Reading women (2)

See my earlier blog post about reading women. 

1/ With the plan of reading more books by women this year, so far I have read: 
- Edith Wharton: The House of Mirth, The Custom of the Country, The Age of Innocence. 
- Daphne du Maurier: My Cousin Rachel. 
- Kate Chopin: “At the ‘Cadian Ball”, “The Storm”, “Désirée’s Baby”. 
- Willa Cather: “Neighbour Rosicky”, “The Sculptor’s Funeral”. 
- Carson McCullers: The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter. 
- Murasaki Shikibu: The Tale of Genji. 
- Sei Shonagon: The Pillow Book. 
I also reread Mansfield Park and Persuasion. 
I like them all, and now Murasaki Shikibu and Edith Wharton are among my favourite writers. 

2/ The Tale of Genji is the greatest book I’ve read this year, and among the best I’ve read. Here’s what I wrote at The Common Breath: 

“From afar, The Tale of Genji may not look very appealing because it’s from the 11th century, and the culture is indeed alien, but in terms of technique, it is surprisingly modern. It forced me to rethink everything about world literature and the history of literature, because most of my favourite writers come from the 19th century (Tolstoy, Austen, Melville, Flaubert, etc.), then I realised that in 11th century Japan, a female writer had already figured out everything about the psychological novel.
I think it would be hard to read The Tale of Genji without getting a sense of awe, as it is a novel of great scope, longer than War and Peace, with about 400 characters. The characters are all unnamed, because it is rude to use personal names at Heian court, so we know of the characters by their titles or nicknames related to a flower, a poem, or a residence. The challenge is that the characters get promoted and change titles, or move house, and their inter-connections are also complex, so it is more difficult than War and Peace, but Murasaki Shikibu keeps track of all of them and the characters are all distinct and memorable.
As Tolstoy does with Russia in War and Peace and Anna Karenina, The Tale of Genji captures the intellectual and moral climate of Japan in the Heian period — we learn about the court system, beliefs and lifestyles, rituals, festivals, letter-writing, calligraphy, poetry, music, dance, incense-making, painting, gardening, Buddhist philosophy, and so on. At the same time, because it’s written by a woman, and about the women surrounding Genji as much as about Genji, The Tale of Genji also shows us what it’s like to be a woman in Heian Japan. It is also a beautiful novel, pervaded by mono no aware. A central theme is the fragility and impermanence of life, but it is not only sadness—in the idea of mono no aware, there is also a celebration of fleeting beauty, while it lasts.
It is an extraordinary novel, one that should be read more.” 

Everyone who knows me and knows my obsession with Jane Austen would be surprised to hear that I think Murasaki Shikibu is a greater writer. It’s partly because The Tale of Genji is an immense, impressive novel, in which she has to keep track of a large number of characters and still makes them vivid and distinctive (see my blog post about 2 kinds of big novels). She’s similar to Tolstoy in that she works on a large canvas, but you’re even more in awe when you come closer and see all the subtlety, all the fine details. Another reason is the way she writes about death and its impact, mortality, and the fragility of life. I love Jane Austen, but cannot help noticing, since Nabokov pointed it out in his lecture on Mansfield Park, that in her novels, deaths always happen off-stage and tend to drive the plot forward—no character dies in the author’s arms. 
There’s something else that I love in The Tale of Genji: the spirit of the Rokujo Haven is one of the finest creations I’ve encountered in literature—it is not a ghost, because the person is still alive, it’s an incarnation of her jealousy, hatred, and bitterness. The spirit may have its roots in Japanese folk tales, I don’t know, but it works so well in the novel because the Rokujo Haven, as herself, is unhappy but unaware of her jealousy of Aoi, but the bitterness takes the form of a spirit to attack Aoi savagely and kill her—Murasaki Shikibu is aware of the gap between conscious and unconscious feelings. 
She doesn’t just show the material aspects of life—she shows something more, something beyond them. 
In some ways, Murasaki Shikibu is comparable (though not similar) to Tolstoy, but with her, I don’t have to struggle the way I sometimes do with Tolstoy’s ideas and the preacher in him. 
Between her and Jane Austen, I naturally feel closer to Jane Austen because I’ve known her works for several years and am familiar with British culture, but I already feel that Murasaki Shikibu’s also close to my heart, in spite of time, in spite of the cultural barriers. 

3/ My reading took a new direction because of the pandemic, as I started reading East Asian classics—The Tale of Genji fits both (East Asian and female author). Little did I know, it would change me forever. 

4/ Edith Wharton and Carson McCullers are also wonderful. Both of them can create vivid and complex characters, and both fit my ideal of not moralising and not spoon-feeding readers, but in a way they are opposite. Edith Wharton is the cold, harsh one, who dissects society, sees through everything, and exposes the hypocrisies and pretensions of the upper-class, often in a misanthropic, mocking tone, whereas Carson McCullers, at least in The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter, writes about a range of misfits and depicts them with lots of love and compassion. 
McCullers is even more remarkable because she was only 23 when the novel was published—is it not stunning that a 23-year-old white woman in the South in 1940 could write so well and with so much sympathy about a bitter middle-aged black doctor? Is it not even more incredible that a 23-year-old could see through and expose the type like Jake Blount—a Marxist who goes on and on about grand ideas, but who is deep down very racist, heartless, hypocritical, and willing to sacrifice people for his cause? 

5/ I want to read more books by Carson McCullers and Willa Cather. 
Edith Wharton too, but at least I’ve read her 3 major works. 

6/ I also like Daphne du Maurier, and so far have read Rebecca and My Cousin Rachel. Both are enjoyable and well-plotted. She’s a great storyteller. 

7/ So far my plan to read more books by women has been going well, and I’ve discovered some fantastic authors.