Tuesday Book Club: The Tale of Genji by Murasaki Shikibu

A Journey Through the Soul

The sumptuous hardback edition from Viking. A more wieldy paperback version is available.

This week’s Tuesday Book Club choice is The Tale of Genji by Murasaki Shikibu, translated by Royal Tyler; a book that, once read, settles into your bones and never quite leaves you.

Yes, it was written over a thousand years ago. Yes, it depicts a society so far removed from our own that it can feel at first like stepping into another world entirely. But that distance is deceptive. What lies beneath is a work of extraordinary emotional depth and universal humanity.

Genji may be set in the Heian court of 11th-century Japan, but it remains a book deeply embedded in the Japanese collective imagination—and for good reason. Its exploration of longing, beauty, jealousy, impermanence and the quiet ache of passing time makes it feel not just relevant, but necessary.

The genius of The Tale of Genji is that it’s not really about what happens. The plot flows like a quiet stream—sometimes meandering, sometimes shifting abruptly—but always carrying the reader into deeper emotional waters. The real journey is not through events but into the interior world of its characters, into the soul of the court and the people who inhabit it.

Royal Tyler’s translation does a remarkable job of preserving both the subtlety and the strangeness of the original. It doesn’t modernise or flatten the tone. Instead, it invites you into a rhythm and sensibility that may feel unfamiliar at first, but soon becomes immersive—almost meditative.

We’re not the only ones to be deeply moved by it. L.A. Davenport reviewed The Tale of Genji for Pushing the Wave↗︎; an edited and annotated version of that review appears in Pushing the Wave 2017–2022. It’s well worth a read if you’d like a deeper take on what makes the book so remarkable.

Let’s Talk About It

Have you read The Tale of Genji? Did you fall under its spell? Or are you still circling it, wondering if it’s the right time? It’s not a short read, but it’s one that rewards slow reading and open-hearted attention.

Join us at #TuesdayBookClub and #TaleOfGenji on X (formerly Twitter) and Bluesky as we reflect on one of the most quietly powerful books ever written.