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

Wed Apr 1 22:10:30 UTC 2020

OK. I'm able to believe he has a coherent vision full of certain values. Hedgehog. 
I just think some values are not.....the best. 

Sent from my iPad

> On Apr 1, 2020, at 5:48 PM, John Bailey <sundayjb at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> Happy to hear you're on the mend, Laura. Good news goes even further
> at a time like this.
> Mark: I've only read a little Mishima but he's absolutely a writer
> obsessed with values. He dissects his own and those around him in
> pointillistic detail, is laugh-out-loud droll and surprisingly
> conscious of his own shortcomings. I'd always assumed the end of his
> life (leading a failed military coup to reinstate the emperor as
> sovereign and a lonely seppuku) were signs of a complete break with
> reality but I sort of feel the opposite way now - they're almost a
> completely logical and rational endpoint for a life dedicated to
> values that are very, very different to mine, but are coherent and
> understandable in context.
> 
>> On Thu, Apr 2, 2020 at 1:26 AM Keith Davis <kbob42 at gmail.com> wrote:
>> 
>> 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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