In the post-World War II period, very few fiction writers seem interesting
and inspiring. Either they have little narrative and stylistic talent or
not lack hinged firm ideas on their skills (or both).
Yukio Mishima, the pen name by Japanese author Kimitake Hiraoka
(1925-1970), however, is such a literary character unusual. Like many other
literary cult figures, it was something of a Renaissance man or at least a
Jack of all trades the most sophisticated, as he wrote several novels,
essays and plays, appeared in movies, practiced kendo and natural
bodybuilding, and made a model. He was also a political activist and
devoted family man.
There are many farms and masculine ideas in his works, combined with
dazzling prose. I would describe five of his best works below. Carriers
include output years for first editions and translations in Japanese later
in English.
The Sound of Waves (1954, 1981)
The Sound of Waves is a brilliant novel about heterosexual love in a simple
marine environment. Although it is obviously related to a particular
location and context, a fictional island in Japan, it includes an almost
universal representation of love, before urban modernity has penetrated the
lives of most of the common men. Even if one does not have much use of this
book these days, as it is romantic, yet it shows how real love can manifest
itself in special circumstances.
The book includes many beautiful descriptions of the surrounding
environment, and shows how beautiful nature can be today. A man, regardless
of age, can be captured by the objective truth of the world of nature and
gain strength from it:
The boy felt an agreement between itself and consumed the wealth of nature
that surrounds it.
The main character, Shinji, is a poor and simple, but physically able boy
who has real character:
The only thing that really counts is a man's get-up-and-go. If it's a get
up and go he's a real man, and these are the kind of men we need here on
Uta-jima. Family and money are secondary.
Although these types of qualities are unfortunately less important these
days, you could always emphasize the good ideals for a better future.
The Temple of the Golden Pavilion (1956, 1959)
A less cheerful yet exciting story and even extremely well written is the
Temple of the Golden Pavilion. Those Kyoto could have visited the Golden
Pavilion Kinkaku-ji, and was ABDUCTION by its majestic and profound beauty.
This building was destroyed by fire in 1950 (and rebuilt in 1955), and
around this fact Mishima developed a story on the mind of a young man who
deranged person leaves his faults and misanthropy almost mysterious guide.
Theme-wise, it resembles in part another book Mishima, the sailor who fell
from grace with the sea, and the Swedish Nobel Prize winner of the Pär
Lagerkvist literature book Le Nain (1944), but unlike Lagerkvist s to dwarf
the protagonist stutter does not represent pure evil that his personality
is more complex and caleidoscopic. If one is interested in Zen Buddhism,
this book is highly recommended, but can be read independently of a
religious inclinations.
Amid the moon and the stars, amid the clouds of the night, amid the hills
of heaven with their magnificent cedars sharp silhouette amidst spotted the
moon spots amidst the temple buildings that emerged sparkling white of the
surrounding darkness & # 8211; In the midst of all this, I intoxicated by
the pellucid beauty Uiko s betrayal.
After the banquet (1963, 1965)
Personally, I'm not particularly fond of purely political novels. However,
after the banquet Mishima found a delicate balance between ideas, social
realism, culture and sex.
The story focuses around a woman, Kazu, who leaves his corporate career to
focus on marriage to an aristocratic politician to retirement. The history
of portraits really strong and good woman still far from flawless, in the
gap between tradition and modernity, and how she realizes she must make
personal sacrifices to serve her husband.
Outside the average age of Kazu, it depicts a truly masculine man that
lacks any sign of dandyism degenerated so common among those in power:
Only Yuken Noguchi seemed different and stands out from the others. His
manly face had a simple asperity, he would never lose, and, unlike the
others, her dress was completely devoid of affection or dandyism. thick
eyebrows, amazingly long protruded over her bright eyes, sharp. His
features individually are impressive, but they advanced with another, and
build lean accentuated disharmony.
The sailor who fell from grace with the sea (1963, 1965)
The sailor who fell from grace with the sea is one of Mishima's
masterpieces, because it is a field that mixes traditional masculine ideals
with an exciting narrative.
A group of 13 year old boys, one of whom is the protagonist Noboru, are
fascinated by a sailor who wants to install with Noboru's mother after
spending many difficult days and nights of the sea. However, when they
realize the adult world so full of whims, romance and little hypocrisy,
they conspire against pinning model.
Their vision of the fanatic world gives a hint of Mishima's own traditional
elitism. One is when Noboru kills a kitten as a rite of passage the most
interesting passages:
Noboru had stood the test from beginning to end. Now, his half-dazed brain
envisaged heat scattered viscera and pools of blood in the stomach gutted
find fulfillment and perfection in the removal of dead kitten s great
sorrowful soul. The liver, soft beside the body, became a gentle peninsula,
the heart crushed a little sun, a womb-rolled white atoll, and blood in the
stomach the warm waters of a tropical sea. Death had transfigured the
kitten in a perfect world, autonomous.
But it is a little far fetched and there are some red pills in there, many
boys are disappointed by weak men who fail to stick to the ideals that
earlier in life were so expensive.
If one is interested in marine settings and want something more
philosophical than we say s Ernest Hemingway's The Old Man and the Sea, I
recommend August Strindberg s on the coast (1890, 1913), because it is a
perfect complement to Mishima work.
Sun and Steel (1968, 1970)
natural bodybuilding was a serious interest in Mishima, and as I pointed
out in several articles, it is for me too. Therefore, it is a blessing to
learn more about this phenomenon from a philosophical point of view.
Mishima was not great, but it has raised regularly, and wrote about it with
great enthusiasm in the test Sun and Steel.
Here is a quote:
The nature of the steel is strange. I find that I increased the weight
gradually, he was like a pair of scales: most of the muscles placed, so to
speak, on the other pan increased proportionally, as if the steel had a
duty keep a strict balance between the two. Gradually, however, the
properties of my muscles are increasingly to resemble those of steel. The
slow development, I found, was remarkably similar to the process of
education, which reshapes the intellectual brain by feeding it with
material more difficult. And as there was always the vision of a classical
ideal of the body to serve as a model and an ultimate goal, the process
very similar to the classical ideal of education.
Conclusion
Yukio Mishima is indeed one of the most fascinating writers of the postwar
period, and managed to create a synthesis between tradition and some of the
best modern Japanese and Western ideas. Stylistically his prose is often
extraordinary and is a position between the terse realism adorned with
dazzling metaphorical language. South Korean readers are urged to disregard
the keyboard or smartphone for a while and take part in some of his
literary work.
Read more: The important work of French author Michel Houellebecq
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