David Siegel - The Plenitude of Arboreal Beauty

Let’s see if I can get this straight – Genji lusts after his aunt-to-be, Fujitsubo, because of the resemblance she bears to his deceased mother. The Emperor has dibs on Fujitsubo, so Genji sets his sights on Young Murasaki, the ten year-old niece of Fujitsubo who also resembles Genji’s mother transitively. Fujitsubo is “impossibly young,” so her grandmother hesitates to grant Genji’s abrupt request to adopt Murasaki. After the old lady kicks the bucket, Genji kidnaps Murasaki, brings her back to his compound, and lavishes her with drawings and playmates and insists that she sleep in his bed. And Genji’s the protagonist?! To adapt Churchill: it’s Oedipus complex, wrapped in incest, inside pedophilia. I felt like I was watching Dateline’s “To Catch a Predator” or 60 Minutes’ Michael Jackson exposé. I was relieved to see that Genji’s tastes did not go uncriticized by other characters; my expectations of sexual taboo in ancient Japan were inaccurate.