Mishima (Re: Nora Bossong recommends Mason & Dixon as Corona reading because it has so many pages ...)

[Kai Frederik Lorentzen]

Absolute agreement! Mishima is an incredibly skillful & vigorous writer. 
One of the very best.

In the past months I read several of his books & this still continues. 
Started with the tetralogy "The Sea of Fertility" which contains the 
novels "Spring Snow", "Runaway Horses", "The Temple of Dawn" & "The 
Decay of the Angel" (the German translation was done by Siegfried 
Schaarschmidt).  This is, I think, particularly interesting to readers 
of Pynchon (yes, esp. GR, but also VL), because it pictures Japanese 
society in the 20th century from before World War I to the 1970s. Then I 
read "Confessions of a Mask" (in the new German translation by Nora 
Bierich), a homosexual coming of age novel & a breathtaking debut for a 
writer, comparable to "V" or "Buddenbrooks". Since my wife had started 
with "The Sea of Fertility" too & felt equally enthusiastic about it, we 
made Mishima our new author for reading out to each other in the 
evening. First we did "After the Banquet" (German translation: Sachiko 
Yatsushiro), which appeared to us - if you excuse the TV reference - 
partly like "The Good Wife" in Japan during the 1950s. Then we continued 
with "The Temple of the Golden Pavilion" (new German translation: Ursula 
Gräfe), in which the protagonist, an adolescent Buddhist acolyte, is 
burning down the Golden Pavilion of Kyoto (this really happened in 
1950); in its crass combination of Zen Buddhism & Western existential 
philosophy à la Sartre this is very impressive. Now we're into Mishimas 
collected stories (Y.M.: Gesammelte Erzählungen. Reinbek bei Hamburg 
1971: Rowohlt), & I can already say that Mishima's mastership does also 
include the form 'story'. As you will have realized by now, I'm a huge 
fan ...

Two instructive books about Mishima are Marguerite Yourcenar's "Mishima: 
A Vision of the Void" (dt. Mishima oder die Vision der Leere) & Hans 
Eppendorfer's "Der Magnolienkaiser. Nachdenken über Yukio Mishima" 
(Berlin 1984: Vis-à-Vis). Then again Mishima's almost classical style, 
especially in the later works, speaks for itself & does not really 
require interpretation.

For German readers Mishima, whose favorite Western writer was Thomas 
Mann, is also interesting, because Germany & Japan suffered a similar 
historical fate in the 20th century. Including the Americanization after 
1945.

" ... 'Bis Sonnenaufgang ist es weit. So lange zu warten, geht nicht an. 
Also keine heraufkommende Sonnenscheibe, kein Schatten einer alten, 
ehrwürdigen Kiefer, kein glitzerndes Meer', dachte Isao./  Er streifte 
die beiden Hemden ab, so daß er halbnackt dasaß; dafür straffte er 
seinen Körper, und die Kälte wich von ihm. Er lockerte die Hose, 
entblößte den Bauch. Als er den Dolch blankzog, hörte er von der 
Mandarinenplantage her ungeordnete Schritte und Schreie./ Hörte eine 
schrille Stimme sagen: 'Ah, das Meer! Wahrscheinlich ist er in einem 
Boot geflohen.'/ Isao atmete tief ein, strich sich mit der linken Hand 
über den Leib, schloß dann die Augen, um die Spitze des mit der rechten 
Hand gepackten Dolches darauf hinzulenken und, die Finger der Linken an 
der bestimmten Stelle, mit der ganzen Kraft des rechten Armes 
zuzustoßen./ Genau in dem Augenblick, da sich die Klinge in den Bauch 
bohrte, stieg hinter seinen Lidern die leuchtend rote Scheibe der Sonne 
herauf." (Unter dem Sturmgott, pp. 432-33)

I love the way Mishima is evoking natural phenomena like the wind, the 
clouds & the sea ...

"A small night storm blows
Saying ‘falling is the essence of a flower’
Preceding those who hesitate"

This is Mishima's jisei (death poem), written 11/24/70.


Am 31.03.20 um 23:38 schrieb John Bailey:
> Gary: I just read Mishima's Confessions of a Mask and damn he's a hell
> of a writer. Absolutely of interest to fans of Pynchon (esp. GR).

Am 31.03.20 um 17:59 schrieb Gary Webb:

> ... I just got through Mishima’s The Sailor who fell from Grace with the Sea...
>
> It’s a trip...
>
>
>