Yukio Mishima: 1925-1970

This coming November marks the 40th anniversary of Yukio Mishima’s extraordinary death by his own hand. It’s impossible to know if the people of Japan are going to mark this solemn occasion in any way, but for certain the ones closest to Mishima will never forget what happened on November 25th 1970. I find it a shame that so much focus is put on Mishima’s death, and not on the incredible output of deeply insightful novels that he produced from his autobiographical Confessions of a Mask to his final four novels that comprise The Sea of Fertility. Having nearly finished Thirst for Love, I’ve read all that I can get my hands on of his work in English, and the words never cease to amaze me. After reading several biographical accounts, the consensus among some seem to be that Mishima was a disturbed individual, whose apocalyptic vision of contemporary society came from a deep seated need for self-destruction that grew with age. Of course, one can look at a person’s life and pick apart the  ” key events” that we believe leads someone to a certain endpoint, but in the end the art is what matters. And this is certainly true of Mishima, who despite once saying in his commentary on the Hagukure that “Words are a medium that reduces reality to abstraction for transmission to our reason, and in their power to corrode reality inevitably lurks the danger that the words will be corroded too”,  we see a keen and insightful mind at work, searching for meaning, even if that meaning is the Void itself.

Here in the West I’m not certain how much of his work has had an influence on a younger generation of writers, or if many have read him at all, but my own embracement of his works has lead me to an evaluation of my own purpose of a writer and indivdual. That is what great art is supposed to do. Make us take a look at reality from a different angle, even if that perception is uncomfortable or contradictory to what we believe. Only from confronting the antitheses in life do we come to a better understanding of what it means to be human, especially in a time where the very twilight of the idols we have held in the highest esteem come crashing down. There is a fine line between madness and genius, and one will certainly see both in the works of Yukio Mishima if they take the time to challenge themselves. More later…