Read it through once

Another point concerning Genji’s household that perhaps requires comment is the apparent ability of persons to live years in the same house without ever having met. But such a thing happens frequently at English University Colleges, and we must envisage Genji’s palace as more like a college than a house,—consisting, in fact, of separate courtyards and cloisters, joined by covered galleries. Hence it comes about that, in the story, Genji’s various favourites tend to be isolated from one another in a way which is not always advantageous to the construction of the book. Later on the authoress realizes the danger of the tale falling into a series of disconnected episodes, in which the personality of Genji is the only common factor—and takes pains to bring her heroines into relation with one another.