Product Description

Written by imperial command in the eighth century, The Kojiki is the oldest surviving Japanese book. This compendium of early Japanese life provides a panorama of Japan during its formation.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #175331 in Books
• Published on: 2005-09-15
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 592 pages

Language Notes
Text: English, Japanese (translation)

About the Author
Basil Hall Chamberlain (1850–1935), was one of the foremost Western translators. His translations include A Handbook of Colloquial Japanese (1888) and Things Japanese (1890).

Customer Reviews

A Royal Pain to Read
The Kojiki is the seminal work of Japan's Shinto belief system. There's no understanding Shintoism (and Japan) without it.
Unfortunately, for those of us who speak English, but not Japanese, a good translation is hard and expensive to find. Basil Hall Chamberlain's is the earliest, dating bck to the late 19th century. Unfortunately, this translation suffers from the worst of the furbelows and obfuscations of the late Victorian/Edwardian era. This includes rendering into Latin anything a Victorian scholar might consider a naughty bit. I hope the new edition coming out in September translates the translation for those of us who didn't attend Oxford.

All in all, you're better off with Donald Phillipe's (Sp?) more recent and lucid translation. But since that, too, is hard and expensive to find, take what you can get. The Kojiki's worth it.

A Pain Beyond All Pain Unless You're Fluent in Latin
I did not realize that aside from the English language, one would also need a Latin language background. Add to that the way Victorian/Edwardians translated stuff and you get problems when things like translating names add to the complications. For instance: when is a name not a name? Well, instead of translating a proper name such as "Robert" to "Robert", "Robert" is translated to "Bright Fame." Tack on other descriptiveness and you get a headache - "His August Mighty Brightness met with Her Supreme Lovely Brightness" and you get the idea. Two stars for effort but for the average "Joe" (or the meaning of Joseph is "God shall add (another son)") I'd pass this on by.

More for Study than Leisure
I got this book just because i was interested in the stories. while this book includes the entire Kojiki, it is on only about the top 1/3 of each page. the other 2/3 of each page are explanations and background information. Really good for studies or research, but much more information than i need.