The Tale of Genji, Volume 2
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Narrated by:
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Brian Nishii
About this listen
Murasaki Shikibu, born into the middle ranks of the aristocracy during the Heian period (794-1185 CE), wrote The Tale of Genji - widely considered the world’s first novel - during the early years of the 11th century. Expansive, compelling, and sophisticated in its representation of ethical concerns and aesthetic ideals, Murasaki’s tale came to occupy a central place in Japan’s remarkable history of artistic achievement and is now recognized as a masterpiece of world literature.
The Tale of Genji is presented here in a flowing new translation for contemporary listeners, who will discover in its depiction of the culture of the imperial court the rich complexity of human experience that simultaneously resonates with and challenges their own. Dennis Washburn embeds annotations for accessibility and clarity and renders the poetry into triplets to create prosodic analogues of the original.
©2015 Dennis Washburn (translation) (P)2019 Blackstone PublishingListeners also enjoyed...
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Wonderful narration. Mediocre stories.
- By Michael Fuchs on 11-07-23
By: Stephen Fry, and others
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Fahrenheit 451
- By: Ray Bradbury
- Narrated by: Tim Robbins
- Length: 5 hrs and 1 min
- Unabridged
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Guy Montag is a fireman. In his world, where television rules and literature is on the brink of extinction, firemen start fires rather than put them out. His job is to destroy the most illegal of commodities, the printed book, along with the houses in which they are hidden. Montag never questions the destruction and ruin his actions produce, returning each day to his bland life and wife, Mildred, who spends all day with her television "family."
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Wish I Hadn't Cliff Noted This in High School
- By Joel on 03-27-17
By: Ray Bradbury
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Brain Damage
- By: Freida McFadden
- Narrated by: Megan Tusing
- Length: 9 hrs and 32 mins
- Unabridged
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As Charly struggles to recover from her brain injury, she begins to realize that the events of that fateful night are trapped in the damaged right side of her brain. Now, she must put the jigsaw pieces together to discover the identity of the man who tried to kill her...before he finishes the job he started.
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Who Else Laughed, Cried, and Shuddered?
- By Jennifer Chichester on 09-16-22
By: Freida McFadden
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Starship Troopers
- By: Robert A. Heinlein
- Narrated by: R.C. Bray
- Length: 8 hrs and 15 mins
- Unabridged
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Johnnie Rico never really intended to join up—and definitely not the infantry. But now that he’s in the thick of it, trying to get through combat training harder than anything he could have imagined, he knows everyone in his unit is one bad move away from buying the farm in the interstellar war the Terran Federation is waging against the Arachnids. Because everyone in the Mobile Infantry fights. And if the training doesn’t kill you, the Bugs are more than ready to finish the job.
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The definitive version!
- By Kristopher G. Hesson on 10-03-24
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Slayers: A Buffyverse Story
- By: Christopher Golden, Amber Benson
- Narrated by: Amber Benson, Charisma Carpenter, James Charles Leary, and others
- Length: 8 hrs and 2 mins
- Original Recording
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Original cast members from the beloved TV series, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, reunite for an all-new adventure about connections that never die—even if you bury them. A decade has passed since the epic final battle that concluded Buffy the Vampire Slayer (TV). The game-changing spell that gave power to all potential Slayers persists. With new Slayers constantly emerging, things are looking grim for the bad guys.
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A dream come true
- By Anonymous User on 10-12-23
By: Christopher Golden, and others
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Great book, reader lacked emotion
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How to listen
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The Water Margin is one of the most popular classics of early Chinese literature. It tells the vigorous story of 108 characters who, falling foul of the established state authorities, are forced to become outlaws. They form a bandit community in Liangshan Marsh, becoming such a formidable force in their own right that they threaten the power of government itself.
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From the celebrated, award-winning translators of Anna Karenina and War and Peace: a lavish, masterfully rendered volume of stories by one of the most influential short fiction writers of all time.
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Better alternatives for Chekhov
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A Book of Five Rings
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Read all of it in one day, then read it once a day forever
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Dorothea Brooke is an ardent idealist who represses her vivacity and intelligence for the cold, theological pedant Casaubon. One man understands her true nature: the artist Will Ladislaw. But how can love triumph against her sense of duty and Casaubon’s mean spirit? Meanwhile, in the little world of Middlemarch, the broader world is mirrored: the world of politics, social change, and reforms, as well as betrayal, greed, blackmail, ambition, and disappointment.
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Best Audible book ever
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The Complete Book of Five Rings
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The Complete Book of Five Rings is an authoritative version of Musashi's classic The Book of Five Rings, translated and annotated by a modern martial arts master, Kenji Tokitsu. Tokitsu has spent most of his life researching the legendary samurai swordsman and his works, and in this book he illuminates this seminal text, along with several other works by Musashi.
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Best translation I have encountered.
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By: Miyamoto Musashi, and others
What listeners say about The Tale of Genji, Volume 2
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- Michelle
- 06-19-23
Surprised myself
I didn’t think I would really make it through both volumes, but glad I did. Learned a lot, enjoyed the narration and the narrative of the great Japanese classic.
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- Thomas
- 07-10-24
Excellent reading
If you want to immerse yourself in the courts of Heian Japan this recording of the Dennis Washburn translation of The Tale of Genji is the perfect vehicle. It is a marvelous story and very well narrated.
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- Amazon Customer
- 11-16-24
Second Time Around
Volume 2 is a far better story than Volume 1. This is one of those books that the more you listen, the more it grows on you. The generations after grandpa Genji are far more interesting, multifaceted characters. The poetry is either better inVol 2 or the ear is learning to decipher the meaning. I have listened to this multiple times. There definitely is something here worth listening to.
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- Janyce H. Imoto
- 11-01-24
Eloquently translated
I loved this rendition of the Tale of Genji. Refined and eloquent is the translation.
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- eric j rotzoll
- 07-17-24
a different world
it is amazing to think that this world in this story existed 1000 years ago.
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- David Proctor
- 01-21-23
A lot of hours but worth it.
What a privilege to be able to admire and enjoy a work like this. Character development, storyline, descriptions are all exceptional, from such an unexpected source, a Japanese woman writer 1,000 years ago. And it may be having an academic translate this work preserves Shikibu's own sensibilities vs. filtering them. So happy I saw it through. You won't regret it.
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2 people found this helpful
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- MargaRose
- 12-29-20
Brian Nishii breathes life into The Tale; bravo!
So very satisfying are the first chapters of Bk 2 (before the Blank Chapter), as we see Genji's growth from self-centeredness and impulsivity to introspection, devotion to family, and pondering a spiritual path. Might Shikibu herself have been preoccupied with end of life concerns at this point, contributing to a sense of urgency to complete the development of each character and The Tale itself? Life can be so difficult to navigate for those with less privilege, especially when outrageous advantage is taken or threatened. For the women at court, discretion, circumspection and avoidance could be employed in order to stay safe. But how easily might one be tricked, cajoled by poetry or promises, or even betrayed by one's own trusted attendants, and if/when it happened, there would be no one to blame but oneself, one's own karma. To avoid social calamity, some of the women speak of jumping in the river (suicide) or cutting their hair (taking the veil). Might Shikibu even have longed for this herself, but the beautiful children of the court and the need to teach them (think of Genji's Murasaki who was a doting step-mother), or the demands of Shikibu's superiors at court for just one more story, or Shikibu's own worldly attachment to her characters' lives and development of The Tale, might these and other worldly demands have held her back? Might Shikibu have vowed to finish her work, in spite of illness or tiredness, or aging, until that day came when, quite suddenly, there was only just that final white page... In the last chapters (Audible ch. 42 ff) we see that the option of rejecting this world and turning spiritually inward (becoming a nun) is very much discouraged for all but very old women, almost a taboo for a young, beautiful, desirable woman to consider. There is really no escape for a woman at court except perhaps turning to the brush, if only to write poetry while pretending to practice calligraphy. But then, too, as Shikibu so often demonstrates, there's always a good story and good humor, which may be the best of all ways to cope, when things are destined by karma to be as they are; think for example of Genji as the older lover patiently rap, tap, tapping on the door of the screen while the women inside pretend to be asleep or the besotted young lover and his obsession with his beloved's little Chinese cat, not even a very pretty cat at that. Of all the marvelous characters of The Tale, my favorite is the gifted one, herself obscured behind the screen of her own creation, brush in hand and ink stone at the ready. If only I could pull back the screen to sneak just one little peek!
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8 people found this helpful