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

[Keith Davis]

Laura, glad you are recovering. 

Www.keithdavismusic.com

> On Apr 1, 2020, at 10:06 AM, Charles Albert <cfalbert at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> Marguerite Yourcenar
> 
> 
> There's someone deserving of a wiki...brilliant.
> 
> 
> 
> love,
> 
> cfa
> 
>> On Wed, Apr 1, 2020, 6:28 AM Kai Frederik Lorentzen <lorentzen at hotmail.de>
>> wrote:
>> 
>> 
>> 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...
>>> 
>>> 
>>> 
>> 
>> --
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>> 
> --
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