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"He spoke to me of Sei Shōnagon, a lady in waiting to Princess Sadako at the beginning of the 11th century, in the Heian period. Do we ever know where history is really made? Rulers ruled and used complicated strategies to fight one another. Real power was in the hands of a family of hereditary regents; the emperor's court had become nothing more than a place of intrigues and intellectual games. But by learning to draw a sort of melancholy comfort from the contemplation of the tiniest things this small group of idlers left a mark on Japanese sensibility much deeper than the mediocre thundering of the politicians. Shonagon had a passion for lists: the list of 'elegant things,' 'distressing things,' or even of 'things not worth doing.' One day she got the idea of drawing up a list of 'things that quicken the heart.' Not a bad criterion I realize when I'm filming; I bow to the economic miracle, but what I want to show you are the neighborhood celebrations."

-Chris Marker-

This excerpt is taken from Chris Marker's San Soleil (Sunless); his surreal filmic travelogue in which the filmmaker meditates on time, cultural paradox, and memory. Memory informs most of the film. As the images flicker randomly, footage from around the world, a British, female narrator intones these ponderous reflections on the soundtrack. Not only is Shōnagon directly referred to in the film, but her particular style of voyeuristic observation most certainly influences Marker's approach as a filmmaker, particularly in the case of San Soleil.

Sei Shōnagon was a courtly woman who lived in Heian-Kyo (present day Kyoto). She served as a gentlewoman in the court of Empress Fujiwara Teishi of the famous Fujiwara clan, the dominant clan of the Heian period (roughly from 794 to 1186). In the context of Japanese history, the Heian period was a time devoid of war, and blessed with the idle calm of peace. Makura no Sōshi (The Pillow Book) is a collection of insights, observations, short stories, poetry, and frustrating daily occurrences kept by Shōnagon throughout most her time in the service of empress Teishi.

Heian period literature is a notoriously complicated cultural phenomenon for the western reader. An understanding of the cultural mores of Japanese Heian period society, also of its architecture, politics, literary and religious relationship to China, is more or less essential in order to appreciate the true brilliance of the work of Shōnagon or Lady Murasaki. It's in this sense that Shōnagon will appeal to a contemporary western audience. This is because, unlike the sweeping, convoluted narrative of a piece such as The Tale of Genji, The Pillow Book is more intimate, full of ephemeral fragments of courtly life in Heian Japan. Shōnagon is one of those writers who possess the poignancy of the universally relatable and the timeless. For lack of a better comparison, the tiny, cathartic pleasures in life mentioned in the film Amelie resemble Sei's list of "things that look enjoyable", or "things that create the presence of deep emotion". In other words, one doesn't necessarily require a full background knowledge of Japanese culture to be capable of relating to Sei's aesthetic predilection, albeit the sub-narratives that weave in and out of The Pillow Book are more esoteric, and mainly entail historical gossip as well as stories about poetry competitions.

There are, of course, two sides to Shōnagon; one is that of the pleasant servant of empress Teishi who enjoys reciting poetry and commenting on the beauty of her pastoral surroundings, the other is a socially duplicitous misanthrope. Her contemporary, and stylistic opposite Murasaki Shikubu (author of Genji Monogatari (The Tale of Genji)) mentioned something to this affect in her diary, "Sei Shōnagon ... was dreadfully conceited. She thought herself so clever and littered her writings with Chinese characters; but if you examined them closely, they left a great deal to be desired. Those who think of themselves as being superior to everyone else in this way will inevitably suffer and come to a bad end, and people who have become so precious that they go out of their way to try and be sensitive in the most unpromising situations, trying to capture every moment of interest, however slight, are bound to look ridiculous and superficial. How can the future turn out well for them?" One does get this sort of impression from several passages in The Pillow Book. First off, Sei was a class snob; she repeatedly criticizes the attire of the poverty stricken, as well as their manners. She clearly had a pretty short temper, and little patience for the idiosyncrasies of those around her. And a majority of the positive lists that she mentions mainly have more to do with the beauty of nature, or the complexity of poetry, rather than musings on how wonderful people are in general. It's difficult to imagine that this wasn't simply part and parcel of the sensibility of her age. Heian courtly life was so idle and lackadaisical to the point where petty back-stabbing and spreading vitriolic gossip must have seemed like popular pastimes.

The Pillow Book is most effectively enjoyed in fragments; a good book to pick up at random. There really isn't much of a unifying story, and it seems that the most erudite scholar still runs into difficulty in the matter of coming up with a chronology in relation to the layout of the book. Herein lies its charm though: that of leisurely digesting these observations and considering how much you might be inclined to agree or disagree. And Shōnagon's writings are immensely charming if nothing else.