The book is structured into several hundred short passages that vary greatly in length and subject matter. These passages range from poetic descriptions of natural scenery and the changing seasons to witty observations on court life, personal reflections on love, sadness, and the passage of time, to humorous anecdotes and criticisms of the social norms of her time.
A word of warning: Do not go looking for a modern, perfectly formatted PDF called “Hateful Things.” That is a section, not a book.
Instead, search for:
When you open the PDF, you’ll find that “Hateful Things” is only two pages long. You’ll read it, laugh, close the file—and then spend the rest of the day mentally writing your own list. hateful things sei shonagon pdf
If you manage to obtain a legitimate PDF (or scan a physical copy), you will need to cite it properly. Here is an example using MLA style:
Sei Shonagon. The Pillow Book. Translated by Ivan Morris, Columbia University Press, 1967. PDF file.
For the specific section: (Sei Shonagon, sec. 39). The book is structured into several hundred short
If you use the public domain 1911 translation:
Sei Shonagon. The Pillow Book. Translated by Annie Shepley Omori and Kochi Doi, 1911. Project Gutenberg, 2020. PDF.
Why a list? Shōnagon was not writing philosophy but zuihitsu—“following the brush.” The list form allows her to move rapidly between scales: from a dog’s bark to a man’s shoelaces to a lover’s intrusion. This episodic, non-hierarchical structure mimics how annoyance actually feels—not as a grand narrative but as a series of small, sharp pricks. The humor arises from the sudden juxtaposition of trivial and serious. She treats a sneeze with the same analytical weight as a social betrayal. That very disproportion is the joke—and the insight. When you open the PDF, you’ll find that
Sei Shōnagon served as a lady-in-waiting to Empress Teishi (Sadako) in mid-Heian Kyoto (c. 990s–1010). This was a world of intense aesthetic refinement, where poetry, calligraphy, scent, and fabric mattered more than military power. The Pillow Book was not a public treatise but a private notebook—a zuisō (essay-miscellany) where Shōnagon recorded everything from court gossip to weather reports, from lists of elegant things to lists of embarrassing things.
“Hateful Things” belongs to a category of mono no aware (the pathos of things) but twisted toward irritation rather than melancholy. While her contemporary Murasaki Shikibu (The Tale of Genji) sought emotional depth, Sei Shōnagon sought witty precision. Her hateful things are not moral evils; they are aesthetic and social failures—small, sharp moments when reality chafes against expectation.
Modern readers laugh at “Hateful Things” because they recognize the feelings: the irritation of someone chewing noisily, the annoyance of a door that squeaks. But we must be careful not to universalize too quickly. Shōnagon’s hates are aristocratic hates. She never mentions hunger, cold, or real danger. Her world is one where the worst possible fate is to be awkward or unseemly. A commoner of the same era would have written a very different list (hunger, bandits, crop failure). Thus, the text is also a document of privilege—the freedom to be annoyed by mosquitoes rather than terrified of starvation.