One important matter of perspective involves the position of Genji himself in the tale. Most readers over the centuries have probably seen him as an attractive and impressive hero, and some modern authorities have described him as “ideal.” By taking his quality and centrality as self-evident, however, such a view may also seem to slight the experience and importance of the women whose absorbingly difficult relationships with him give the work its most accessible appeal. Objections to his behavior with them date back at least to the late twelfth century,[12] and in recent decades some have even come to condemn or belittle him. Many have rejected his centrality in the work in favor of that of the women characters. This view is prominent in academic writing in English. Norma Field gave it influential expression when she wrote:
The eponymous hero, far from being the controlling center of the work, is as much constituted by his heroines as they are by him. Yet, for reasons to be seen, he is curiously absent by comparison to his ladies.[13]
Genji and the tale’s female characters of course stand in a reciprocal relationship to each other, as do living men and women. From the perspective of these essays, however, Genji functions as the “controlling center,” or perhaps reference point, of the narrative. It is he who initiates every love relationship in which he engages, and to whose interests the narrative always returns. Moreover, his decision to accept the Third Princess makes him not a passive victim of erotic nostalgia, but the active agent in the unfolding of his fate. Seen this way he is not “curiously absent by comparison to his ladies.” This does not make him better or more deserving than they, nor does it require the reader to admire him. The point is elsewhere. He is a charismatic figure whose actions change his own life as well as the lives of others. He is the hero of the tale.