Description
Book SynopsisGergana Ivanova explores how
The Pillow Book and its author have been read from the seventeenth century to the present. She shows how various ideologies have influenced the text and shaped interactions among its different versions, in the first book-length study in English of the reception history of Sei Shōnagon.
Trade Review[A] significant work. . . The only full account in English of
The Pillow Book’s changing reception. . . . Ivanova’s
Unbinding “The Pillow Book” is more a corrective to the misinformation widespread in the West. -- Claire Kohda Hazelton * Times Literary Supplement *
Unbinding The Pillow Book is undoubtedly fascinating and well-constructed. -- Tony Malone * Tony's Reading List *
An intelligent and informative study. -- Rivka Galchen * London Review of Books *
This is a learned, provocative, and rewarding book. -- Peter Kornicki, Robinson College, Cambridge * Journal of Japanese Studies *
The scope of the research underpinning this work is breathtaking, but even more impressive is the lucidity, concision, and accessibility of Ivanova's writing style. The story she tells is fascinating. * Choice *
The fresh perspectives brought by
Unbinding “The Pillow Book” will certainly keep Sei’s narrative alive by leaving an invigorating mark on future scholarship on
The Pillow Book. -- Joannah Peterson, University of Kentucky * Tulsa Studies in Women's Literature *
Gergana Ivanova’s
Unbinding The Pillow Book: The Many Lives of a Japanese Classic is a welcome addition to a small but growing body of scholarship focusing on the Benjaminian “afterlives” of Japanese literary classics . . . The book, which is extensively noted and comprises a comprehensive bibliography—constituting a quarter of the book—will surely be of immense help to both graduate students and scholars interested in literary reception across disciplines. -- Gouranga Charan PRADHAN * Japan Review: Journal of the International Research Center for Japanese Studies *
Meticulously researched and persuasively argued,
Unbinding The Pillow Book offers a dynamic portrait of one of the most important works of world literature and of the woman who wrote it more than a millennium ago.
The Pillow Book has long been one of my favorite books; now, having read this engaging, wide-ranging exploration of the different meanings it has come to embody in everything from seventeenth-century commentaries to twenty-first-century popular culture, I see it as I have never seen it before. -- Michael Emmerich, University of California, Los Angeles
Ivanova’s work is a fascinating exploration of the reception, reproduction, and reimagination of Sei Shōnagon’s
The Pillow Book over time, focusing in particular on book history and publishing cultures of the seventeenth through early twentieth centuries. -- Keller Kimbrough, University of Colorado, Boulder
In this exceptionally clear and clear-headed work, Ivanova tells us exactly how and why we are able to read
The Pillow Book today. Tracing the ways in which the ‘three commentaries’ of the Edo period elevate the work to a genre (while also relegating that genre to the sidelines), she makes a firm case for a much overdue new reading. -- Linda H. Chance, University of Pennsylvania
Unbinding The Pillow Book is an erudite and often entertaining guide to the persona of Sei Shōnagon and her peripatetic text,
The Pillow Book. Ivanova elucidates the complex reception of the text as an ongoing dialogue between the irretrievable past and the dynamic present. I cannot think of a better match between a scholar and her subject. It is a dazzling accomplishment. -- Paul Schalow, Rutgers University
Thanks to [Ivanova], we now understand how we got the text and author that have seduced so many of us. * East Asian Publishing and Society *
Ivanova takes us on a fascinating journey through the various incarnations of Sei Shonagon and her book; as she does a reader comes to see the book in so many different ways. * Asian Review of Books *
Table of ContentsAcknowledgments
1. What Is
The Pillow Book?
2. (Re)constructing the Text and Early Modern Scholarship
3. From a Guide to Court Life to a Guide to the Pleasure Quarters
4.
The Pillow Book for Early Modern Female Readers
5. Shaping the Woman Writer
6. New Markets for Japanese Classics
Notes
Bibliography
Index
