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If you can only choose one work to represent your national culture, I believe that many Chinese will first promote "Dream of the Red Chamber"; in the Japanese literary world, "The Tale of Genji" is regarded as the source of all literature and art.
Written between 1001 and 1008, more than 700 years before Dream of the Red Chamber, Genji Monogatari is the world's earliest long-form realistic novel and listed as a "national treasure" by the Japanese government.
Many readers refer to the Tale of Genji as the Japanese court Dream of the Red Chamber. Although the whole book of "The Tale of Genji" is only one million words, it involves three generations, lasts for more than 70 years, and has more than 400 characters in the whole book, with a magnificent pattern. The author, Zi Shibu, depicts a "ukiyo-e" of Japan's Heian period based on the history of Genji's lifelong love affair of "stealing incense and stealing jade".
I have always felt that "The Tale of Genji" is actually similar to "Jin Ping Mei" and "Dream of the Red Chamber" in terms of structure and character shaping. Compared with the three, "The Tale of Genji" is undoubtedly the most magnificent in the scene, and it can also be called the most magnificent sexual fantasy of men.
Whether it is the identity status of the protagonist: the son of the emperor, the father of another emperor and the father-in-law of the emperor, or the number of women who have had a relationship with the protagonist, in contrast, Jia Baoyu's "assimilation with death" is too pediatric, and Ximen Qing's "six doors are all stringed together" is too shabby.
Although the protagonist is lustful and loves the crowd, in the author's Purple Style, his love and care for women became a virtue of the aristocratic class at that time. This can be linked to the Heian era in which the author lived.
At that time, the Japanese aristocratic class prevailed in a kind of "visiting wife marriage", that is, a marriage system in which men went to the woman's home to "sleep overnight", which did not constitute a bondage to both husband and wife.
However, as men played an increasingly important role in society, this system gradually became the privilege of maintaining the fishing and hunting of married men, and women who longed for "monopoly" could only shelter men's sexual behavior.
Politically, the aristocratic class at that time often used women as a tool for marriage in order to consolidate its own power. Thus, Heian Japan was in fact a powerful patriarchal society, and "the use of beauty and talent to serve the court and win the favor of high-ranking nobles was the only way out for the women of the Heian nobility."
The love-hate entanglement of dozens of pairs of men and women represented by the Light Source Clan in "The Tale of Genji" is unfolding in this context.
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The story of "The Tale of Genji" begins during the reign of Emperor Kirito of Japan, when kiritsugu, who came from a humble background, was given the grace of the emperor. Her love affair with Emperor Tonghu was like that of Emperor Ming of Tang and Concubine Yang guifei to the death, and this also caused the envy of other concubines.
With no powerful foreign relatives as a patron, the changing clothes soon ended in the humiliation of the crowd, leaving only a young prince less than three years old. Emperor Tonghu was worried that the young prince would lack protection and find it difficult to gain a foothold in the palace, so he demoted him to a vassal and gave him the surname Genji.
After losing his pet concubine, the Tong Hu Emperor was devastated and could not eat. In order to relieve the acacia, he remarried the Kirito lady who looked exactly like a change of clothes.
Genji heard that the female emperor looked exactly like his birth mother, and felt very close to her, and she was close to her from an early age. The empress dowager also sympathized with Genji's young widowed mother and treated him quite kindly. Over time, Genji unconsciously fell in love with the empress.
When Genji became an adult, Emperor Kiritsugu, in order to find a patron for him, took the initiative to marry AoiHime, the daughter of a powerful left minister. However, Genji and Aoihime's unsatisfactory political marriage has inspired his fervent pursuit of kirito.com.
During this unrequited love affair, Kirito gave birth to a son for Genji, the Later Emperor Lengquan. Since then, the empress dowager has felt more and more ashamed of the emperor. In order to maintain the thoughtfulness of her children and Genji, she cut her hair into a nun and avoided Genji from then on.
Genji, because it is difficult to see the person he loves, has completely released his temperamental nature. He continued to hunt for Fang Yan in the palace, and successively pursued his aunt Rokujo Concubine, who was six years older than him, and the lover of Aoi Ji's brother, and abducted and captivated Zi Ji, a young daughter who was only 10 years old and resembled the Kirito Female Emperor.
Genji's emotional encounters continued, and his happy life continued until after the abdication of Emperor Kirito.
With the rise of the Suzaku Emperor and the reshuffle of the Korean and Chinese forces, Genji, in order to avoid the blows of those in power, asked for exile. It was not until Emperor Lengquan succeeded to the throne and learned of his origins that the 33-year-old Genji ascended to the position of chancellor of taizheng and once again soared.
At the most glorious peak of his life, Genji set up the "Rokujo-in Temple", taking over all the women who had had private affairs in their lives, whether noble or beautiful or ugly, to share the glory, and later married the three princesses.
At that time, Zi Ji, who had been supported as a proper wife, could not bear her husband's affection, and finally died of resentment in the years of hidden tolerance. Prior to this, the three princesses gave birth to their son Fumi behind Genji's fornication.
In mourning, Genji laments the impermanence of "big dreams and empty dreams" in life, and he has an epiphany that all this is the retribution of his adulterous affair with Kirito. In his later years, Genji chose to escape into the empty gate in despair of love and officialdom, and died at the age of 52.
After Genji's death, the novel in the last 10 volumes is based on the emotional experience of Genji's adopted son, Fu jun, and tells another "Genji tragedy", deepening the philosophical meaning of the fateful reincarnation of the characters in the entire "Tale of Genji".
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There is such an evaluation of the protagonist Hikari clan in the "History of Japanese Culture": "Even a superhuman-like figure like hikari like Hikari clan, whether it is appearance, origin, or status, is far superior to that of ordinary people, and it will eventually look pale and powerless in the face of unchangeable fate." ”
In fact, in "The Tale of Genji", not only the Light Source, but also from the fate of many characters in the book, we can feel a sense of "floating dreams" of nothingness. Take the heroine Zi Ji as an example, in the original work, she is written through the perspective of Xi Wu:
"Elegant in temperament, beautiful in appearance, and seems to have a compelling fragrance." Teach people to look at it, reminiscent of the beautiful mountain cherry blossoms that bloomed in the spring morning between the clouds... What a beauty like no other! ”
Zi Ji is a perfect female figure throughout the book. She has a worldly appearance and is a champion among the many women of Genji; she is not only versatile, but also talented, good at governing the family, loyal to Genji...
However, the tragedy of Zi Ji's fate lies in the fact that she is a woman with a strong sense of autonomy. Unlike the other women around Genji, she only seeks the satisfaction of food, clothing, shelter and transportation. What Zi Ji wanted was immortal love on the spiritual level, which also doomed her misfortune.
Since meeting Genji, she has been seduced and kept in captivity, becoming a replica of kiritsugu's imperial court. Although Genji treats her with affection, she is still a loving "sexual recluse" in her bones, and she cannot stop her footsteps in searching for fangs and hunting.
Looking at the entire "Tale of Genji", Zi Ji is actually very similar to Lin Daiyu in "Dream of the Red Chamber" in some aspects, she is from a noble birth, her talent is complete, and she is a rare spiritual woman in heaven and earth, but because of the sadness of her life, it is difficult to get rid of the fate of displacement and sending people under the fence.
In the end, like Lin Daiyu, she fell for the persistent love ideal and ended up with a bleak ending of "flowers fall and people die and don't know". The poignant confession to Genji in front of him:
"I would like to have a thousand-year-old love affair with you, but all I have left now is endless thoughts about you."
"The good things in the world are not firm, and the clouds are easy to scatter and the glass is brittle", whether it is the fatal tragedy of the Light Source Clan or Zi Ji, it is actually an extreme interpretation of the Japanese "aesthetics of material sorrow".
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In a country where materials are scarce and natural disasters such as volcanoes and earthquakes are frequent, Japanese people are born with a sense of reverence for nature and the insecurity that they may say goodbye to everything at any time. This "insecurity" constitutes the "lament" in the aesthetics of material mourning.
Whether it is flowers blossoming and falling, grass and trees withering, or fighting stars, the Japanese believe that all the good things in the world will die, and this is linked to the impermanence of life.
But the Japanese understanding of "impermanence" is not absolutely pessimistic. They believe that since man cannot grasp the cyclical change of all things, it is better to simply let go and appreciate the eternity of that moment.
As the source of Japan's "aesthetics of material mourning", the Tale of Genji has had an extremely profound impact on later Generations of Japanese literature. Haruki Murakami's masterpiece "Kafka by the Sea" directly quotes the part of "The Tale of Genji" about living spirits, in which the protagonist's life is also very similar to that of the Hikari clan.
Natsume Soseki's famous phrase "Tonight the moon is beautiful" is quoted from the confession of the Hikari clan to the six concubines in the Tale of Genji.
In the works of Japanese anime master Hayao Miyazaki, it is not difficult to find the beautiful things described in "The Tale of Genji": the cherry blossoms in full bloom, the misty smoke and rain, the bright moon on the water... Behind the soft colors and bright music, there is always a color of mourning.
From Japanese writer Yukio Mishima to Haruki Murakami, to Japanese director Makoto Shinkai to Hirokazu Kore-eda, their creations are inspired by this work. Yasunari Kawabata said that "The Tale of Genji" is the pinnacle of Japanese fiction.
Today, in the literary world, "The Tale of Genji" has become a window for people to peek into and understand Japanese culture. Fading the cloak of "eroticism", this book is actually an "encyclopedia" of Japan's political economy, social customs, marriage system, and customs and customs.
If you want to learn more about real Japanese culture, The Tale of Genji is a good place to start. However, about this book, there are many translations on the market at present, and the quality is uneven. Individual versions were translated in the 1960s and 1970s, and the sentences are more classical and relatively obscure to read. Among the many editions, I personally recommend Zheng Minqin's translation.
This version was translated after 2000, after ten years of polishing and revision, the language is elegant and comfortable, more in line with the reading habits of young readers. In addition, the nearly 1,000 professional annotations added to the book embody the research results of a large number of Japanese experts, opening the door for readers to understand this work and integrate into the background of the times.
In addition, this edition exclusively contains 54 cross-page illustrations by Japanese national treasure master Motoshi Okada, which has the unique beauty of Japan's Japanese style, and also represents the highest level of Japanese "The Tale of Genji" painting volume in Japan today, which has a certain collection value in addition to bringing readers a refreshing visual experience.
Whether from the perspective of aesthetic enjoyment, literary value or cultural exploration, "The Tale of Genji" is a rare masterpiece. If you want to learn about a more diverse Japan, start with this book The Tale of Genji.
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