Four months to read The Tale of Genji?

By cosmicChair98

Hi! Hope it’s okay to ask here. Lately I’ve been trying to read classic stuff in small chunks alongside whatever I’m normally reading, so I can go slower with the classics without giving up my usual pace. I kicked it off with *David Copperfield*, since it was originally published in monthly pieces—so I’m reading one installment a week instead. I’m planning to finish in mid-December. For next year I really want to get more into non-Western classics, especially Chinese and Japanese. *The Tale of Genji* has been on my list forever, and I found a university breakdown that splits it into 16 sections, with each one somewhere around 40–85 pages. I’d love to do it the same weekly way, but I’m not sure that’s too big for a “side” project. I’m worried *Genji* might be a lot more heavy and it’ll drag longer than I can comfortably fit. I know I should focus on quality over speed, but four months (or more) on just one book also makes me a little bummed, since there are so many other classics I want to get to. I *could* read other classics during my regular slot, but I keep a separate classics slot partly so I don’t rush through them and end up reading everything too quickly. *Copperfield* being 19 weeks isn’t stressing me out too much, mostly because it’ll wrap up around the end of the year and I’m treating it like a practice run. So… does spending about four months on *Genji* sound realistic? Or is that optimistic even if it’s my main book? My *Copperfield* weekly plan is going fine, and I really want to keep doing that for the books that were originally serialized, but I’m wondering if *Genji* might not work as well.