The Tale of Genji: chapters 53-54, patriarchy, authorship, ending

1/ As chapter 53 reveals, Ukifune survives. But as she finds refuge among the nuns in the village, she finds herself harassed by the Captain, the nun’s son-in-law. It is a cycle she cannot escape. He’s like another Niou who cannot take no for an answer and doesn’t want to leave her alone. 
In a way The Tale of Genji seems to be about men behaving badly—men harassing, pursuing women single-mindedly just after a glimpse of their looks, even abducting and raping them. There are examples of male entitlement throughout the novel, there’s also grooming and substitution. But the male characters are as complex and diverse as the female characters, the author seems to love them all—even Niou, the worst of the men, is shown to have a vulnerable side and to have feelings. 
In my opinion, The Tale of Genji is not an anti-male book, but Murasaki Shikibu means to critique the patriarchal system: it is a deeply sexist society with double standards—men have ranks and power, a woman’s rank depends on her father; men have lots of freedom, can have multiple wives and go to many places, women have confined lives and remain hidden behind curtains and screens; women bear more of the consequences when there’s an affair or a scandal; women cannot study the Chinese language and the Chinese classics and must not “flaunt” their knowledge; women are dependent on men (male relatives and husband) and their only refuge outside a stable relationship with a man is religion; a woman like Ukifune has to make a choice between 2 men and would be disgraced either way whilst the men can have multiple wives, and so on. 
Murasaki Shikibu shows that it’s not just the men, but the society, the customs, because other women also enforce it. When a woman doesn’t want to speak to a man or reply to his letter, he doesn’t take no for an answer but her gentlewomen also put pressure on her and urge her to accept. Some gentlewomen go further and show a side entrance so the man can get in, like Onna San no Miya’s (The Third Princess from Suzaku) or Oigimi’s.
Even the nuns that Ukifune lives with urge her to reply to the Captain, instead of accepting that she doesn’t want to have anything to do with him, and they all push her to the point of officially becoming a nun. That is her only refuge.
As shown in chapter 54, even this refuge is insecure. In Ono, Ukifune doesn’t have peace as she wants—the kind of peace that other women at court get after becoming nuns in the Genji section. 

2/ In the Uji chapters, Murasaki Shikibu narrows down her focus to a small set of characters, unlike earlier, and digs deeper into their feelings. The characters are psychologically complex and interesting, and as vividly real as many major characters in the Genji section, in some ways even deeper, although the Uji part comprises of only 10 chapters. 
The Uji sisters are distinct and all fascinating—Oigimi, Naka no Kimi, and Ukifune. But Ukifune’s narrative arc is particularly interesting, and affecting. I like that she’s introverted and keeps things to herself, but she has another side to her—a passionate side that makes her fall for Niou and makes her, out of the blue, decide to disappear and take a fateful step.  

3/ I’ve just read an essay by Janine Beichman, in which she notes that the Uji chapters are about: 

“the dispossessed nobility and their relations, almost all of them women. They are marginals, comfortable neither with the highborn nor with the low, and their awareness of rank and class is acute and painful.” (source)

In the Genji section, there are 2 characters with similar circumstances—Akashi and Tamakazura. Their luck is meeting Genji. The 3 Uji sisters are the different ways Akashi could have ended up if not for Genji. But Ukifune has the worst lot because she has noble lineage but isn’t recognised by her Prince father. 

4/ I wonder who the spirit that attacks Ukifune is.  

5/ As a first-time reader who is reading in translation, I shouldn’t weigh in on the authorship debate, but then ignorance and lack expertise have never stop people from voicing their opinions.
The Tale of Genji has 54 chapters, Genji dies after ch.41 and 42-54 focus on 2 central characters—Kaoru (Kashiwagi’s son) and Niou (the Third Prince, Genji’s grandson). Ch.45-54 are called the Uji chapters because the story moves away from court and focuses on a place called Uji. Because so little known about Murasaki Shikibu’s life and the mention in her diary doesn’t say what stage she was on and how many chapters she wrote, there have been debates and different theories—the main ones, as far as I’m aware, are about ch.42-54 or 45-54. 
Another theory, proposed by Yosano Akiko, is that Murasaki Shikibu only wrote ch.1-33 and ch.35-54 were written by her daughter Daini no Sanmi (what about 34?). 
There are a few people who believe it’s a different author because the tone is darker, but if you look at Edith Wharton, The Age of Innocence is mellow, melancholic, and nostalgic, not as harsh and misanthropic as The House of Mirth and The Custom of the Country, and Jane Austen’s last 4 novels, Pride and Prejudice, Mansfield Park, Emma, and Persuasion all have different tones. The important thing is the style, especially on the sentence level. I wouldn’t know.
My main concern is, how likely is it that there was another genius to appear at the right time and take up the work without a drop in quality or a significant difference in style that escaped most readers?
Or maybe I should rephrase it, as the original manuscript’s long gone and we will never know the truth, can we accept the one-author idea?
My impression, reading in translation, is that there’s nothing that stands out and makes me think that there’s a different author from chapter 34, 42, or 45. If we have to accept the sole authorship through faith, my reading of the Uji chapters is that I can believe the author’s still Murasaki Shikibu—a deeper, darker, more pessimistic Murasaki Shikibu but still her.

6/ See what Kaoru says to His Reverence, the monk who has saved and exorcised Ukifune: 

““…I myself did not intend to honor her particularly, but although it was hardly more than chance that brought her to me, I never felt that she deserved to fall his far…”” (Ch.54)

Let’s go back and see what Kaoru says to Niou earlier: 

““... it occurred to me that I might see her now and again, if it had not been that at the time I might unfortunately have risked a degree of criticism by doing so. I therefore installed her there, in that distant and lonely place, and I managed to visit her all too rarely. Meanwhile I gathered that she was not especially eager to rely solely on me. However, that would have mattered only if I had meant to treat her with high honor, which I did not, and it was of little consequence as long as my main wish was simply to provide for her welfare…”” (Ch.52) 

I might not understand Heian culture very well to get the nuance, but Kaoru doesn’t sound very likable on these 2 occasions. 

7/ This comes from the introduction of Royall Tyler’s collection of essays The Disaster of the Third Princess: 

“… Opinions like these suggest the need to define what it means to say that the Uji chapters, brilliant as they are in themselves, are integral to the rest.
Mitani responded to this need by providing a definition that he rested on the opening words of “Niou Miya”: “His light was gone, and none among his many descendants could compare to what he had been.”
Genji’s world, vividly present a moment ago, has gone dark. The Uji chapters have indeed been called a tale of “darkness.” As one literary critic wrote in 1949, “With [them], the atmosphere of The Tale of Genji turns dark and cold, as though one had stepped down into a cellar.” The opening words of Part Three are therefore fundamental to Mitani’s view of these chapters as a “hollowed-out tale of absence,” that is to say, the story of a world now without a center. The effect of this “darkness” is to give Genji’s life a new, retrospective radiance. Kobayashi Masaaki similarly called these chapters an “anti-monogatari” that succeeds Genji’s story in a Hegelian dialectic of light and darkness. In short, Mitani attributed the value of Part Three above all to the way it renews the reader’s pleasure, by contrast, in Parts One and Two.” 

As a note, the structure of The Tale of Genji is generally said to be: Part I (ch.1-33), Part II (ch.34-41), and Part III (ch.42-54). 
Royall Tyler goes on to say “Whether the same author or another planned this effect, however, remains imponderable”, but does it really matter if the effect is there? Most readers of The Tale of Genji would see the Uji chapters as the culmination of the tale—the 2 characters Kaoru and Niou make us see Genji in a different light, and the darkness of the last part gives Genji’s life a retrospective radiance. 

8/ Does the abrupt and unresolved ending mean that The Tale of Genji is unfinished? Or is it a deliberate open ending?
People take 2 sides: 

“Arthur Waley, who made the first English translation of the whole of The Tale of Genji, believed that the work as we have it was finished. Ivan Morris, however, author of The World of the Shining Prince, believed that it was not complete and that later chapters were missing. Edward Seidensticker, who made the second translation of the Genji, believed that Murasaki Shikibu had not had a planned story structure with an ending as such but would simply have continued writing as long as she could.” (Wikipedia) 

 Again, I wouldn’t know, and probably shouldn’t say anything at the moment as I’ve just finished reading The Tale of Genji (after over 7 weeks). But I can see arguments for a deliberate choice—a story, a book (almost) always has a conclusion but life doesn’t, life goes on. In the last section of the book, there is a clear idea of a cycle—Kaoru pursues Oigimi whilst Niou flirts with Naka no Kimi, then they both move onto Ukifune; Ukifune, torn between the two, runs away and finds refuge among the mountain rustics only to find herself harassed by the Captain; once the Captain is gone (which appears temporary), Kaoru now finds her and everyone puts pressure on her, even though she has become a nun. It is a cycle that never ends. Is there a real need to go on?   

The Tale of Genji is a magnificent book, among the greatest novels I’ve ever read.