Murasaki Shikibu - The Tale of Genji

An enormous achievement.

The New York Times Book Review

Both epic and intimate, [Genji] is a gorgeous evocation of a time and place that have long since disappeared. But it's also an exploration of feelings and relations between men and women, as fresh and beguiling to readers today as when it was first written. A new translation that makes Genji accessible to contemporary readers is a landmark event. [Tyler's translation] has clearly been a labor of love. In his beautifully written translation he tries to get as close to the original as possible, immersing us in eleventh-century Japan. Mr. Tyler's translation is richly embellished with footnotes that flag for us everything that Murasaki and her contemporaries would have taken for granted. All in all, Mr. Tyler's translation is likely to be the definitive edition of The Tale of Genji for many years to come.

The Wall Street Journal

The Tale of Genji set an insanely high standard for anything that came after it. This latest edition is reader friendly at every turn, with generous footnotes, character lists and lots of illustrations to show what robes looked like, or swords, or houses. You have to reach for comparisons to Tolstoy or Proust to convey just what a captivating experience this story can be.

Newsweek

Tyler's delicate ear for the language of the original helps breathe new life into the story of Genji.

The New Yorker

Though [Murasaki's] setting was the royal Japanese court of one thousand years ago, her characters managed to draw the reader into their passion and terrors in an uncannily modern way. [Tyler's translation is] beautifully readable it sets a new standard. Not only is this new English edition the most scrupulously true to the original, it also is superbly written and genuinely engaging. We are blessed to have Tyler's help in reading it.

LosAngelesTimes Book Review

The remarkable thing about Genji is that it is a masterpiece, the oldest full-length novel in existence, and still very much alive. It is even livelier in the new translation by Royall Tyler. Tyler skillfully catches the erotic flavor, the vivid characterizations, and the allusive poetry of this classic. Readers will quickly find themselves immersed in a strange and distant culture whose inhabitants' loves, rivalries, suffering and follies we can identify with our own.

The Philadelphia Inquirer

An astonishingly rich, absorbing drama that has stood, and will doubtless continue to stand, the severest tests of time and changing literary fashions. There is nothing else on earth quite like The Tale of Genji. Utterly irresistible.

Kirkus Reviews (starred review)

One of the undisputed monuments of world literature. Tyler offers a version that effectively captures the indirection and shades of Murasaki's court language. A major contribution to our understanding of world literature; highly recommended.

Library Journal (starred review)

Widely recognized as the world's first novel, as well as one of it's best painstakingly and tenderly translated by Tyler. An epic narrative; it is also minutely attentive to particulars of character, setting, emotioneven costume. Tyler clearly intends his [translation] to be the definitive one. It is richer, fuller and more complicated than the others. Tyler's formality of tone offers readers a more graceful, convincing rendering of this one thousand-year-old masterpiece. Scholars and novices alike should be pleased.

Publishers Weekly (starred review)

Tyler has long shown himself to be one of the finest translators of Japanese in our era. In producing this new Genji translation, he has been able not only to draw upon his own skills as a writer, but also to build on the efforts and accomplishments of his predecessors the Tyler version is by far the most helpful to the general reader.

The Washington Post Book World

[Tyler] has crafted an elegant translation that remarkably renders this eleventh-century tale in language so lively, vivid and transparent, one could easily believe that the book was written by some gifted postmodernist. Royall Tyler devoted space to explaining, through the introduction and footnotes, nuances of the time, helping help us place them into a modern context. This edition of The Tale of Genji is beautifully realized, both as a translation and as a seamless art object.

The Cleveland Plain Dealer

Murasaki Shikibu

Translated by
Royall Tyler

PENGUIN BOOKS

For Susan

PENGUIN BOOKS

Published by the Penguin Group

Penguin Group (USA) Inc., 375 Hudson Street,

New York, New York 10014, USA

USA / Canada / UK / Ireland / Australia / New Zealand / India / South Africa / China

Penguin Books Ltd, Registered Offices: 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England

For more information about the Penguin Group visit penguin.com

First published in the United States of America by Viking Penguin,
a member of Penguin Group (USA) Inc., 2001

Published in Penguin Books 2003

Translation, introduction, and notes copyright Royall Tyler, 2001

All rights reserved. No part of this product may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without permission. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the authors rights. Purchase only authorized editions.

Illustrations on pp. 51107 reproduced by permission of the artist and original publisher.

Copyright Minoru Sugai and Shogakukan Publishing Company.

THE LIBRARY OF CONGRESS HAS CATALOGED THE HARDCOVER EDITION AS FOLLOWS :

Murasaki Shikibu, b. 978?

[Genji monogatari. English]

The tale of Genji / Murasaki Shikibu ; translated by Royall Tyler.

p. cm.

ISBN 978-0-670-03020-0 (hc.)

ISBN 978-0-14-243714-8 (pbk.)

ISBN 978-1-101-65762-1 (epub)

I. Tyler, Royall. II. Title.

PL788.4.G4 E3 2001

895.6314dc21 2001017748

Version_2

I could not have completed this translation in any reasonable length of time without long-term assistance from the Australian Research Council. The International Research Center for Japanese Studies, too, provided extended support, as did the National Institute for Japanese Literature and the Japan Foundation. To all these institutions I am profoundly grateful.

I thank all those who commented on my initial drafts. They were kind about them, but they must have wondered whether there was any hope. Whatever merit this translation has took time to achieve, and glimpses of my work through others' eyes were very helpful. Tsvetana Kristeva, in particular, said exactly the right thing about my early translations of the poems, prompting me at last to mend my ways.

My indispensable collaborator throughout was my wife, Susan Tyler, whose knowledge, insight, and understanding of The Tale of Genji have contributed more to this book than I could ever describe. It is dedicated to her.