The fist few pages of The Tale of Genji were really interesting for me and, they surly reminded me of Plato and Aristotle from the old philosophical era of the ancient Greece. The Tail Of Genji it is indeed a very difficult piece to understand but, if read and examined more carefully The Tail Of Genji is a well written classic masterpiece than even today, after all these year still carries the message. I think one difficulty with the novel is its cast of many. To be able to comprehend what is really happening you need to keep track of the characters. I wished the translation could guide me better in keeping people straight through more footnotes. As it was said in the introduction this novel deals with Genji's love affairs and wives and involves debates of the characteristics that make up the prefect woman but, it also talks about the society, culture and the court behavior of Heian period. After reading this novel, it became clear to me that Genji's compulsive behavior was mainly due to that fact that he was searching for a mother he never knew. Genji is an amazingly modern story about the way people shape each other's destinies and desires, sometimes without even trying. This isn't exactly what I'd call an easy piece to critique. It is very long and slow paced. Despite its length, you get the feeling that there's a lot that you're missing out on and I don't doubt that there's a lot of stuff in the original work that was skipped in the translation.
