Was gonna go for 2 stars, but the very end had me hooked.

It's fucking abstract. I understand that types of world view that were presented in the form of the 6 psychopathic children, but it just felt like rambling most of the time. I enjoyed a majority of the relationship between Fusako and Ryuji though, so there's that. Idk.

The conflict between the grandiose and the mundane, between yearning for the stars and settling for the earth. A decision that sometimes has to be made, for our time on this earth is short and busy; but some people take it more seriously than others.

The sailor is a man with lofty ideas, but little to show for them besides that; yet, as the young boy in the middle of the book sees him, he is still a heroic figure, leaving the earthly pleasures in the hunt for something “more”. What the sailor comes to understand though is that the glory he seeks is fool's gold and the mundane things that he despises in his ambitious life is the true value of it - the short, mortal life, where selfishness often ends with pain for others.

But of course I would say so - I am one of those despised people, those that see no inherent lofty goals to life, and who are not willing to murder for some imagined greatness, nay, even despising that greatness, and all the little fools who see themselves as grand architects on the historical pages, and more than human; more than most their fellow humans, at least (what danger it is to think so - just look at the tantrums of Elon Musk …)

It's difficult to say what the book truly believes in, or even Mishima himself, based on these pages - the boys and their ideas seem abhorrent, but so might have been Mishima himself, and to an abhorrent person the abhorrent does not seem so, so who knows who we are really expected to empathise with? Within them I see the future dictators and merciless madmen ordering genocides, the university-educated bright young men whose self-righteousness and arrogance gives them the carte blanche to enact whatever atrocity they consider vital for their delusions (or outright criminal exploitation); but hey, that's just me, and I am no Great Man.

Still, the beauty of the prose (at least in the translation I read) feels undeniable, and it was the language and the attention to certain details that caught me from that very first page, and often held me. And so good is Mishima’s ability to take different perspectives that it's never clear if he’s propagating his own thoughts or just expressing the character so well.

The central conflict occasionally left me cold because I have already figured out my answer to the questions tearing the men and boys apart in the book. But I found their psychological development still of interest, and I especially appreciated the POV chapters of the lady Fusako, the boy’s mother - without those she would have remained as little but the sexist, humiliating view both the man and the boy had of her, but with her POV, we see her not as just an object, but as a human being, with her own life and desires; and an active participant in this drama.

A captivating and eloquent little book, the politics of which are suspect, while its ability to enchant isn't quite as much.

3.5.

I honestly have no idea what to make of this. I would read this text as a critique of the pointless violence that comes from a rigid sense of masculinity and narcissism. But given what I know of Mishima's life, I think he meant kind of the opposite? I think he might have sympathized with the desperate need to restore lost glory through violence? I mean, he did try to stage a coup IRL and then ripped his own guts out when it failed. So, I don't know, man. I don't know. There's a weird Oedipal thing going on there too.

It's beautifully written, and the emotions are rendered in vivid detail, even if they don't make much sense to me. (Though that might be intentional as well? I DON'T KNOW)

Japanese symbolist horror novel from the sixties. Surprisingly brutal.

What does it mean to be a man? More specifically, what does it mean to be a man in a time where neoliberalism is being imposed onto your society? Yukio Mishima tries to answer this question in the context of 1960s Japan. Times are changing. Japan lost World War II and now is under control of the West, which makes it accept liberal democracy and capitalism. Although I didn't know until after I read this book that Mishima meant it as an allegory for rejecting Western neoliberalism in favor of traditional Japanese values, such of those of honor and respect for those who conquer.

So when I read this book, I was reading it more in terms of the way he portrays gender roles rather than the way he fictionalizes the conflict between Western values and traditional Japanese society, although both obviously go hand in hand. For the characters in this book, being a man is about the conquest of the unknown. This is symbolized in the character of Ryuji, a sailor who goes on many different adventures until he meets a beautiful woman named Fusako. Ryuji becomes infatuated with Fusako and

Spoiler

later ends up marrying her and expresses a desire to settle down. However, Fusako's son Noboru has different ideas. Noboru worships strength and conquest, and once thought that Ryuji was an exemplar of the masculine ideals he idolized. But instead Ryuji becomes soft, which disgusts Noboru, as the man he once thought was the paragon of masculine values becomes a dawdling father who can't even bring himself to punish his son when his son does wrong. This results in the climax at the end of the book, where Noboru and a few of his friends that worship strength in a nihilistic world end up deciding to kill Ryuji, which may sound cruel, but the boys believe that it is the only way that he can die a noble death. And even Ryuji near the end begins to regret his domesticated life, but by then it is too late for him.

So I would say that the central theme of this book, besides the whole Japan versus the West dynamic, is the tension between Noboru/Ryuji's masculine ideal of being a warrior free spirit versus falling in love with a woman and growing soft due to being immersed in domestic life, with a wife and a child to take care of. This book is extremely graphic at times, especially with a certain scene, so don't read it if you're faint of heart. Otherwise, it reveals a lot about masculinity, especially in Japan in the 1960s.

If for some reason you stumble across this book and decide to read it just skip straight to the second half. The first half of the book features incest, animal abuse (if the killing of a kitten and mutilation of its corpse can be called that) and rampant misogyny. The second half certainly still has the misogynistic element but it’s not nearly as bad as the first half and you get to skip a rather gruesome description of a kittens skinned body.

The main character of the book is a young teen called Noboru who thinks himself a genius despite clearly being heavily brainwashed by another teen boy he’s friends with that he just refers to as ‘chief’. Chief and the gang that Noboru are part of seem to take a believe that society just wants to constrain them and they are willing to go to great lengths to stop themselves being held within these perceived constraints. The killing of the kitten in the first half and the murder of Noboru’s step dad which is alluded to at the end of the book are proof of the strength of their belief. To anyone but themselves it’s quite clear that the views they hold are also hypocritical, they believe that women should still be at the beck and call of men despite their hatred of the lack of freedom afforded to them. Noboru turns on his step dad who he revered at the start of the book because he chooses to marry his mother rather than leaving her behind to continue his career as a seaman. He wanted his step dad to leave and for his mum to stay mourning the loss and awaiting his return. The parts of the book from the perspective of the mother are the best, she is witty and pragmatic but other than that this book is largely meh. The end was definitely interesting but that’s about the best I can say for it.