Author: Sei Shōnagon

Cited by

• Ruth L. Ozeki (1)
  • IN: My Year of Meats (1998) Fiction, American
    EPIGRAPH: One day Lord Korechika, the Minster of the Centre, brought the Empress a bundle of notebooks. "What shall we do with them?" Her Majesty asked me.... "Let me make them into a pillow," I said. "Very well," said Her Majesty. "You may have them." I now had a vast quantity of paper at my disposal, and I set about filling the notebooks with odd facts, stories from the past, and all sorts of other things, often including the most trivial material. On the whole I concentrated on things and people that I found charming and splendid, my notes are also full of poems and observations on trees and plants, birds and insects. I was sure that when people saw my book they would say, "It's even worse that I expected. Now one can really tell what she is like." After all, it is written entirely for my own amusement, and I put things down exactly as they came to me.... As will be gathered from these notes of mine, I am the sort of person who approves what others abhor and detests the things they like.
    FROM: The Pillow Book, (1000), NULL, Japan