The Pillow Book’s written thoughts are vividly painting a picture for the reader. “At the dark of the moon, it’s beautiful when fireflies are dancing everywhere in a mazy flight,” the author describes a summer night. Those words bring back memories of when I was younger, running around on a soccer field with my cousins at sunset, anxiously waiting for night to fall so that our mason jars could soon be occupied with little fireflies. The “crimson-purple cloud” in the spring and the “pure white frost” in the winter brings me back to each season and distinct memories that come with it. The memories that I am taken back to all have one thing in common – bliss. The author is consistently using words such as enchanting, delightful, and lovely to describe a certain image in his mind. The eloquence of the text takes me to a happy place, growing on me and persuading me to appreciate those moments and memories more.
A poem on page 1137 is written; “With the passing years, my years grow old upon me, yet when I see, this lovely flower of spring, I forget age and time.” The beauty that we see in other things or even people can help us see the beauty in ourselves.
Questions:
- What does The Pillow Book strike in you? Does it bring back memories or maybe inspire you to appreciate a certain kind of beauty?
- What do you think The Pillow Book is; a collection of stores, a book of thought, a journal, etc.?