My private reading experience
I started reading The Tale of Genji four years ago. I was 37 years old.
All bookworm have books they want to read someday.For me it was "Genji".But I was too busy with work to read it.I thought I should read it someday when I had free time.
One day, My father got sick. It was severe gastric cancer.When I visited the hospital,Father got thin like a pole hanger.
He kept a book by his bedside.Kenji Miyazawa's The Night of the Milky Way Train. I had read it. It's nice book.
"Nice Book"father also said."But,I can't read it because suffering"
On my way home, I stopped by a bookstore and bought Genji(Translated into modern Japanese by Junichiro Tanizaki).
I read it every day in a commuter train.It took me two years to read all 54 chapters. Of course, it was a excellent novel.
Hard to believe it was written 1,200 years ago. It is true that Japanese culture was at its peak during this period. Many excellent works were born. literature, paintings ,sculptures …But Genji resembles none of that.
There is a view that Genji is the world's first full-length novel(excluding epic poems like Homer). If so, the novel was complete when the genre was born.
Fortunately, my father recovered after major surgery to remove his stomach. He is fine now and running 10km every day. I thank him even if he doesn't realize it.because he told me, There is no "free time",and "sometime" is now.