While the descriptions of natural beauty are admirable, and some of the anecdotes of court life are interesting, much of the material is boring and Shonagon herself has ugly streaks of elitism in her outright contempt for anyone lower than herself (eg casually declaring that lower-class women should not even be allowed long or medium-length hair, an opinion which is certainly not 'delightful') and fawning admiration over anyone higher than her, particular the thoroughly unimpressive emperor/empress, and her endless fascination with the emblems of rank such as expensive clothing, which she apparently considers to be the full measure of a human and little else about them requires description.

For a skilled poet and one with such recall of Chinese & Japanese classics, it's distressing to see how little insight she apparently has into anything and anyone, how much learning without wisdom; the court and its pretensions and hanger-ons surely invited sharp criticism, or at least some awareness of its faults, but Shonagon manages to conceal any such insight. No wonder Murasaki Shikibu thought little of her. The translator warns that

"Similar opinions have continued to be expressed down the centuries, and modern scholars (men) have often been equally irritated by her. She has been dismissed by some as a mere chatterbox of a woman, and _The Pillow Book_ considered to be nothing more than a silly gentlewoman’s idle thoughts spilling themselves haphazardly on to the page. It is common in Japan to contrast her with Murasaki Shikibu, and those who side with Sei Shōnagon in this perceived rivalry are often characterized as vacuous and frivolous."

Indeed.