Take a photo of a barcode or cover
4.04 AVERAGE
4.04 AVERAGE
challenging
dark
emotional
reflective
sad
tense
slow-paced
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
No
My rating: 3,5 stars.
This is the first book of the The Sea of Fertility series. The plot is already described elsewhere.
By reading this book I must confess I do need to read more books on Japanese literature, really liked it.
3.5* Spring Snow
TR Runaway Horses
TR The Temple of Dawn
TR The Decay of the Angel
This is the first book of the The Sea of Fertility series. The plot is already described elsewhere.
By reading this book I must confess I do need to read more books on Japanese literature, really liked it.
3.5* Spring Snow
TR Runaway Horses
TR The Temple of Dawn
TR The Decay of the Angel
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.
I didn't know what to expect with this book. It turned out to be beautiful and sad. Set at the transition from Meiji to Taisho, with Japan still a contradiction of feudal tradition and modernity, it explores the love affair of two aristocratic young adults and the consequences of forbidden love. The observance of social niceties contrasts with the passionate yearning for freedom, with the way of life of the old guard slowly giving way to the Westernised ways of the new rich. As much as it's a commentary on society, though, it's an old fashioned love story in the mould of Abelard and Héloise or Romeo and Juliet. Mishima's prose is delicately elegant. I was carried along effortlessly by it.
emotional
reflective
sad
slow-paced
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
A slow burn. It took me a while to get into Mishima's world because he constructs it so slowly and meticulously, but once I knew these characters I felt like I REALLY knew these characters. Mishima reminds me of a Japanese Dostoyevsky.
I don't know if I'm too impressionable or if every book I read is, as a matter of fact, the most beautiful book I've ever read! Like Wagner, Mishima is an artist of supremely weird personal politics and yet capable of unprecedented scale, scope, and majesty. What would, in other hands, be a fairly predictable story of star-crossed lovers here plays out in cinemascope extravagance, with a cast of very complicated characters whose motives are impossibly bound with their principles, politics, aesthetics, etc. This is a coming of age story where teenage boys discuss the transmigration of souls and true love is an endurance test of mutual manipulation. How could a book determined to end in defeat make for such suspenseful reading? How could such bad behavior and self-interest endear itself so sweetly? Who knows. "The path we're taking is not a road, Kiyo, it's a pier, and it ends someplace where the sea begins." Recommended for people with a high tolerance for the grandiose.
challenging
mysterious
reflective
sad
slow-paced
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes