I couldn’t resist getting the Pillow Book. I didn’t really know what to expect from it, but what struck me first and has stayed with me is the way it expresses Sei Shōnagon’s personality. The things that she includes in her lists, the anecdotes she chooses to tell, express so much about her. It’s an interesting way of telling people about yourself; by filtering her world view through her book, we understand what she cares about. (It’s paper. That woman loved paper.)

It’s fascinating too that the book’s gone down as such an important historical text. The dual purpose of the text — as an almost-diary and a collection of data — is an interesting way of thinking about recording a time and place. So personal and yet very impersonal.

What I’ve discovered accidentally is that I also love her and want to hang out. What a sass queen, my god. I want to go back to Japan circa 1000 and judgementally appraise people’s outfits and letter-writing. She even tells people off for sneaking incorrectly. She’s a dream.