I think about this passage from time-to-time. It comes from The Diary of Lady Murasaki:
Then, while I was in attendance, His Excellency sneaked into my room and found a copy of the Tale that I had asked someone to bring from home for safekeeping. It seems that he gave the whole thing to his second daughter. I no longer had the fair copy in my possession and was sure that the version she now had with her would hurt my reputation.[1]
Lady Murasaki was hired in the service of a princess, and in that service she wrote what is considered the world’s first psychological novel, The Tale of Genji. Around that time, the princess’s salon of ladies-in-waiting has been engaging in bookbinding. Every morning they went to the princess’s quarters, selecting paper of different colors and materials and got to work sewing pages together.
As for bookbinding, I engaged in my first attempt this past summer; I sat at my dining room table, swearing as my waxed linen thread tangled and I tried to follow along with a Youtube video that made it look much easier than it actually was. My paper was Kinkos duplex default. Heian period paper was made from mulberry, hemp, and ganpi, and it was regarded as the finest in East Asia.
Anyway, we were all doing our best.
Princess Shōshi and her ladies were also probably copying poems and stories that the members of their salon had written. The most famous of them was Murasaki. She had already gained some courtly reputation for Tale of Genji by this time. Her romance novel was read aloud in gatherings. In fact, while a graceful calligraphic hand on well-chosen paper was indispensable among the nobility for communication and certainly there were readers of the Tale, it gained its initial “readership” from readings aloud. Think more audiobook than paperback.
If the novel was not read aloud for someone at a communal event, then there would have to be copies made, and the copies must be done by hand. This cultural and literary work was one facet of a noblewoman’s life. Princess Shōshi’s success in courtly society depended on her ability to charm and seduce the current monarch, give birth to a crown prince, and conduct herself with regality expected of a leading consort.
If she succeeded, she would become queen consort and her household would raise the future leader of the realm. The stakes were rather high. Princess Shōshi was about twelve years old when she entered the Back Palace, the term for the residences of the royal consorts. As a popular courtly writer, Murasaki was a crucial part of her literary entourage.
By this point in the diary, in 1008, Princess Shōshi was around the age of twenty, and she had given birth to a little boy. Her opulence as a princess came from her father, Michinaga, who essentially ran the court. In the translation above, Michinaga is “His Excellency”--it would not do to call him by his name. At this time, courtiers referred to each other by their titles and nicknames based around their residences.
Michinaga scolded his daughter for her bookbinding project; he thought her still fragile after giving birth, but despite his protests, he brought his daughter “good thin paper, brushes, and ink.”
Princess Shōshi gave all of these wonderful materials to Murasaki, prompting howls of protest from the other ladies. Shōshi ignored them and gave Murasaki even more, more colored paper, more brushes to support her work on the Tale of Genji.
Michinaga then snuck into Murasaki’s room and took a copy of the Tale that Murasaki had on-hand. If Shōshi’s baby was named crown prince in a few years, it would be because of Michinaga’s backing. He was the most powerful man at court, more powerful than the monarch, Ichijō. If Michinaga took Murasaki’s novel, she was in no position to take it back. That manuscript draft was out of her hands.[2]
There is something nerve-wracking about putting your work out in the world. I have thought about starting a blog for years, if only to come up with a dozen ideas of things to write, and then a dozen reasons why I should not.
I am never satisfied with my writing. Like Murasaki, I am worried about the mistakes, missteps, the blots and bad ideas. When I was a grad student, I thought it would hurt my reputation. If you put something out into the world, it is another reason for someone, somewhere to dislike you or think you less than before.
I like to imagine Murasaki sighing as she wrote that line about the draft hurting her reputation. It was humble; she was supposed to be humble. Perhaps she rolled her eyes. It is amusing to imagine the great leader of the court Michinaga sneaking anywhere. He was forty-two. He was Minister of the Left and Royal Document’s Inspector, which meant that a policy did not make it in front of the monarch unless it cleared Michinaga’s desk first. Michinaga in his courtier’s cap scurrying around Murasaki’s room, checking under her pillow or riffling through her boxes for a draft of her novel, is just… With apologies to Murasaki for the invasion of privacy, it’s a bit funny.
Murasaki’s life went on. Her reputation, despite any faults of the draft, remained intact. Mine too, I think, will be okay.
It is my goal to write once a week on history, food history, or occasional gays, because I need to share these things with the world, and I need to practice writing. Like Murasaki, or the princess or the other ladies, I need to share my work. There will be mistakes. That’s okay. I will sigh and issue corrections and do my best.
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[1] Richard Bowring, trans. The Diary of Lady Murasaki. Penguin (1996), p. 33.
[2] Perhaps this was Michinaga’s fawning fathering phase because he takes the manuscript copy, and then he gives it to his other daughter, Kenshi.