{"product_id":"flowering-tales-takeshi-watanabe-9780674244405","title":"Flowering Tales: Women Exorcising History in Heian Japan","description":"\u003cp\u003eTelling stories: that sounds innocuous enough. But for the first chronicle in the Japanese vernacular, \u003ci\u003eA Tale of Flowering Fortunes\u003c\/i\u003e (\u003ci\u003eEiga monogatari\u003c\/i\u003e), there was more to worry about than a good yarn. The health of the community was at stake. \u003ci\u003eFlowering Tales\u003c\/i\u003e is the first extensive literary study of this historical tale, which covers about 150 years of births, deaths, and happenings in late Heian society, a golden age of court literature in women's hands. Takeshi Watanabe contends that the blossoming of tales, marked by the \u003ci\u003eTale of Genji, \u003c\/i\u003e inspired \u003ci\u003eEiga\u003c\/i\u003e's new affective history: an exorcism of embittered spirits whose stories needed to be retold to ensure peace. \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eTracing the narrative arcs of politically marginalized figures, Watanabe shows how \u003ci\u003eEiga\u003c\/i\u003e's female authors adapted the discourse and strategies of the \u003ci\u003eTale of Genji\u003c\/i\u003e to rechannel wayward ghosts into the community through genealogies that relied not on blood but on literary resonances. These reverberations, highlighted through comparisons to contemporaneous accounts in courtiers' journals, echo through shared details of funerary practices, political life, and characterization. \u003ci\u003eFlowering Tales\u003c\/i\u003e reanimates these eleventh-century voices to trouble conceptions of history: how it ought to be recounted, who got to record it, and why remembering mattered.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eAuthor:\u003c\/b\u003e Takeshi Watanabe\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eISBN-10:\u003c\/b\u003e 0674244400\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eISBN-13:\u003c\/b\u003e 9780674244405\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePublisher:\u003c\/b\u003e Harvard University Press\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eLanguage:\u003c\/b\u003e English\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePublished:\u003c\/b\u003e 01\/07\/2020\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePages:\u003c\/b\u003e 322\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eFormat:\u003c\/b\u003e Hardcover\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eWeight:\u003c\/b\u003e 1.45lbs\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eSize:\u003c\/b\u003e 9.10h x 6.30w x 1.20d\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eReview Citation(s): \u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003eChoice\u003c\/i\u003e 11\/01\/2020","brand":"Takeshi Watanabe","offers":[{"title":"Hardcover","offer_id":48086759964927,"sku":"9780674244405","price":65.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0662\/2982\/9887\/files\/img_5ed86d48-bcec-4642-9912-aa23030deb13.jpg?v=1769096414","url":"https:\/\/www.whiterainbookhouse.com\/products\/flowering-tales-takeshi-watanabe-9780674244405","provider":"WR Book House","version":"1.0","type":"link"}