The pillow book was the most personal writing I ever read. Not because I knew the writer was female, the writing style was so feminine and sophisticated. The genre of the pillow book is not easy to determined because the book is the collection of free writings. However, According to the book, it can mainly divided into three genre : “diary-style entries describing datable events at court, catalogues of objects or attributes, and essayistic jottings on general topics”(introduction from Norton book page 1129). Since Shonagon did not know if this writings were going to be published, believe or not, as she mentioned in the end of book, readers can observe her true personality and interact with her pure thoughts personally.
Shonagon’s the pillow book represents the japanese Heian literature during eleventh century. Therefore, we can observe the courts life of Heian throughout her own observation. Besides that, I think this book is more interesting because we can find the honest woman’s thoughts during that period. I believe that the woman was not able to be active in society at that time in Japan. She overcame the limitation of social norm and made the movement. In chapter 30, she mention about the appearance of a priest. This is not easy to mention in public even for the contemporary time. However, she wrote honestly “A priest who gives a sermon should be handsome”. Even if she worried about her writing by saying “I may have written glibly enough about sinful matters of this sort in my younger days, but at my age the idea of sin has become quite frightening”(page 1142), she does not hide her own thoughts. This type of her honest writing attracts the readers, despite her personal shortcomings. The readers are not expecting any rightness or moral lesson from her writing. The undissembled thoughts from woman of the Heian period are interesting enough to grab readers’ attention.
Also, her descriptions of things are very sophisticated. When she describe the four season in chapter 1, It’s like a picture. We can imagine the scene of the moment by reading her writing. Especially, the moment of summer night is picturesque. She describe the silent summer night as “it’s beautiful when fireflies are dancing everywhere in a mazy flight. And it’s delightful too to see just one or two fly through the darkness, glowing softly.” It is straightforward without any flowery words but still impressive.
Overall, I loved her writing skill. To me, She is like a female politician in present who is independent from her husband while express her opinion splendidly. Until now, her writing exercise the influence to many readers.
The Pillow Book is a unique work that shares a representation of beauty. I agree with what g.nam said in this blog, especially about the four seasons . You do see an image of what’s being described about the beauty of all four seasons. Sei Shōnagon tells what’s beautiful for each of the four seasons in Section 1. She says that Spring is most beautiful at dawn, Summer at night, Autumn in the evening, and Winter during early morning. For Spring, she finds dawn the most beautiful as the sun rises, the mountains are outlined in faint red and “wisps of faintly crimson-purple cloud” trailing over them. For Summer, she finds night the most beautiful when it rains, the fireflies “dancing everywhere in a mazy flight”, and the moon shines. For Autumn, she finds evening the most beautiful when the sun sets, sights of wild geese and crows are “enchanting”, as well as the hum of the insects. For Winter, she finds early morning the most beautiful when “snow is falling” and when “there’s a pure white frost, or even just when it’s very cold.”