The Pillow Book of Sei Shonagon, Translated [from the Japanese] and Edited by Ivan Morris Summary & Study Guide includes comprehensive information and analysis tohelp you understand the book. This study guide contains the following sections:Plot SummaryChaptersCharactersObjects/PlacesThemesStyleQuotes This detailed literature summary also contains Topics for Discussion and a Free Quiz onThe Pillow Book of Sei Shonagon, Translated [from the Japanese] and Edited by Ivan Morris by Sei Shōnagon.The Pillow Book is a journal written by a tenth-century lady-in-waiting to the Empress of Japan. The author is Sei Shonagon, and she was given some notebooks that were lying around the Palace that no one else wanted. The Pillow Book is her journal, and the topics she covers are varied. She writes poetry in her journal, gossips about the people in the court, and writes about the wonders of nature.
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The publisher arranges Nagiko's wedding to his young apprentice. Her husband, an expert archer, resents Nagiko's love for books and her desire to read, in spite of his apprenticeship. He also refuses to indulge in her desires for pleasure, refusing to write on her body. When he discovers and reads Nagiko's pillow book, he is extremely resentful, setting it on fire and thus setting fire to their marital home, an event which Nagiko describes to be the 'first major fire of [her] life.' Insulted and enraged, Nagiko leaves him for good.
Nagiko burns her possessions and moves back to Japan. After the funeral, the publisher secretly exhumes Jerome's body from the tomb and has Jerome's skin, still bearing the writing, flayed and made into a grotesque pillow book of his own. Nagiko learns of the publisher's actions and becomes distraught and outraged. She sends a letter to the publisher, still keeping her identity a secret, demanding that particular book from the publisher's hands in exchange for the remaining books. The publisher, now obsessed with his mysterious writer and her work, agrees.
Finally, Book 13: The Book of the Dead arrives on the body of a Sumo wrestler. In the book writing on the body of the messenger, which the publisher carefully reads, Nagiko finally reveals her identity, confronting the publisher with his crimes: blackmailing and disgracing her father, "corrupting" her husband, as well as Jerome, and what he's done to Jerome's corpse. The publisher, greatly shamed and humbled by being confronted with his guilt, hands the pillow book made of Jerome's skin to the messenger, then has the messenger slit his throat.
Upon recovering the book made out of Jerome's skin, Nagiko buries it under a Bonsai tree and life goes on. She has given birth to Jerome's child and is shown in the epilogue writing on her child's face, like her father used to do when she was young and quoting from her own pillow book. It is now Nagiko's 28th birthday.
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