Description
Book SynopsisThe Buddhist priest Kenko clung to tradition, Buddhism, and the pleasures of solitude, and the themes he treats in his Essays, written sometime between 1330 and 1332, are all suffused with an unspoken acceptance of Buddhist beliefs.
Trade ReviewA most delightful book, and one that has served as a model of Japanese style and taste since the seventeenth century. These cameo-like vignettes reflect the importance of the little, fleeting futile things, and each essay is Kenko himself. Asian Student If you enjoy things briefly told, if you want to try the prose equivalent of waka and haiku, if you already know Montaigne and would like to meet a spiritual kinsman, then you might want to take an evening and read Essays in Idleness... [A] superb translation. Washington Post A sensitive, personal reading. Journal of Asian Studies The Tsurezuregusa is a key instrument in attempting to teach the classical Japanese tradition to the modern Western student... This is indeed a welcome volume. Monumenta Nipponica
Table of ContentsPreface to the Second Paperback Edition Foreword, by William Theodore de Bary Preface Introduction Essays in Idleness Selected Bibliography Index
