What would you say were the key strengths and weaknesses of Murasakis persona?
Murasaki was amazingly observant and had a rare ability to work her observations into her writing. My impression is that, like many writers, she had a rich interior life, suffered a lot of self-doubt, and was often difficult to be around. You speak of using ‘Literary archaeology’ as the method of piecing together Murasakis life. What were the primary challenges of this technique? As far as I know, “literary archaeology” is a term I invented to describe what I was doing. The challenge was trying to make the parts of the tale I invented fit in with what we do know about the historical Murasaki Shikibu. What would you say is the most important thing women today can learn from Murasaki’s plight? My view of Murasaki was to see her as overcoming the various disappointments of her own life through creatively engaging herself in writing and coming to a greater self-awareness through this process. In a way, her story is a cautionary tale about what can happen when you get what you want. Do you
