Abstract

Extending her previous work on traces of Japanese fox mythology in Murdoch’s fiction, Tomkinson analyses the relationship—which has received little previous critical attention—between Murdoch and The Tale of Genji, an eleventh century Japanese novel. She takes as a starting point the cat-stealing episode in Genji referenced in The Nice and the Good and Jackson’s Dilemma. Rooting her discussion in Murdoch’s feeling of affinity with Murasaki’s masterpiece and a sense of parallels between the concerns of these two women writers—who, albeit separated by culture and nine centuries, have much in common—Tomkinson identifies their shared interest in the ‘exploration of the complexities of multiple erotic entanglements, an intense focus on the nature of bereavement and the need to find substitutes for lost love objects, and the recurring motif of characters seeking a life of religious renunciation and retreat from the world’ (94). These themes are familiar to Murdoch readers, whether or not they are aware of The Tale of Genji, and Tomkinson teases out diverse intertextual allusions between that text and a wide range of Murdoch’s novels; as well as those mentioned above, she discusses The Bell (1958), A Severed Head (1961), The Unicorn (1963), A Fairly Honourable Defeat (1970), An Accidental Man (1971), The Black Prince (1973), The Sacred and Profane Love Machine (1974), The Sea, The Sea (1978), Nuns and Soldiers (1980), The Book and the Brotherhood (1987), The Message to the Planet (1989), and The Green Knight (1993)—Murasaki’s influence on Murdoch is found to be wide-ranging. Of particular resonance is Tomkinson’s account of following in Murdoch’s footsteps to the sacred tree and sacred stone at the Shingon Buddhist Temple of Ishiyama-dera, a place closely associated with Murasaki which Murdoch and Bayley visited in 1975. Through close readings of the text of Genji and passages from Murdoch’s novels, Tomkinson makes a convincing argument for the importance of this ancient Japanese author to Murdoch’s literary imagination.