I definitely want to read this, but my plan is to read the Tale of Genji first, which is a lot bigger than I thought. So I'll ring this in the meantime.

Want to join?
PM me your approximate location and mailing prefences.

Please journal when you receive it, read it and post it. Try not to keep it too long. Thanks.

PM the next person to get their address.

participants:
perfect-circle (uk, international)
Helly77 (uk, uk/international)
aava (fi, international)
moomin22 (at, international)
olmy omly (us)
synergy (us, prefer us/ca)
drusillamac (uk, international)
coolboxuk <--
azuki (us, international)

Went into post yesterday.

And came back today because the idiots sent it to the from address. And took over a week to do it. Idiots.

I hope to get it back in the post again this week. They better not charge me again.

ETA: 26/8/05 - back in post.

arrived today, thank you very much. It's currently second in line so hopefully won't have it for too long.

This was a beautiful story, some of the poems within conjured up gorgeous imagery. I did prefer the first half, the pre-court story as I found the story of her time with the royal court a little hard to follow (too many names to keep track of at some points, or maybe that was just me!) and, at times, it felt like it was not really going anywhere. I was also a little disappointed with the end, it felt a little rushed and rather suddenly wrapped up.

Thanks nut for sending this out. Off to Helly77 in the next couple of days.

RELEASE NOTES:

posted to Helly77

arrived safe and well :)

Will read and pass on as soon as possible :D

This was a beautifully written book with amazing clear descriptions of the land and the people of 11th century Japan. At times it was a little dry, but was certainly worth persevering. Considering I'm not a particularly Historical girl, this was excellent.

Have pm'd aava for address :)

thanks for sharing

RELEASE NOTES:

on its way to aava....

The book came this morning. I´m so looking forward reading this. Thanks nut (again!).

I read it during one weekend and have to say that it was wonderful - like being transported to the Heian period. It was beautifully written and I liked the waka-poems and all the cultural history bits. Have to say agree with perfect-circle that the end was a bit sudden. But all in all I somehow could relate with Murasaki, she was just a wonderful person.
I`d also like to read the original Tale of Genji.

Thanks nut for making this a ring! I´ve contacted moomin22 for the address and once I have it will mail the book.

----
26.10.2005: The book is on its way to Austria.

This arrived on Friday and is next on my TBR list. Thanks a lot Aava :-)

I have not read anything non-school related in much too long. (I have been doing the Knitting Olympics, which has taken all my bus time. But my project is done, before the Olympics finished no less.) I can't wait to start reading this book this weekend.

I am about halfway through the book at this point, but wanted to stop and share a recipe found in today's "Arlington Shopper", a free local paper, that made me think of Murasaki's family recipe for rice porridge with dried persimmons and chessnuts (although tea as a recent innovation of the Chinese at the time wouldn't have been used).

Red Rice in Oolong Tea (serves 4)
Note: This type of rice is know for its nutty, chewy taste which the authors suggest is particularly good with the tea flavor. Other oolongs are suggested as working equally well, including Formosa oolong or Ti Kwan Yin.

• 2.5 tbsp Wuyi Suixin oolong tea leaves
  
• 4 cups hot water
  
• 8 ounces uncooked red rice
  
• 2 ounces pecan halves
  
• 1 ounce dried cherries or dried cranberries
  
• 1 bunch chives, finely chopped
  
• salt to taste

Steep the tea leaves in water. Pass leaves thruogh a fine meshed sieve or cheese cloth and reserve liquid. Place the rice in a saucepan and add 3 cups of the tea liquid to the pan, reserving the remaining 1 cup. Bring to a boil then reduce to a simmer. Cover the pan and cook for about 25-30 minutes or until rice is done. This variety of rice will remain chewy, and each kernel seperate.

Toast pecans in a 350*F (175*C) oven just until fragrant, about 5 minutes. Pour the additional cup of tea into the finished rice to accentuate the tea flavor. Cover and allow to adsorb. Garnish with a sprinkle of dried cherried or cranberries, toasted pecans, and the chopped chives. Salt if necessary to taste.

A very interesting read, I not in general enjoy poetry, but I did not find the waka detracted from reading this at all. I always wonder after reading books like this though, how much of them are truth and how much fabricated to fill in gaps.

Also this book was particulary interesting to me because of the implications of female homosexuality in Japan. There are many books that have been written about how celebrated male homosexuality was in ancient Japan. (One example is Male Colors: The Construction of Homosexuality in Tokugawa Japan by Gary P. Leupp, which I saw at the campus bookstore only a few weeks ago.) Until this book I had not heard of this opposite side of the coin however. I am really glad I got to read this, but I am afraid I will now have to add "The Tale of Genji" to my ever-growing list of things I would like to read.

Mailed 3-16-06 from the USPS office near Tufts University.

I've always been interested in "The Tale of Genji" and when I saw this bookring posted I had to sign up. I'm really looking forward to reading it. I probably should at some point get ahold of a copy of "Genji." Thanks for the opportunity!

syn

2006 Book #13 - The Tale of Murasaki by Liza Dalby
From the back of the book:

In a wonderful world shaped by beauty and poetry, ancient traditions, and popular intrigue, a young woman at the centre of the eleventh-century Japanese imperial court observes the exotic world around her. Murasaki sees everything, the Emperor and Empress, aristocrats and concubines, warriors and servants, her own family. She records a remarkable place of political and sexual plotting, male power and female manipulation, as she writes the Tale of Genji, the masterpiece of Japanese literature.

This book took me a long time to slog through. I guess I was expecting something a little more exciting and so that expectation brings down my review for this book. I don't know if I feel like the character of "Murasaki" was sufficiently built up enough for me to have felt like I really understood her or her motivations, enough to care about what happened to her.

I guess the closest I came to that was in the part of the book where she has the relationship with the Chinese Ming-gwok. Maybe even her relationship with "Kerria Rose." Once she went into the imperial service it didn't seem to be enough about her to satisfy me.

I've never been a fan of most poetry, but I can appreciate the form of the waka and (later) the haiku and so on. I think, however, that the poetry used in this book just bothered me in that they'd been translated into english which made it come off as awkward and then some meanings were hard/lengthy to explain or lost, such as double entendres etc.

I'm not saying the book is bad, but I didn't enjoy it nearly as much as I'd hoped. If the Tale of Genji is written in the manner of this book's section in the palaces, then I might have to rethink whether I'd want to read it. For enjoyment at any rate.

Thank you for the opportunity to read this book.

The Tale of Murasaki is off to drusillamac as of Monday! :)

It's going to be some weeks, so don't fret about it.

Caught this book in the post this morning. I have a few other rings/rays in front of it at the moment. However, I have finished university for the summer so I have a bit more time on my hands ;-) Thanks to nut and synergy for sharing.

First of all, apologies for holding onto this book for so long. It was the typical story. For months and months I have no bookrings/rays at all to read. Then lots of them arrive at once! Many thanks to nut for allowing me to hold onto this book for so long.

I really enjoyed the waka poetry. I'm not a big fan of poetry but these little snippets were beautiful to read. The poetry exchanges reminded me a lot of today's tradition of text messaging which I found amusing. Text messages are not a recent occurence - they have been in Japan for centuries ;-)

Dalby's footnotes were useful as they explained aspects such as the structure of the waka poems. I was reading Emperess Orchid alongside this book for my reading group and footnotes would have been useful in that book! Like synergy I did find the book a bit of a slog through. The court sections confused me a little bit as well. Despite Murasaki's negative feelings about her age she seemed to be getting a lot of male attention! For a while I thought Michinaga was the Emperor which did leave me rather confused!

As others have mentioned, this book has give me other books to add to my Wishlist. First up is The Tale of Genji which sounds like it will be rather fantastic.

I have already PMed coolboxuk for their address and will get this book back on its journey sharpish.

This book is being posted off to coolboxuk tomorrow. Enjoy ;-)

Received with thanks and looking forward to it - third in line of my ring books to read.

Finally finished this wonderful book. I had only asked for it because I'm generally interested in Japan and had read and enjoyed Liza Dalby's Memoirs of a Geisha. I'd expected the subject matter to be a bit boring - biography of an author...??? But it was in fact as good as any novel - I wanted to read on and on. What an unusual and interesting life this lady has had! The only point I would hold against this book, or this particular print of it, are the many mistakes (spelling, missing words etc) to the amount that I got really annoyed every time I came across another.

Thanks everybody for passing this book along, it has safely reached me now.
I am interested in this book as I have read Liza Dalby's book about geisha, and The Tale of Genji as a graphic novel when I was in high school. I truly loved the tale then, fantasizing myself as a maiden in extravagant kimono (not that I wanted to walk around in 20 lbs of layers and layers of clothings) being courted by an ancient Japanese counterpart of Prince Henry. Let's see how much I like this now I am no longer a romantic teenager...

Sorry it has taken a while but I was reading Passing Under Heaven and the similarities were so eery I had to space the two books apart. (Passing Under Heaven is about Yu Xianji, a famous female poet in Tang dynasty China. The novel is interwoven with Yu's poems, and tells how the strong willed girl became concubine to a prominent official and later lived in a monastery. And oh did I mention that The Song of Everlasting Sorrow, about Yang Guifei, is Yu's favorite poem? And that while in the capital, there was a visiting convoy from Japan...? The two are like long-lost twins, although in the end, the stories end quite differently.)

This historical ficiton is well researched, offering realistic glimpses into the life of a noble woman in 11th century Japan. It’s interesting though hard to imagine how blackened teeth is a symbol of beauty then, and how the Chinese customs differs from the Japanese ones. The story imagines how Fuji's life experience enriches her writing - a discussion she overheard of his brother's and his friends about women inspires Genji's version, for example. Unfortunately, towards the end, the story seems to drag on slightly too long to a fizzled ending, and details such as the colors of the clothings is no more novel but tedious. (Though, as a lady in waiting at the Imperial Palace, life is hardly exciting.)

I also love the small novella of Ukifune, the supposed lost final chapter to the Tale of Genji.

I am happy to say that the book, after successfully making its round, is now heading home to nut! Yay! Time to toast some sake! Kampai!

PS: here are two sites with pictures from the graphic novel series of Tales of Genji. The pic here is one of my favorite.

http://www.kodanclub.com/cgi-local/comic.cgi?id=999-00135-01-001

http://www.internal-dream.net/library/yamato.htm

Back home safely. Thanks to all who took part!
And thank you for the lovely rice crackers and pictures.