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3.87 AVERAGE
3.87 AVERAGE
dark
reflective
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
Content Warnings
Graphic: Violence, Cannibalism
Moderate: War
challenging
dark
reflective
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
dark
reflective
tense
slow-paced
Loveable characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
3 stars
tl;dr – Madonna’s Confessions on a Dance Floor literally features the line “Other places make me feel like a dork” and it’s still the superior work titled Confessions
-
I finished reading Confessions of a Mask with a rather slim idea of what the eponymous confessions might be. Actually, no, that’s not quite fair exactly – I did understand, on some level at least, what Yukio Mishima is trying to tell us in the story of his childhood and early adult life. Yet it felt like he was never telling quite the whole truth, like when you go to actual confession and you water down your sins so that the priest won’t think you’re as bad as you think you are. What, then, is the point of confessing, if you dance around the sins/secrets in endless circles that ultimately lead nowhere?
I might be being too hard on Mishima here. If nothing else, the language used in Confessions of a Mask is gorgeous. It’s deeply evocative, poetic almost to the point of being florid, and Mishima certainly has a remarkable way of relaying his nightmares and dreams (even if his obsession with beauty and death and everything else is a bit intense at times). But it’s still not quite enough. I found myself…not bored by this book, that isn’t quite the right word, but it just failed to engage me. It felt so pessimistic, with the characters coming across as such gloomy embodiments of human nature, that I just couldn’t relate to them. As for the narrator himself, while the complexity of his psyche (and again, the language used to describe it) is one of the high points of the book, I still found myself unable to really care about him. It felt like he was going around and around and around, trying to obfuscate what he wanted to say in a cage of words that, while beautiful, ultimately are too much so that, when you do finally decipher what they mean, it’s like solving a puzzle rather than understanding a fellow human being. There is a kind of satisfaction, but not a relation, no insight. Mishima might not confess all here, or maybe he does, there’s no way to ask him now, but however much he does tell his reader, it’s not quite enough to make us want more. Glad I read it for the prose, if nothing else? You betcha. But will I read any more of Mishima’s work in the future? Well…I wouldn’t want to kiss and tell!
tl;dr – Madonna’s Confessions on a Dance Floor literally features the line “Other places make me feel like a dork” and it’s still the superior work titled Confessions
-
I finished reading Confessions of a Mask with a rather slim idea of what the eponymous confessions might be. Actually, no, that’s not quite fair exactly – I did understand, on some level at least, what Yukio Mishima is trying to tell us in the story of his childhood and early adult life. Yet it felt like he was never telling quite the whole truth, like when you go to actual confession and you water down your sins so that the priest won’t think you’re as bad as you think you are. What, then, is the point of confessing, if you dance around the sins/secrets in endless circles that ultimately lead nowhere?
I might be being too hard on Mishima here. If nothing else, the language used in Confessions of a Mask is gorgeous. It’s deeply evocative, poetic almost to the point of being florid, and Mishima certainly has a remarkable way of relaying his nightmares and dreams (even if his obsession with beauty and death and everything else is a bit intense at times). But it’s still not quite enough. I found myself…not bored by this book, that isn’t quite the right word, but it just failed to engage me. It felt so pessimistic, with the characters coming across as such gloomy embodiments of human nature, that I just couldn’t relate to them. As for the narrator himself, while the complexity of his psyche (and again, the language used to describe it) is one of the high points of the book, I still found myself unable to really care about him. It felt like he was going around and around and around, trying to obfuscate what he wanted to say in a cage of words that, while beautiful, ultimately are too much so that, when you do finally decipher what they mean, it’s like solving a puzzle rather than understanding a fellow human being. There is a kind of satisfaction, but not a relation, no insight. Mishima might not confess all here, or maybe he does, there’s no way to ask him now, but however much he does tell his reader, it’s not quite enough to make us want more. Glad I read it for the prose, if nothing else? You betcha. But will I read any more of Mishima’s work in the future? Well…I wouldn’t want to kiss and tell!
challenging
dark
tense
slow-paced
Unexpected and I'm not sure whether or not to be glad I went in pretty much blind. Some very interesting thoughts presented on the self -- acceptance and denial -- social obligations, war's effect or lack thereof, and some philosophical things touched on. His writing style is similar to those of his era, but also reminded me heavily of Hemingway for reasons I couldn't quite put my finger on.
I'll have to ponder it for a while, I think.
I'll have to ponder it for a while, I think.
4.5/5
This is the first book I've read by Yukio Mishima and I can already tell I'm going to be a big fan. I went in knowing a little bit about Mishima but even just his first book fleshed out my knowledge a lot more. His style of such brutal honesty allows you to really get an understanding of who he was as a person. It's pretty crazy that he said a lot of these things about his sexuality at the time this book came out and the fact who said some of things at all is pretty crazy. I look forward to reading more of his works.
This is the first book I've read by Yukio Mishima and I can already tell I'm going to be a big fan. I went in knowing a little bit about Mishima but even just his first book fleshed out my knowledge a lot more. His style of such brutal honesty allows you to really get an understanding of who he was as a person. It's pretty crazy that he said a lot of these things about his sexuality at the time this book came out and the fact who said some of things at all is pretty crazy. I look forward to reading more of his works.
dark
reflective
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
Nunca había tardado tanto en leer un libro tan corto. Es un libro que tenía ganas de leer sólo en el tren. Me ha gustado el retrato muy general que desde un joven japonés se hace de la guerra. Luego, pese a que la trama autobiográfica y el debate interior del protagonista es mucho más complejo, otras novelas de Mishima le han dado más caña a mi cabeza.