for a ten or twenty minutes on most nights before bed. The book details court life in Heian Japan (approximately 1,000 years ago) through a series of diary entries, lists, and observations written by a lady-in-waiting at the court. The Pillow Book is not arranged according to time or even topic, which makes it perfect for reading in short bursts. The style is pleasant (in large part owing to Morris' skilled translation) but it occured to me that it's wrong to compare it with a diary -- it's more like a blog, albeit one without links.This book was originally assigned reading in Prof. Ostrowski's World History: Rise of the East course.
1 comment:
I wrote a whole paper on that very topic.
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