Yukio Mishima

 

When I recently wrote a short blog post on the novel, The Sailor Who Fell from Grace with the Sea , it had not been my intention to go on to write a series of posts dealing with the Japanese writer, Yukio Mishima, but after having read two additional novels by Mishima following that post, I feel almost driven to do so.

As I mentioned in a post on another blog in late August of last year, I discovered Mishima quite by accident in what I believe is a fine example of serendipity.

I had been watching a number of movies featuring James Cagney. One movie was the 1931 comedy The Millionaire, in which Cagney had a small role. One of the stars of the film was Canadian-American actor, David Manners who is best remembered for his role as John Harker in the 1931 horror classic Dracula, which of course, starred Bela Lugosi.

Learning that Manners was in Dracula led me to hunt for that film on the Internet. It had been ages since I'd watched this classic movie, and luckily I was able to locate it at vimeo.com. Sadly, the film has since been removed from that website, due to a complaint of copyright infringement. In 1999, Lugosi's Dracula was released for home video, with an updated soundtrack composed by Philip Glass and performed by the Kronos Quartet. I was so impressed by Glass' composition that I had to search for more work by the composer.

One of the works composed by Glass that I found on Spotify, was the film score for Mishima: A Life in Four Chapters - a film based on the life and work of the Japanese writer. Of course, now I had to learn more about Yukio Mishima.

Again, after a search on the Internet, I was able to download 13 books written by Mishima and available as mobi.

Normally, when approaching a writer new to me, I start at his or her earliest work and proceed to the end. This had been my approach with Elizabeth von Arnim, E. Phillips Oppenheim , Wilkie Collins , and many, many more. However, with the work of Yukio Mishima, I began with his final work - the tetralogy, The Sea of Fertility. The four books in this work are Spring Snow, Runaway Horses, The Temple of Dawn, and The Decay of the Angel.

Each of the novels depicts what the protagonist, Shigekuni Honda comes to believe are successive reincarnations of his school friend Kiyoaki Matsugae.

Although I had downloaded 13 ebooks, I did not start right away on other works by Mishima following The Sea of Fertility. It was only recently that I came back to Mishima with the reading of The Sailor Who Fell from Grace with the Sea. The two novels which I began immediately after were Confessions of a Mask and After the Banquet.

Confessions of a Mask was Mishima's second novel and launched him to national fame in his early twenties. The novel is very disturbing. The protagonist is homosexual, and much of the novel deals with his fantasies involving homosexuality and sado masochism. Although upsetting, I finished reading the novel. However, I doubt I would have gone on to read Mishima's other novels had I read this work first.

After the Banquet is very different than Confessions of a Mask ( to say the least). It is actually very different in tone from the other works I'd read by the writer. Perhaps it was due to the translation, but the novel seemed to be almost non Mashimaesque, if I may coin a word. On the other hand, the difference I see in After the Banquet may be, that when compared to much of Mishima's writing, this novel has a relatively happy ending.