An Imperial Concubine's Tale: Scandal, Shipwreck, and Salvation in Seventeenth-Century Japan

by G.G. Rowley

Japan in the early seventeenth century was a wild place. Serial killers stalked the streets of Kyoto at night, while noblemen and women mingled freely at the imperial palace, drinking saké and watching kabuki dancing in the presence of the emperor's principal consort. Among these noblewomen was an imperial concubine named Nakanoin Nakako, who in 1609 became embroiled in a sex scandal involving both courtiers and young women in the emperor's service. As punishment, Nakako was banished to an island in the Pacific Ocean, but she never reached her destination. Instead, she was shipwrecked and spent fourteen years in a remote village on the Izu Peninsula before she was finally allowed to return to Kyoto. In 1641, Nakako began a new adventure: she entered a convent and became a Buddhist nun.

Recounting the remarkable story of this resilient woman and her war-torn world, G. G. Rowley investigates aristocratic family archives, village storehouses, and the records of imperial convents. She follows the banished concubine as she endures rural exile, receives an unexpected reprieve, and rediscovers herself as the abbess of a nunnery. While unraveling Nakako's unusual tale, Rowley also reveals the little-known lives of samurai women who sacrificed themselves on the fringes of the great battles that brought an end to more than a century of civil war. Written with keen insight and genuine affection, An Imperial Concubine's Tale tells the true story of a woman's extraordinary life in seventeenth-century Japan.

Genres: Japan, History, Nonfiction, Japanese History, Academic, 17th Century

282 pages, Kindle Edition

First published December 18, 2012

About the author

One of the many pleasures of a lifetime spent in research, teaching, and writing is never needing an excuse to sit down with a good book. My Goodreads lists highlight some of the books that I've most enjoyed reading over the past several years, together with a few favourites from as far back as my Australian childhood.

Reviews

[Bob Newman · Rating 4 out of 5]

Yume no ukihashi

Turmoil reigned in early 17th century Japan. The emperors had long since been relegated to political ciphers who led cultured lives in Kyoto, but could not effect much outside the palace grounds. The lives of the court, the nobles and a few samurai families who had intermarried with them were suffused with poetry, literature, music, and romance. Outside raged civil war and murder. In this atmosphere a young imperial concubine got involved in a sex and wild behavior scandal, angering the emperor no end. She was banished with others to a remote island, didn’t arrive there due to a shipwreck, and subsequently passed 14 years in a rural hamlet where she is still remembered. Pardoned in 1623 by a new emperor, in her early thirties, she returned to Kyoto, but wound up in a Buddhist convent where she ultimately became the abbess and died aged eighty, in 1671.

The actual knowledge of this erstwhile concubine, Nakanoin Nakako, is slight. Women were not often mentioned in historical records. The reason you might read this book is that it provides an in-depth look at the wider society of Japanese nobles and rulers at the time, covering many families and individuals with Nakako at the center. The rich data obtained through what must have been extremely difficult research impressed me no end. You’ll have to have patience to wade through a sea of Japanese names and complex family ties. But, if you persevere, you’ll become absorbed in this tale of family origins, shenanigans, imperial displeasure, exile, and expiation during the time when the Tokugawa clan was taking over Japan. Some illustrations, photos, and good maps will help you along the way. Nakako emerges from the fog of the past, only to disappear again over the floating bridge of dreams [yume no ukihashi].

[William2]

Looking forward to this.

[Peter · Rating 4 out of 5]

A certain basic familiarity with the Warring States period of Japanese feudal history would be useful delving in this well researched study. The tale is dramatic and spicy (but not too spicy) in turns. This is not just the story of a single life (one without very much documentation for much of it) but a series of separate, but linked, dramas played out over the course of about 40 years. The author and researcher—the scholar—gives us a carefully weighed description of each piece of the story, a care much like the kind of private storytelling by the attentive proprietor of a Japanese inn who takes the trouble to visit each guest’s room personally. Many photographs in the book of scenes from the life of the subject were taken ‘by the author’! This speaks better than anything of the care that the author treats the material of the tale.

****** spoiler alert ***********

One of my favorite stories from this book was the tale of the father of the subject, one of the only subjects in the Emperor’s realm to possesses detailed knowledge of certain literary works—a valued scholar. When the Emperor learns that a siege of the castle in which the scholar has decided to return to in order to defend a friend endangers the life of this scholar, the Emperor orders special envoys be sent to the fighting with the instructions—“Save that man! He is the only one who knows about these books!” It practically brought tears to my eyes.

[Lesley · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fascinating tale of a sex scandal that rocked the emperor's court in Japan in the seventeenth century - just as James I was on the throne in Britain. It involved courtiers and court ladies slipping away to small rough huts on the outskirts of town and coincided with the beginnings of the kabuki theatre. Beautifully told and documented.
See my review:

http://www.literaryreview.co.uk/downe...

[KamakuraKate · Rating 5 out of 5]

There is much to admire about G.G. Rowley's book. She has taken on the difficult task of tracing the life of Nakako, an imperial concubine in 17th century Japan. With little record of the lives of women remaining, Rowley's role is similar to that of a detective, assiduously and perceptively piecing together what Nakako's life must have been like from a wide variety of sources. And what a life Nakako had -- as the title says, scandal, shipwreck, and salvation! Rowley brings to vivid life a place and age far different from that of modern readers with a masterful sense of detail. Beyond the pleasurable experience of learning about Nakako and the world she inhabited, reading Rowley's book is also highly entertaining. The author has a droll style which made me smile appreciatively throughout. Rarely have I enjoyed a book of history so much.

[Carina · Rating 2 out of 5]

A lot of really interesting information that wanders so badly that I'll forget how we ended up on the rabbit trail in the first place, and the author's increasingly heavy-handed Western bias made me uncomfortable. DNF'd at Chapter 6.

[Jill · Rating 5 out of 5]

An impeccably researched and elegantly written account of the imperial concubine Nakanoin Nakako, reconstructed from contemporary sources and drawing on the author's extensive historical and literary familiarity with premodern Japan. Through detailed scholarly detective work, the author reveals the life of a woman who left no personal writings and is only known through the traces she left in those of others.