A detailed exploration of The Tale of Genji (circa 1000 CE), arguing against its supposed accessibility while demonstrating the extreme cultural alienness of Heian-era Japan's Imperial Court through discussions of aesthetics, hierarchy, gender segregation, relationship customs, poetry, and translation challenges. Longer summary

This review explores The Tale of Genji, written around 1000 CE by Murasaki Shikibu in Japan's Imperial Court, arguing it is the world's oldest novel. The reviewer strongly disagrees with translator Royall Tyler's claim that the work is easily accessible, instead demonstrating through extensive cultural context how alien this world is to modern readers. The review walks through key aspects of Heian court culture including extreme aestheticism, rigid hierarchy, gender segregation, complex relationship customs, and sophisticated poetry-based communication. It examines Genji himself—an idealized yet morally questionable protagonist by modern standards—and his numerous romantic pursuits including raising a 10-year-old girl to become his perfect wife. The review also discusses translation challenges across the four major English versions and one Finnish translation, showing how differently the same passages can be rendered. Despite the cultural distance, the reviewer finds moments of relatable human emotion beneath the alien customs, and ultimately recommends the work for readers with interest in history, tolerance for ambiguity, and willingness to suspend moral judgment. Shorter summary

A review of Thomas Urquhart's 17th-century English translation of Rabelais' Gargantua and Pantagruel, told through the tragicomic life story of the translator - a Scottish aristocrat who failed at everything except creating this masterpiece of baroque English prose. Longer summary

This is a book review of Thomas Urquhart's 17th-century English translation of Rabelais' Gargantua and Pantagruel, framed through the extraordinary and often absurd life of the translator himself. The review traces Urquhart's journey from Scottish aristocrat to failed soldier, failed mathematician, failed universal language inventor, and finally successful translator - though he never lived to see that success. Born in 1611 into a noble Scottish family, Urquhart was educated in the classical tradition but proved spectacularly incompetent at nearly everything he attempted: he bungled military operations, invented an incomprehensible trigonometry system, spent seven years creating an impossible universal language (which was lost when he foolishly brought the manuscript to battle), and wrote a genealogy tracing his lineage back to Adam and Eve to impress his captors. His one genuine achievement was his translation of Rabelais, which showcased his love of obscure words, baroque prose, and verbal extravagance - qualities that were liabilities in his original work but perfect for capturing Rabelais' encyclopedic, exuberant style. The review argues that while the translation failed commercially in Urquhart's lifetime and he died in exile (allegedly from laughing too hard at the restoration of Charles II), his work survives as one of the great English translations, never out of print, full of extraordinary language and rhythm that makes it superior even to more modern versions. Shorter summary