Book Review: The Tale of Genji - Murasaki Shikibu (Seidenstecker trans.)

Definitely one of those books that gets better on each re-read, and it was already very good. I read the Seidenstecker translation, which is supposedly more allusive than Washburn, but less than Tyler. I'd like to read the Washburn translation next. I read it over the course of a year or more, with other books in-between, and it did feel very, very slow. I guess that's partly a deliberate effect in the original – it definitely makes the sudden time-skips more jarring – and partly an effect of the Seidenstecker translation. I think I'll write something about the Genji at some point, maybe comparing it to Beowulf, but I might want to read the Washburn translation first, which I don't intend to do for a while. Before that I might just put up a collection of my favourite poems alluded to or referenced in the Genji, since Seidenstecker includes all the alluded-to poems as footnotes.