Pillow Book

 

While questing for a picture to illustrate what I'm reading for comfort and relaxation lately, I discovered, to my delight, that I'm not the only huge fan of Sei Shonagon's Blog From Another World, otherwise known as the Pillow Book. (Evidently there's manga and YouTube versions of her!). It really is like reading a blog from another planet - 10th-century Japan is so alien, and Sei Shonagon's voice (at least in Ivan Morris's excellent translation) is so real and present. Accounts of court ceremonies and conversations (and exorcisms, which were apparently pretty commonplace) interspersed with her opinions: the proper circumstances under which to meet one's lover (summer, and PLEASE no whining about how awful your life is!); lists of subjects for poems (lawns; hail; bamboo grass). Lists of things that give one a nice clean feeling, or elegant things (shaved ice mixed with liana syrup and put in a new silver bowl - presumably a 10th-century slushie), or unsuitable things (a woman with ugly hair wearing a robe of white damask).

I don't know why hearing from her this way is so comforting when I'm tired, but it is. A long, long time ago in a galaxy far, far away.

The other primary-source reading that gives me a lot of pleasure is a book called the Fugger Newsletters - local updates from all over Europe, 1568-1604, from local branch bankers to the Head Office of the Fugger Banking House in Augsburg. Eyewitness day-by-day accounts of things like the execution of Mary, Queen of Scots and the economic repercussions of Drake's pirate-raids on Spanish colonies alternate with a 16th-century News of the Weird - assassination attempts, a rash of suicides in Augsburg, the birth of a baby to a German transgender mercenary soldier, zombie attacks in Spandau (wtf?) and an attempt by a local sheriff to arrest the star of a religious mystery play who was supposedly in sanctuary.

Nothing that has anything to do with either Benjamin January or the gang down at Foremost Studios in 1924.

In other news, Witches of Wenshar - the 2nd of the Sun Wolf novels - will be on-sale, digital, $1.99, US and Canada, October 1 (Saturday)... which reminds me that I need to unearth the notes for the next couple of Further Adventures, now that the final read-throughs of both The Iron Princess and One Extra Corpse have been cycled through, and my writing work-load is a little less hectic.

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