This story tells of a mysterious princess, her great beauty, her various suitors and how they all make fools of themselves. If it weren't for its setting in ancient Japan with all its customs and accoutrements, not to mention the bamboo of its title and the truly magnificent illustrations of this edition, you might be forgiven if you took "The Tale Of The Bamboo Cutter" for one of Grimm's fairy tales.
Actually, the title isn't quite accurate. The story isn't so much about the bamboo cutter himself. Once he finds a glowing stalk of bamboo during his rounds one day, and a beautiful three-inch-tall princess inside it, the narrative shifts its attention primarily to the princess herself, although it does bump up the intrigue by following the bamboo cutter as he afterwards finds a great many bamboo stalks full of gold. The rest of the story deals primarily with the child, Kaguya-hime, although there is a good deal of material having to do with her relationship to her foster parents. Not to mention her five primary suitors.
It seems that, once she grows (almost immediately) to full size, all the men hear of her beauty and instantly fall in love with her, despite the fact that, as was the case with upper class women of the time, none of them has ever laid eyes on her. You think men of today regard female beauty as a commodity? Well, many of them do, of course, but it seems that back then, the mere rumor of female beauty was a commodity.
By today's standards, at least, this is not the only male characteristic that's hard to admire. Although Kaguya-hime has no apparent interest in getting married, for reasons you discover before the story concludes, she agrees to let her father choose these five suitors from among the dozens hanging around the house, and sets each one a task to bring her something they can't possibly obtain. One is to fetch a cloak that won't burn because it's made from the pelts of the legendary fire rats. Another is to bring the branch of a far-distant gold tree that grows pearls. Et cetera. The suitors either cheat or hurt themselves trying to accomplish these tasks.
I'm sorry to say that each such failure concludes with a really atrocious pun. One suitor's name, for instance, is Abe, and the narrative tells us that in the time after his plan fails, people say of a plan that's put on hold that's in "Abe-yance." Kudos to the translator for finding a way to translate Japanese puns, which has to be almost impossible, but really, now.
Leaving the pain of this revolting development aside, though, one intriguing detail of the Tale is how Kaguya-hime successfully imposes her will on her life at a time when women were little more than property. As you see, she does this by using her suitors' pride and vanity to trip them up - she sets these dopes a series of impossible tasks and they actually go out and follow her instructions, for God's sake. What's more, in at least one case, the suitor in question decides to leave her alone for no other reason than his fear of people's ridicule if his failure becomes known. Another suitor goes completely broke in his attempt. A third breaks his back and loses the use of his legs. Et cetera. I wouldn't want to marry these morons either.
In avoiding these marriages, Kaguya-hime gets no small amount of help from her foster father, of all people. We might expect that a man in his position would simply give her to some would-be husband. The bamboo cutter doesn't get anywhere near that. He explains that he does, in fact, want her to marry because he himself is old and he's concerned about her future when he's gone, but having said that, he leaves the decision completely in her hands. As we've seen, she finds a way to get what she wants without paining him with a simple refusal. I wish all fathers and daughters were so good to each other.
It's not entirely clear to me just how the Tale is to be classified. As I said, it reads like a folktale, but unlike genuine folktales, this one seems to have a definitive text and specific author, although that author's name (if there is one) has been lost. That's a real shame. In its treatment of gender roles, the Tale is quite subversive. I wish we could read more work by the same author. We'll just have to make do with what we have - a funny, mysterious, interesting story from ages back. Not bad at all.
Benshlomo says, Go ahead and try to suppress women, you guys – see how far you get.
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