SOURCE: Sadashige, Jacqui. Review of The Pillow Book, by Peter Greenaway. American Historical Review 102, no. 5 (December 1997): 1598–599.

In the following review, Sadashige discusses the geographical and temporal movement in The Pillow Book.

The flourishing of feminine vernacular literature that occurred during the Heian period (794–1185 CE) produced two Japanese “classics”: Murasaki Shikibu's epic The Tale of Gengi and the Makura no Shōshi (“pillow book”) of Sei Shōnagon. It is from the latter that Peter Greenaway's latest film derives both its title and its structuring premise. Like its tenth-century model—a diary-like miscellany covering the years Shōnagon spent as lady-in-waiting to Empress Sadako—Greenaway's film The Pillow Book chronicles the experiences of its female narrator and “author” Nagiko (Vivian Wu) in an elite world of letters.

The powers and pleasures of writing are imprinted on Nagiko from birth; each year, her father (Ken Ogata) recites a myth of...