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| As I Crossed a Bridge of Dreams: Recollections of a Woman in 11th-Century Japan (Penguin Classics) | 
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Avg. Customer Rating:  (based on 7 reviews)
Sales Rank: 526626
Category: Book
Author: Sarashina
Publisher: Penguin Classics
Studio: Penguin Classics
Manufacturer: Penguin Classics
Label: Penguin Classics
Languages: English (Original Language), English (Unknown), English (Published)
Media: Paperback
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 176
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.1
Dimensions (in): 7.6 x 5.1 x 0.5
ISBN: 0140442820
Dewey Decimal Number: 895.68109
EAN: 9780140442823
ASIN: 0140442820
Publication Date: December 5, 1989
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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Product Description
"As I Crossed a Bridge of Dreams" is a unique autobiography in which the anonymous writer known as Lady Sarashina intersperses personal reflections, anecdotes and lyrical poems with accounts of her travels and evocative descriptions of the Japanese countryside. Born in AD 1008, Lady Sarashina felt an acute sense of melancholy that led her to withdraw into the more congenial realm of the imagination - this deeply introspective work presents her vision of the world. While barely alluding to certain aspects of her life such as marriage, she illuminates her pilgrimages to temples and mystical dreams in exquisite prose, describing a profound emotional journey that can be read as a metaphor for life itself.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 2 more reviews...
 A Memoir of the Dreams of Life January 5, 2005
5 out of 6 found this review helpful
This lovely poetic lament transcends time and space.
How often does a glimpse of the forbidden (that
which lies beyond our cloistered grasp) create a melancholia
that pervades our life?
As we cross this bridge of dreams - fleeting and ethereal, we
identify with Lady "Sarashina" and a life of desires destined to remain unfulfilled.
And yet, it is precisely this unfulfillment that allows the memoirs' moody
passion to blossom. As a result of her discontent, we readers have an opportunity
to savour the gentle nectar of her often luminous writing.
 Beautiful dreamer August 19, 2004
5 out of 6 found this review helpful
This charming, brief book really does move at a dream-like pace. There are great leaps in time, with no apparent explanation. Things that should have seemed vitally important, like raising three children, are dismissed in a few scattered lines. Sarashina simply walks out on a once-in-a-lifetime imperial ceremony, but returns again and again to the sight of the moonlight.
Sarashina, the pseudonym we have for her, lived and wrote in the first half of the 11th century, in Heian Japan. It is a wonderful quirk of history that this era hosted so many educated, literate women, with cloistered lives that allowed time for introspection. The authors of The Gossamer Years and Shonagon's Pillow Book lived during that same era, and even had family connections to Sarashina.
She wrote this memoir near the end of her life, and seemed to use it as a package for presenting her life. Like an elegantly wrapped package, this tantalizes us by hiding the real substance inside. We read a little of her role in the imperial court, but never see into the closed society of the women's quarters. We see a courtier's career interrupted by family duties, but quite make out what those duties were. We learn that her husband was influential enough to be named regional governor, but we never see her part in his court or how that related to her imperial service. Instead, we read a few conversations, travelogues, and poems, the kind that hide more than they reveal.
As a child, she had a passion for romantic stories. She used those tales to enter worlds of elegant people and beautiful places. It was only in her thirties that she came back to earth, and realized that she had let too much time go by. She did marry, but was widowed early. She did have a comfortable life as lady in waiting, but never found her way into the court's inner circle. It was almost as if her life were one of those romances, but she had been given only a minor role in it.
She wrote this memoir when she was old and alone. It is beautifully literate. Still, I almost wonder whether her mind had started to wander, and wander only where the little girl's romance stories led.
//wiredweird
The Sei Shonogon antipode June 4, 2004
5 out of 5 found this review helpful
Lady Sharashina lived a life of dreamy lament. It is a wonder if someone of her nature could ever be happy with what the real world could offer. Her brief moments of happiness are gained in dreams and fantasy, or tempting/dreaming the impossible, the forbidden fruit. The real world, despite living a life of relative privilege, was a never ending experience of pain to her. She took seeing the ephemeral (wabi sabi/mono no aware) aspects of life to heiights of seeing the eternal in the ephemeral the great in the small, which can be beautiful (as with Basho), but Lady Sharshina seems too idealistic and self obsessed which makes it something pitiful in the end. The real world is one of duty and lament: "veni, vedi, vici" would not be her epitaph; more like perpetual nostaligic anguish and shyness. Her regrets seem misguided.
Lady Sharashina avoided popular attractions, as opposed to her near contemporary Sei Shonagon, in "The Pillow Book", who endeavored to be the attraction. Some of the scenes are unforgetable and the book is a classic for what it is: the memoirs of a dreamer. The book has one of the most poignent poetic conundrum sort of endings I can recall.
The translation failed to capture all of the poems, which is to be expected; but those that were captured are brilliant.
The contrast between Sei Shonagon and Lady Sharshina is one of the beauties of these books and poses an interesting psychological comparison.
Lyrical counterpoint to Sei Shonagon March 19, 2004
9 out of 9 found this review helpful
Short, poignant and redolent of a very individual experience of life in Heian Japan, the memoirs of 'Lady Sarashina' provide a fascinating glimpse of a woman's life slightly outside of the most exalted circles of eleventh-century life. This is a highly idiosyncratic portrait of its time, concentrating on episodes important to Sarashina herself (dreams, pilgrimages, poetic exchanges) rather than to the politically-active class as a whole. The sense of chronology is vague, the structure dictated more by mood pieces and observations than straightforward diary-keeping. As such, this probably isn't the place to start with medieval Japanese writing, but something to try after Sei Shonagon (an altogether more ebullient and resilient character, who _is_ at the centre of things) and Lady Murasaki. Sarashina is too withdrawn to involve herself in the customary court intrigues and liaisons, and too low-status to have much impact. Instead, she occupies herself with the fantastical world of Genji and other "Tales". Her memoirs are also notable for their account of a journey through the provinces to the capital, and for highly-praised poetry that unfortunately doesn't translate particularly well. Ivan Morris' concise introduction sets the work in its context and discusses its significance and textual history; line drawings and unobtrusive notes further build our picture of Sarashina's world. A worthwhile purchase.
 THE BRIDGE NEVER GETS CROSSED May 1, 2003
17 out of 31 found this review helpful
As I Crossed a Bridge of Dreams is a truly nonwestern work. In its tone, its narrative devices, and in the world it presents, this is a work that is clearly "other" from traditional Western fare. While sharing the same structural shell as the Western novel, its story is largely outside the limits of Western expectation.
At its heart, As I Crossed a Bridge of Dreams is a song sung in retrospect by Lady Sarashina. This is a song of denied dreams that always just barely seem to fail.
The one constant of the narrative is sadness. Whether Sarashina's life was really so melancholy or whether she wrote this looking back through the lens of bitterness is speculation. Yet the sadness is palpable. Sadness hovers over each scene. When happiness breaks in, it is an unexpected and short-lived guest.
The narrative covers most of Sarashina's life. It starts in her childhood and leads up to her later years. She lives a very sheltered life in her father's house. So much so that it, in some ways, could be described in non-religious terms as a cloister. All the young Sarashina has to occupy her time is her love of tales and the hope of a more fulfilling future.
The genesis of Sarashina's great unhappiness is the glimpse she gets of the greater life around her--a life that she is never capable of partaking in. In all her travels she is never able to break free from her own internal solitude. She will not allow herself to live in anything more than a "dream."
For me, the extremely episodic nature of the book made it hard to get deeply involved as a reader. There were long spaces in this book where the author dwelt on seemingly unimportant matters. There are also quite a few brief sections where the author skips ahead a number of years. This made things difficult for me to follow on a number of occasions.
The one part of the book that I enjoyed was the poetry. I greatly enjoyed the poem that the author's father had his daughter compose to send to his ex-wife. The moment was both touching and insightful into their relationship.
The native Japanese worldview was wholly foreign to me. All the pilgrimages, priests, nuns, and what I would term "superstitions" struck me as convoluted and semi-capricious. The mother's taking of vows while still living within the house, yet being separated from the household, was a truly odd moment.
Though sometimes hopeful, Sarashina has no true hope. In its place Sarashina resigns herself to the idea that all the bad things happening to her are the result of Karma.
I have a hard time swallowing this much hopelessness. There is an endless sense of wallowing about As I Crossed a Bridge of Dreams. I wanted to talk to Sarashina--to tell her that no matter how deep the darkness, it only takes one point of light to dispel it. While this book may have value in being representative of the Japanese Literature of its day, it is not something I would choose to read again. The problem with As I Crossed a Bridge of Dreams is that no one ever crosses the stinking bridge.
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