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Tale of Genji, chapter 5
You might have noticed a wee bit of opinion over the course of today. I'd refrained from applying the "skank" label to Genji the way
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rachelmanija and kate_nepveu had, because it implied to me a certain base filthiness. (i.e., Gojyo is a man-ho. Gojyo is not a skank.) And then ... Chapter 5. In which Genji is a skank.
[Also -
rachelmanija has adopted "G=P" to indicate any passage in which the author goes off about how perfect Genji is, which seems like a useful tactic.]Chapter 5: Young Murasaki
Genji is sick with a fever and heads off to a mountain ascetic to get cured. The rites take all day and night, and Genji is left with time on his hands to poke about the area. He sees a small house that belongs to a high-ranking noble (His Reverence) who likes to live in seclusion, but he also sees female attendants and from this infers that a woman is in residence, and thus Genji's libido takes over. Since he came to see the ascetic, he's not dressed in formal clothing and thus it would be improper to pay a call on His Reverence, so he contents himself with skulking about the area. As per usual for Genji, he finds an area where he can hide and see the women of the house, and sees a girl.
Genji finds that the girl has nuns in attendance.[1] He finds the girl to be beautiful. He finds the girl to be almost identical to his stepmother.[2] He finds the girl to be almost completely irresistible and magnetically attractive. He finds the girl to be ten. years. old.
While he's spying, His Reverence comes in and announces that he's found that the Shining Genji is in the area, and he's going to pay a call on him and see his magnificence for himself. G=P Genji skulks back to the ascetic.
His Reverence shows up and invites Genji to his house. Despite his casual clothing, Genji's horndogging for the ten-year-old and agrees to go. He figures out that His Reverence's sister died and left the child behind, who is being cared for by her grandmother, who is apparently planning on dropping dead shortly, so everyone's kinda worried about the girl.
The next bits goes mostly:
Genji: Well, then, can I have her? I want her for exactly the purpose you're thinking.
His Eminence: I ... er ... uh ... she's kinda young for you, isn't she? Um ... I have to talk to her grandmother about this. I'll see you after evening services. You're kinda creepy, aren't you?
[Genji opens the screens between himself and the ladies of the house and gets their attention.]
Genji: Yo, can I have your granddaughter? She's purty.
Grandmother: Uh ... she's kinda young.
Genji: I don't mind.
Grandmother: ...
And then it's time to go. He sends a poem, syaing "Can I have her?" and the grandmother replies "Uh ... no. Try again in a few years." Right before he leaves, his bud To no Chujo shows up with a band and they all play music and Genji reclines against a rock and looks beautiful (G=P) and is pressed to play with them and everyone loves him (G=P). The girl hears this and thinks Genji's totally awesome.
Genji goes home and his father-in-law waylays him and invites him to stay at his house, whereupon Genji shows he's clueless when it comes to subtext with his wife, Aoi.[3] He complains that it's painful to be ignored when he was sick, because she never asked about him or anything, and she replied rather pointedly with a quote from an unidentified poem: "Was it really 'so painful to be ignored'?" at which point Genji thinks she says the weirdest things and goes to (her) bed. Their relationship is less than the best, obviously. He pretends to sleep, and proceeds to mull over the girl, who he figures out is also the niece of his stepmother (she and the girl's mother were sisters, and the daughters of an Empress).
He starts sending letters to His Reverence, the grandmother, and the girl, saying "Can I have her?" and the replies continue to be "She's too young! No! You're creepy!"
While that's going on, Genji's stepmother gets sick, and Genji's obsessions turn back to her. There's a footnote explaining that the terminology Murasaki uses the word for "see," thus implying an affair going on between Genji and his stepmother (see note on previous chapter for why "see" means that), and there's some sort of reference to an unfortunate incident that, a footnote informs me, is never mentioned again the the entire book. It eventually turns out she's pregnant, and I can't figure out if I'm supposed to assume that Genji's the father or not. She gets very pale and beautiful from suffering.
Eventually the grandmother and the girl that Genji's horndogging after move to the city, and Genji goes and bothers them some more. After a while, he has to go away, and when he's back, he finds that the grandmother has died. The girl's nurse writes and says that the girl is supposed to go to her father's house now, where, since her mother was not his principal wife, she's gonna get beaten up a lot. But she's still kinda young for you, Genji.
Genji is still insistent that he really doesn't care about her age, and that he's kinda hot for it, actually. He shows up at their place. A huge hailstorm starts and under the pretext that all the women in the house will be scared if he's not there, bullies his way into the girl's bedchamber and hangs out with her (chastely, we are assured, as the nurse sticks close by and eyeballs him) all night, leaving with the dawn, just like a lover. He goes home and writes her the customary morning letter that a gentleman will send to his lover of the night previously (which he didn't send to that girl he accidentally slept with, back in chapter 2 or 3).
The attendants think that hey, he was kinda handy the night of the storm, and she's still rahter young, but maybe this won't be so bad - she won't have to go to her father's house if she marries Genji. Genji, however, does not come back the second and third night, which leads them to believe that he's not serious about her after all.[4]
They eventually find out that her father is going to come and get her, and tell Genji, who realizes that he's not going to be able to steal her from her father's house.
BTW, Genji does realize how weird this all looks to other people and is a bit worried about how it looks, which is why I think he didn't show up the 2nd and 3rd nights.
He shows up, kidnaps her and her nurse, whisks her off to his residence, and installs her in a bedroom in an unused wing and tells her firmly that she is not to sleep with her nurse any more, and lays down beside her. (There still doens't seem to be any hanky-panky, but I can't be sure.)
The attendant at the girl's former home swear up and down that the jurse spirited her away, and the father eventually gives up looking for her, and she stays on at Genji's place, where he dresses her up and teaches her stuff and gets playmates for her and, all-in-all, treats her like his own living Barbie doll, which is, let's face it, rather creepy.
It's not said directly if they're sleeping together, but a footnote tells me that at the end of the chapter, Murasaki starts using "kimi" (the young lady) to refer to her instead of "wakagimi" (the little miss), and Genji is "otokogimi" (the young gentleman). Pairing kimi and otokogimi acknowledges the two as a couple.
I think now that the themes of OMG WOMEN ARE HORS AND YOU NEVER FIND A PERFECT ONE from the stories of the second chapter feed into here - Genji's found a woman that hits his Oedipal buttons who's young enough that he can mold into his version of the ideal woman.
The girl is eventually tagged "Murasaki," and the author is nicknamed Murasaki by the court after the character, not the other way around.
In conclusion: SKAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAANK.
[1] Not all women who became nuns would retire to a religious house, but would sometimes take the vows, cut their hair to about shoulder-length or so, and remain at home. This is what the girl's grandmother has done.
[2] Remember, he has Issues.
[3] Yeah, he's married. Got married when he was 11 or so, and Aoi was 16. According to The World of the Shining Prince by Ivan Morris, the Heian nobility had three types of relationships: (1) A formal marriage that was usually arranged. The principal wife then stayed at her parents' home and her husband either moved in or maintained a separate residence and came to visit her. Her children were the heirs of the family. (2) Concubines, or secondary wives, who sometimes stayed in their own houses or who were moved into the man's house and had their own wing or something. (3) Casual affairs, which is what Genji pretty much indulged in. Genji's principal wife is never named, but
[4] According to Morris, a man marries a secondary wife/concubine by sneaking in and spending three successive nights with her - on the third morning, they're married, and he can formally meet her family. Genji's bullying his way in and spending the first night in her presence is, socially, just like having sex with her. His not showing up the second and third nights means that everyone is thinking that she's really just another casual affair to him, and not a potential wife, and since she's no longer a virgin (socially! not in fact!), she's not suitable to be a first wife to someone.
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******* ***** ** ***** * ** ***** * *** ****** ***** ****** ** **** * ****** * ** ** * * ** * *** ** * * ** **** ** * * ** ** * * * * **** * *** * * * ** * * * * * **** * *** * * **** * ** * * ** * * * **** ** *** ** ** * ** * ** ** ** ** * ** ** * ** *** *** ** ** * * ** ** ** ** * ** ** * *** *** ** ***** * ** ** ** ** * ** ***** *** *** ** ** *** * ** ** ** ** * ** ** *** ** *** ** ** *** ********* ** ** ** * ** ** *** ** ** * ** *** * ** * ** *** * ** *** * * * *** * ** * *** * *** *** * **** *** ***** ** **** ** **** *** * ********* * ***** *** * * **** ** * * ***** * ***** *** * * ***** * *** *** * ** ** * ** * *** *** * * * * * ** ** ** ** **no subject
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Thanks for including the cultural footnotes, which completely bypassed me.
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What I find really funny in that book is that the author is all "Well, I can't find any hint at all that men had any sort of homosexual relations other than that one passage in Genji which sort of vaguely hinted that there might be a homosexual encounter between Genji and the boy although we can't be sure, and all the men in the literature are constantly juggling female lovers, and Sei Shonagon never mentioned it and she surely would have, so I don't think male homosexuality really existed then. Female homosexuality, however, I can't find a single shred of evidence in the literature either, but when a bunch of women are forced to live together it tends to happen, so I expect it did."
Yeah, dude.
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Speaking of which, how's PBR coming?
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BEERSAKE BUDDIES! Er, YEAH!" Heh. It was published in 1964 - I don't know how well-known those references were at the time, or how much of it was Morris deliberately closing his eyes.PBR - banging my head against page 17. Will get back to it tomorrow when I'm awake.
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EW EW EW WTF!?!?
....I am so grossed out right now. Ew.
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If I remember correctly, and am not mixing this up with a different time Genji accidentally gets someone pregnant, at this point no one knows if it's Genji's or not. They're all really really hoping it's not, because presenting an illegitimate child to the, you know, *Emperor* could kinda look bad. And also it's a sin, so even if they get away with it in this life, THE GODS ARE WATCHING.
Also, man: best recap ever.
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To telophase: I was much more disturbed by Genji's mommy issues than by Murasaki's age. She won't be ten forever, but she will always be related to the woman who looks just like his mother.
His time "training" her to suit his tastes was pretty creepy though.
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Classes like this one (http://asnic-server.ans.utexas.edu:591/prevcourses/FMPro?-db=prevcds.fp5&-format=record%5fdetail.htm&-lay=data-entry%20screen&-op=eq&area=Japan&-op=eq&classification=upper-division&-op=eq&Type%20of%20course=Area&-max=10&-recid=33610&-find=), albeit several years earlier (I graduated in 1997).