Bedridden with spinal tuberculosis and able to reach barely beyond his mattress, the haiku poet Shiki dictates a short newspaper column every day. He ranges from picture books and owls' hooting to Noh, food, gardens and pain so bad he begs to die, until his writing stops a few days before the end.
Books mentioned in A Six-Foot Sickbed (8)
The Tale of Genji by Murasaki Shikibu: “Scholars of Japanese literature and native learning have devoted themselves mainly to studying The Tale of Genji, The Pillow Book and the like, and, dismissing everything from the Tokugawa period on as vulgar, they ignore it, so they know nothing of three hundred years of recent literature. [auto-translated]”
The Pillow Book by Sei Shōnagon: “Scholars of Japanese literature and native learning have devoted themselves mainly to studying The Tale of Genji, The Pillow Book and the like, and, dismissing everything from the Tokugawa period on as vulgar, they ignore it, so they know nothing of three hundred years of recent literature. [auto-translated]”
Sarumino by Nozawa Bonchō and Mukai Kyorai: “There is a verse on the horned owl in Sarumino. Besides that one, Sarumino has one more horned-owl verse, but the oldest owl verse I know of appears in a haikai book called Ashiwake-bune, from around the seventh year of Genroku. [auto-translated]”
Ashiwake-bune: “There is a verse on the horned owl in Sarumino. Besides that one, Sarumino has one more horned-owl verse, but the oldest owl verse I know of appears in a haikai book called Ashiwake-bune, from around the seventh year of Genroku. [auto-translated]”
Kyōgenki: “I borrowed a book called Kyōgenki from someone and read two or three pieces, and found much of interest in it. I do not fully know how kyōgen developed, but it appears on the stage together with Noh as its comic, vulgar counterpart. [auto-translated]”
A Year and a Half by Nakae Chōmin: “When Master Chōmin wrote A Year and a Half, he seems to have made his peace with the question of life and death, but I think he did not reach the realm of actually enjoying his appointed fate. [auto-translated]”
The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin by Benjamin Franklin: “Around this time last year I read The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin as a daily task. The small foreign print was hard going, so I read three pages and stopped, five pages and stopped, struggling through, but the pleasure I got from it was immense. [auto-translated]”
Hasshōjin by Takitei Rijō: “Shihōta says he is a devoted reader of Hasshōjin, which suits my own heart very well. It is rare to find worship of Rijō in a world that prizes only love stories. [auto-translated]”