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4.04 AVERAGE
4.04 AVERAGE
Did not finish. Forced myself through about 15% of the book but could not get into the story, found it exceptionally boring.
Mishima is such a skilled writer. Every description is vivid and never feels extraneous. Every page is chock full of symbolism on such varied themes as youth, class divide, transitions, and masculinity. This story is very melodramatic, but it never felt gratuitous. This heightened drama really allowed for the themes to shine through and keep me invested in the story. These characters, although they didn't necessarily always act like real people, were perfect symbols of the themes Mishima was addressing. Even if I didn't really read this quickly, I still felt compelled to pick this book up and keep reading, which doesn't always happen when I read classics. I'm excited to read the rest of the Sea of Fertility tetralogy.
challenging
emotional
reflective
sad
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
not my usual type of read but a great one nonetheless. offered some great insight into the various social norms and goings-on of a post-war Japan while weaving a tragic love story rich with emotion. difficult to get into at first but definitely worth sticking to the end.
This was a beautiful, poetic novel, and quite moving. At times I got lost in the language.
It took me a really long time to read this, because it's reasonably long and pretty dense. It's set in Japan in 1912, a time where nobility and culture was in a kind of transition period between the importance of Samurai ideas, and more modern Western elegance. The story follows an eighteen-year-old boy called Kiyoaki, who is the son of a Marquis. His family is ancient and was once a Samurai family, but is now starting to embrace more modern Western ideals. So Kiyoaki is raised to be elegant and beautiful. It's known that his beauty arises a lot from his troubledness - everyone around him agrees that he's sexier when he's sad: "His beauty had a melancholy cast and so appeared most attractive when he was under the stress of anger or grief, and together with these there was always a forlorn suggestion of the spoiled child as a kind of shadow image." He was raised with a girl named Satoko, who is also from a noble family (although of slightly lower rank). As he grows up, he begins to realise that he is in love with her, although at the start of the novel, he has very conflciting emotions and acts towards her with arrogance and is constantly changing his mind about how he feels about her. He was actually a very unlikeable character to begin with, which annoyed me at first, but I realise the author deliberately did this so that I would realise his humanity in his weird tortured obsession with this girl.
The description in this novel is incredible. The author spends pages discussing what Kiyoaki's home looks like in all the different seasons and depending on his mood and I feel like I will always have this MEMORY of this place I've never been to and doesn't exist. He evokes such strong atmospheres. But this was also a con, because the book seemed overly long, and there were sometimes entire groups of pages where barely anything seemed to happen. Although I loved passages devoted to what colour the maple leaves looked like reflected on a pond, and chunks of intense philosophy, it did take its toll after a while, and made the book a lot harder to get through. But I really recommend this to anyone with patience, who likes a slow burning tragic love story. It was really beautiful, and I think it's definitely worth the read even though it does take some time to take it in.
The description in this novel is incredible. The author spends pages discussing what Kiyoaki's home looks like in all the different seasons and depending on his mood and I feel like I will always have this MEMORY of this place I've never been to and doesn't exist. He evokes such strong atmospheres. But this was also a con, because the book seemed overly long, and there were sometimes entire groups of pages where barely anything seemed to happen. Although I loved passages devoted to what colour the maple leaves looked like reflected on a pond, and chunks of intense philosophy, it did take its toll after a while, and made the book a lot harder to get through. But I really recommend this to anyone with patience, who likes a slow burning tragic love story. It was really beautiful, and I think it's definitely worth the read even though it does take some time to take it in.
challenging
emotional
reflective
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes