One judgment
n“So we have Sei Shōnagon, who left this world, bequeathing only her
carefree laughter and ready wit on that splendid paper she received from Empress Teishi. The Pillow Book is truly, and through and through,
the legacy in prose of ‘a
skilled performance.’ How many tears of blood did she shed over its
pages?– no one can sneak a peek inside the bamboo blinds of a thousand years ago.”
– Ogino Ayako (1991),
cited in Edith Sarra, Fictions of Femininity (1999).