Reading Yukio Mishima’s life is one of the most exciting things I’ve ever done. In addition to being an author, he was also acting and photo-modelling. His unusual upbringing, his hidden addiction to writing when he was young, the suicide after the failed coup attempt! Who wouldn’t read such an author? You’ll fall in love with him with The Sailor Who Fell from Grace with the Sea and you won’t be able to stop reading his books.
The Sailor Who Fell from Grace with the Sea is the first book I read from Mishima, and it will not be the last. It won’t be the last one, because when I finished it, I was stunned, totally speechless. I turned the pages in vain, looking for more. Even though I knew what to expect from Mishima, the ending floored me. More precisely, I can say that it turned me into an idiot. Because the end of the book will leave you alone with your thoughts. Mishima forces you to write the end of the book, and no matter how you end it, the child in you will be incurably affected. And this is a terrible feeling.
I would not have thought that I would love a book in which I could not connect with the characters, in any way. This is a novel that weaves the darkness in humans. And Mishima can drag people into insanity. Before reading the book, I’d recommend you to read Mishima’s life. It will make much more sense. Enjoy and thank me later!
The Sailor Who Fell from Grace with the Sea
A band of savage thirteen-year-old boys reject the adult world as illusory, hypocritical, and sentimental, and train themselves in a brutal callousness they call ‘objectivity’. When the mother of one of them begins an affair with a ship’s officer, he and his friends idealise the man at first; but it is not long before they conclude that he is in fact soft and romantic. They regard this disallusionment as an act of betrayal on his part – and the retribution is deliberate and horrifying.
Yukio Mishima
Kimitake Hiraoka, known also under the pen name Yukio Mishima, was a Japanese author, poet, playwright, actor, model, film director, nationalist, and founder of the Tatenokai. Mishima is considered one of the most important Japanese authors of the 20th century.
Reading this book contributed to these challenges:
