Reading Order
The Diary of Lady Sarashina Reading Order
The Diary of Lady Sarashina (Sarashina Nikki, ca. 1060) by Sugawara Takasue's Daughter (her own name unknown) is one of the most poignant works of Japanese literature — the memoir of a woman who spent her life reading romantic tales (particularly The Tale of Genji), dreaming of a lover as ideal as Prince Genji, making pilgrimages to Buddhist temples, and gradually coming to understand that her dreams were incompatible with the real world. Her life, as she tells it, was shaped by books: as a child in the provinces she begged for tales to read; as a young woman at court she was disappointed that real courtiers were nothing like Genji; as an older woman she regrets not having paid more attention to Buddhist practice instead of romantic literature; and in old age she presents her life as a demonstration of the cost of having lived for fiction rather than for the real. The Sarashina diary is shorter and more melancholy than The Pillow Book or The Gossamer Years — the author had less brilliant social success than Sei Shonagon and less passionate involvement than Michitsuna's Mother — and this very quietness gives it a particular quality. It is a life story shaped by withdrawal, by missed connections (a man who seems to admire her never speaks to her; a man who speaks to her does not attract her), and by the gradual dissolution of the romantic dreams that sustained her youth. The author was a niece of Michitsuna's Mother (the author of The Gossamer Years) and knew The Pillow Book and The Tale of Genji, and her diary is in quiet dialogue with both works — presenting a less brilliant but more searching meditation on what it means to live a life in reading.
Where to start
The Diary of Lady Sarashina — the Sonja Arntzen and Ito Moriyuki Columbia University Press translation (2014) is the most scholarly; the Ivan Morris Penguin Classics version is the most widely read. Read it as a life story, not just a diary.
Complete The Diary of Lady Sarashina Book List
- 1Buy
The Diary of Lady Sarashina (trans. Ivan Morris)
Sugawara Takasue's Daughter·1971·Morris's Penguin Classics translation — the most widely read English version; with useful notes on the literary and cultural context. - 2Buy
The Tale of Genji
Murasaki Shikibu·1010·The work that shaped Lady Sarashina's inner life — and whose ideal of love and beauty she measured her own life against; the essential companion. - 3Buy
The Pillow Book
Sei Shonagon·1002·Sei Shonagon's miscellany — the more successful, more socially brilliant court life against which Lady Sarashina's quieter life reads; the same world, different temperaments. - 4Buy
The Gossamer Years
Michitsuna's Mother·974·Lady Sarashina's aunt's diary — the founding document of the tradition; a more passionate, more bitter account of the same Heian women's world. - 5Buy
Jane Eyre
Charlotte Bronte·1847·Bronte's novel — a woman whose inner life is shaped by her reading, whose romantic ideals formed by books conflict with the real people she meets; the Western parallel to Lady Sarashina's situation. - 6Buy
Bonjour Tristesse
Francoise Sagan·1954·Sagan's novel — a young woman's first experience of how romantic feeling and reality diverge; the melancholy of disappointed romantic ideals in a different cultural register. - 7Buy
The Bell Jar
Sylvia Plath·1963·Plath's novel — a young woman whose ideal world (formed by her ambition and reading) collides with the real world's disappointments; the modern Western equivalent of Lady Sarashina's story. - 8Buy
I Capture the Castle
Dodie Smith·1948·Smith's novel — a young woman's diary of her romantic imagination encountering reality; the same structure as Lady Sarashina's memoir (a girl shaped by books, meeting the world).
The Diary of Lady Sarashina — Frequently Asked Questions
What is The Diary of Lady Sarashina?
The Diary of Lady Sarashina (Sarashina Nikki, ca. 1060) is a memoir by a woman known as Sugawara Takasue's Daughter — her own name is unknown. She was a niece of Michitsuna's Mother (author of The Gossamer Years) and spent her childhood in the provinces, where she was obsessed with romantic tales. She moved to Kyoto, served briefly at court, married (unremarkably), had children, and grew old. The diary covers her entire life from childhood to old age and presents it as a meditation on her obsession with romantic fiction — particularly The Tale of Genji — and the way that obsession shaped her expectations and left her unprepared for the reality of her actual life. She ends the diary with the suggestion that her failure to embrace Buddhist practice was her life's central mistake.
Why is Lady Sarashina's obsession with The Tale of Genji important?
Lady Sarashina's memoir is one of the earliest and most detailed accounts we have of what it felt like to be a reader of fiction in the Heian period — and specifically, what it felt like to have your emotional life shaped by a great work of fiction. She describes begging for copies of Genji chapters as a child, the excitement of receiving them, the way she lived in the fictional world of the tale rather than paying attention to the real world around her. As an adult, she found that real courtiers were nothing like Genji — they were ordinary, awkward, unavailable — and she gradually understood that her romantic ideal was a fiction. The memoir is partly a meditation on the power of literature to shape desire and partly a warning about what happens when fictional ideals cannot be satisfied in the real world.
How does The Diary of Lady Sarashina relate to The Gossamer Years and The Pillow Book?
The three works are the three great monuments of Heian women's diary literature, and they represent three very different temperaments within the same court world. The Gossamer Years (ca. 974) is the most passionate — Michitsuna's Mother's intense engagement with her marriage's disappointments, her jealousy and resentment, her emotional range from fury to tenderness. The Pillow Book (ca. 1002) is the most brilliant and socially successful — Sei Shonagon's sharp observation, her delight in aesthetic distinctions, her intimate participation in the court's life. The Diary of Lady Sarashina (ca. 1060) is the most withdrawn and melancholy — a woman who preferred the world of books to the real world and found that the real world was consequently less available to her. Together they give a remarkable panorama of intelligent women's inner lives in a period of Japanese history that is otherwise known mainly through the eyes of men.
What is Lady Sarashina's attitude toward Buddhism?
One of the diary's most striking features is its ambivalence toward Buddhism. The author made pilgrimages to Buddhist temples throughout her life — these pilgrimages provide some of the diary's most beautiful passages, descriptions of mountain temples and autumn scenery — but she did not embrace Buddhist practice with the commitment she later felt she should have. In the diary's final sections, she regrets having spent her life in romantic fantasy (reading tales, dreaming of an ideal lover) rather than in serious Buddhist practice, and she presents her religious inadequacy as the explanation for her life's failures and disappointments. This retrospective Buddhist framing is characteristic of Japanese diary literature, but it is unusually explicit in Lady Sarashina's case — the memoir is structured, from its ending, as a moral lesson about the cost of preferring fiction to practice.
What should I read after The Diary of Lady Sarashina?
After The Diary of Lady Sarashina, the natural continuation is The Tale of Genji itself — the book that shaped Lady Sarashina's imagination; and The Gossamer Years and The Pillow Book, which form the other two points of the triangle of Heian women's diary literature. For scholarly context, Ivan Morris's The World of the Shining Prince (1964) is the best English introduction to Heian aristocratic culture. For modern Japanese women's writing that continues the introspective, diary-like tradition, Fumiko Enchi's The Waiting Years (1957) and Yuko Tsushima's Territory of Light (1979) are important heirs to the Heian women's literary tradition.
Monthly Newsletter
Never miss a big release
Get the most anticipated upcoming books delivered to your inbox once a month — no spam, no filler.
Monthly only. Unsubscribe anytime.
Book links are Amazon affiliate links. As an Amazon Associate, BookReleaseRadar earns from qualifying purchases at no extra cost to you.