal mode, where Shonagon talks about events within the life of the court. Many of these do feel culturally distant and are the ones where the notes are invaluable. The other is a list-making mode, where she talks about the things that annoy her, fill her with a sense of beauty, make her laugh - these are the ones that have us nodding along with her.
She talks about the frustration that tweezers never seem to pull out the hair you want, that middle management feels more authoritative when housed in a portly frame, that “nothing is more unlovely than a fly” or that “everything that cries at night is wonderful, with the exception, of course, of babies”. (I also wanted to point out that the back of a piece of sewing is listed under ‘repulsive things’.) In being hyper-focused on herself and her experiences, she manages to be universal. She talks about the beauty of dew on a spider’s web and remarks how no-one around her ever seems to see that beauty, thus making her beloved of anyone who’s ever felt like that.
Yet, she is operating in a very structured and alien culture. The whole issue of ‘taboo directions’ was one I could never quite understand, even as it plays a part in many of the anecdotes. There are correct items of clothing to wear, in correct combinations and in correct colours. One anecdote tries to get a laugh out of someone going to court in their lacquered hat, a point of comedy that makes no sense to someone who doesn’t see the lacquered hat as casual wear. There’s a lot of talk of clothes, and while the details of that clothing culture doesn’t translate well, the interest in clothes themselves does.
As well as clothes, poetry plays a role in the court that is different from now. It’s common practice to send beautifully written snippets of poetry on carefully selected coloured paper and wrapped up with a gift or branch that visually ties in with the poem but also adds to the connotations of it. These are highly prized and expected as standard at certain times, especially after a midnight tryst. What’s more, quoting poetry is a highly prized art and there are frequent moments where an apposite quotation is described as a marvel of intellect, culture and breeding. It’s interesting that the writer is known for her skills with poetry, yet also feels incredibly self-conscious about it and it’s hard to know how much she is humble-bragging at any one time.
Another interesting contradiction of the piece is how much it is a performance and how much a private thing. The Pillow Book gets an origin story, she’s given a wad of beautiful, creamy paper to do with as she wishes, writes down all the things she wants before it’s accidentally found, passed around and enjoyed. This story of accidental authorship was repeated a lot in eighteenth century writing and it always comes across as disingenuous. How much does Sei Shonagon write down whatever she fancies and how much is she shaping the work for an audience?
I think this contradiction might be more understandable in the context of the time. The women of the court are often hidden behind moveable screens and show themselves and their personalities by their sleeves. These sleeves were long, drooping and multi-layered, poking out from underneath the screen and often the only way to know anything about a woman was through these sleeves. I think the book is doing something similar, showing and not showing at the same time, an intentional-accidental sort of expression.
It’s not a book that can be read quickly, or at least, I didn’t find it such. The book is a patchwork of lists and anecdotes which hop around timeframes and tone. It doesn’t build up to a climax but can be understood either piece by piece or as a whole. This means the book doesn’t pull the reader forward at any great pace, but invites them to inspect each little section as a jewel in itself, and then to look back on it as a larger tapestry. I very much enjoyed The Pillow Book and it’s one I’d like to visit again, probably at a time when I can sit contemplatively in a garden (and not when I’ve manically hauling boxes about trying to settle into a new house).
