Image a white-faced, black-toothed woman. Painted eyebrows crest either side of her forehead. Her hair falls down to the floor. She hides behind a screen, just the ornate sleeves of her robe in plain view. On the other side, a carefully-scented man. At home waits his wife, and his other wife, a couple of concubines, a pseudo-adopted daughter who someday will be his lover. But for now—as he sends off a love haiku via messenger—his passion swells for this woman whose koto he heard as he sat under the cherry blossoms.

Ever since the first installment of Arthur Waley's English translation appeared in 1925, critics of Mirasaki Shikibu's eleventh-century Japanese novel The Tale of Genji have remarked on its seeming modernity. Even today, readers find the novel far...