Hey gang, I've been reading the Tale of Genji, which was written around 1000 CE, and I've honestly been enjoying it – granting that I don't speak Early Middle Japanese to compare, the Tyrell translation seems very well done as a piece of literature and I'm enjoying the glimpse into a time and place that I will never experience.
I've also taken the time, as I do, to read the 1 star Goodreads reviews, because 1 star reviews of books I like are always either interesting food for thought or hilarious. It seems that a lot of Genji readers were put off by the focus on his sexual exploits, some of which would be considered rape today (fair enough), and one notable reader said "I hate this book more than I hate Twilight". And I was thinking, what exactly is our goal in rating these very old works? Who is reading a massive tome from 1000 years ago the same way you read Twilight? Who is looking for modern social mores regarding sexuality in a book written 1000 years ago about a man of extreme privilege?
I often struggle when rating works that are this old, because I'm not reading them with the same goals and lens as I would a modern novel, or even a novel from 200 years ago. I might give a low rating to, say, a romance novel where a character assaults someone in a similar manner to Genji sneaking into women's rooms, because that novel was written in a time and place where framing it as a good thing isn't as acceptable, but to me, it seems unfair to judge a piece for not living up to modern standards of what constitutes sexual assault.
On the other hand, I fully think that these people who hated Genji the character for being a bit of sleazebag aren't wrong to feel that way. I feel like these reviews are probably going to save someone else a lot of time that they can then spend on something they'd actually enjoy. I may not agree with their lens, but clearly if they had known more about the content of the book ahead of time, they would have picked a different book.
Anyway, I'm just rambling on my own conflicting feelings at this point. This thought process comes up every time I read something like Beowulf or the Odyssey – how do you rate something that was written in and for a society that no longer exists?
by notbambi