Comments on: What We Read When We Don’t Read The Internet PRESENTS! How Sei Shonagon Invented Your Tumblr

By: Liz Henry

Liz Henry — Wed, 21 Jul 2010 07:01:53 +0000

oh also! you should see this awesomeness – Sei Shonagon LJ entries as if written today. http://web.archive.org/web/20050328023705/blog.simon-cozens.org/shonagon/

By: Liz Henry

Liz Henry — Wed, 21 Jul 2010 06:57:38 +0000

Yes - she is the bloggiest isn't she?! I mentioned her in my list of anachro-blogging women!

By: Tweets that mention Tiger Beatdown › What We Read When We Don’t Read The Internet PRESENTS! How Sei Shonagon Invented Your Tumblr -- Topsy.com

Sun, 27 Jun 2010 03:04:51 +0000

[...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by eccentric yoruba, Noelle. Noelle said: http://tinyurl.com/2whdshv How Sei Shonagon invented your Tumblr [...]

By: Danielle

Danielle — Fri, 18 Jun 2010 16:53:41 +0000

I read the Murasaki diary, and boy did she ever hate Shonagon. It was distracting and hilarious. “Today, made incense balls which will marinate in the earth for 40 days AND OH MY GAWD I HATE SONAGON!!”

By: Sargassosea

Sargassosea — Thu, 10 Jun 2010 15:16:17 +0000

I still love you, Sady, for posts such as this.

By: links for 2010-06-08 « Embololalia

links for 2010-06-08 « Embololalia — Tue, 08 Jun 2010 18:02:20 +0000

[...] Tiger Beatdown › What We Read When We Don’t Read The Internet PRESENTS! How Sei Shonagon Invente… It works the way patriarchy always works: We tell girls to do certain things (care about dating; care about motherhood; Be In Touch With Their Feelings), and then when they do them (care about dating enough to write about their dates; care about motherhood enough to start a mommy blog; Be so In Touch With Their Feelings that they consider those Feelings important enough to consider at length and then share with the world at large) we tell them that those activities are worthless and stupid and a waste of our time. (tags: patriarchy japan writing feminism books blogging female.authors sady.doyle non-white.authors) [...]

By: lijakaca

lijakaca — Mon, 07 Jun 2010 22:53:12 +0000

My God this post is awesome, I never thought I’d see Sei Shonagon discussed on one of my favourite blogs! I read the Pillow Book several years ago when I was getting into Japanese stuff, and after being a little disappointed that it wasn’t a story in its own right, ended up appreciating it for its own sake (plus, it’s easy to pick up and read bits at random). I never even thought about the bloggy style (read it before they were popular), but it’s so true!
Still trying to get through Genji though…

By: Shonagon Chan

Shonagon Chan — Mon, 07 Jun 2010 21:12:47 +0000

Thank you for writing this. As you can see, she’s kind of my obsession.

By: joffe

joffe — Sun, 06 Jun 2010 10:08:51 +0000

Great post. The part about Shonagon’s “blogginess” cracked me up because when I was taking a course in Japanese literature, that’s the one comment everyone, both those who loved it and hated it, had to say about The Pillow Book. Our professor did indeed nearly have an aneurysm.

It’s a shame though, because nearly everyone in that class thought that the Heian period was “boring” because the literature was all about “lady” things like courts and love and poetry and lacked the “badass” things like samurai and ninjas. I could ramble on about Japanese literature now, and how the Heian period is fascinating because the stories are really just as badass as the more popular samurai stories just using sex and gossip in the place of overt violence, but it doesn’t feel like the time.

By: Jesse

Jesse — Sun, 06 Jun 2010 03:18:12 +0000

Thanks to this post, I totally got The Pillow Book out of the library today, and so far, so awesome! It’s a different translation than yours — one by a lady! Which I had to confirm after I started thinking about how Meredith has been a man’s name in the past.

Signed,
A lady with a gender-neutral name who is thinking about it again after reading today’s post…