/lit/ - Literature

it combines le edgy kid-killing-cat violence with nearly a feminine level of refined prose, like austen
it's kind of kooky

>>22663833
>No Longer Human was excellent
You're braindead. No Longer Human is good, but Sailor is on a tier of its own. By far one of the greatest novels ever written.

>>22663864
>You're braindead.
le edgy insult talking about niche fag lit! go back to whatever subreddit u call home

>>22663864
Cool. Can you explain why then? Even briefly.

I am not saying that everyone who likes it is wrong really, I just don't understand what's so good about it.

It was well written and nice to read, but I feel all the "themes" present were done better in other books I have read.

It's bitter stuff, you know?

Because the beginning is very good and people don't want to admit that after a beginning like that the rest of the book is still shit.

Confessions of a mask is better desu

>>22663833
Mishima is such an interesting personality (and 4chan-appropriate right-wing countercultural voice) that people heavily overrate his writing. If you want great Japanese lit, start with The Tale of Genji, and end with The Tale of Genji.

>>22664685
Mishima's in an weird position where the personality and beliefs of man himself loom so large it detracts from appreciation of his writing.

The Sea of Fertility is heavily underrated in the context of 20th century literature because hardly anyone reads it except as a study of Mishima himself.

>>22664803
Spring Snow and Runaway Horses are his best but then you need a background in Buddhism to understand The Temple of Dawn and The Decay of the Angel feels rushed/unfinished (he did turn in the manuscript only a month before his death).

Anyway OP, I enjoy the contrast of his beautiful prose with sudden ecstasy, violence and death.

>>22663833
My least favorite out of all of his books I've read so far (I've also read the Sea of Fertility tetralogy, The Sound of Waves, and the Temple of the Golden Pavilion). I still thought it was good but nothing about it stuck with me. Maybe you're like me and you didn't get a good sense of the demented psychological aspects of the boy, combined with his immaturity and his romaticization of a masculine role model, as clearly as others seem to do.

>>22663833
People only recommend this because it’s fashy and the bad guy is a personification of America and liberalism. Avoid at all costs.

>>22664803
>The Sea of Fertility is heavily underrated in the context of 20th century literature because hardly anyone reads it except as a study of Mishima himself.


The sea of fertility is what actual literary types (aka not fascist chuds on the internet) know him for. That’s pretty much considered his main work by anyone who doesn’t have a Twitter account with a naked Greek statue in the profile pic.

>>22663833
you gotta be at least bi to understand this

>>22665083
No, you have to be full blown gay. It’s about a gay boy who is furious that his role model bedded a woman.

>>22663871
Not him but it's great because of how well it's written. Almost every page is a masterpiece of emotion and inventive imagery. His prose remains unsurpassed in Japan.

>>22665053
Is there a faster way to expose yourself as a person with no redeeming thoughts or opinions than unironically using 'fashy'?

>>22665139
Trump lost. Get over it. Sailor who fell from grace with the sea is only loved here because of its overt nationalist jingoism. It isn’t particularly good and the most memorable part is when he flayed the cat which was overly edgy /b/tard shit.

>>22663833
>No Longer Human was excellent.
opinion discarded. you're beyond saving.

>>22665088
it's not because he bedded her, he liked that. he said he'd do anything to protect it. he hated that he allowed himself to be domesticated.

>>22665063
>pseud
No, he's known for The Temple of the Golden Pavilion.

>>22665299
Oh my bad. Sorry, he was an incestuous fuck who wanted to watch his mom get wine and dined, get her holes filled. He didn’t want a new daddy. You’re not my dad, Mr sailor guy! Umpgh

>>22665090
>referencing prose in a translated work
People who rely on critiquing prose are usually pretentious idiots with nothing of substance to add to a conversation.

>>22665338
I was gonna comment on that but I was giving him benefit of the doubt (lol) that he knew Japanese.

>>22665141
gotta be bait

>>22665392
It’s not interesting to anyone who isn’t here to push “trad” jingoistic nonsense onto everyone and turn this board into a political agitprop center. Spring Snow is a much better work but its themes are much more subdued so it isn’t as popular here.

>>22665334
It's actually Confessions of a Mask

no longer human was the first sort of existential lit fic ive read (last week). not sure why i started with it
i dont know how i felt about it. without knowing their backstory and influence, it almost seemed like satire. almost seems appropriated or lost in translation at times (not very believable maybe).. or like it's a game between reader and author. does anyone understand it or know the reasoning behind it?
like the author was trying to have you sympathize with a sociopath. arrogant with nothing to show for, glossing over large events, focusing on little things that they get hung up on.
at least it was short and made me think.
what similar book should i try next?

>>22665410
Spring Snow is much more forwardly nationalistic than Sailor, you're either baiting or actually retarded.
It is still an interesting book and on the top 100 for a reason beyond "le edgy right wingers"

>>22665660
A hero of our time

>>22663833
It’s not that bad.
It’s a cozy read.
I couldn’t totally back his loose and blatant metaphors though.
>the mother is the spirit of Japan
>the sailor is the new imperialism
>the kid is the people who, against the mothers wishes, harms and ends the sailor
>the missing father is the old philosophy Mishima loved more than life
At least that’s what I remember from it.

>>22665048
>but nothing about it stuck with me
How didn't that ending stuck with you, man? I read it like four years ago and I still think about it often.

>>22663871
It's honestly very hard to explain. There's an ambiguity and subtlety to it that is hard to put into words, but out of all the books I've read, this one gives me the closest feeling of reading a sublime poem, not necessarily for the way it's written (although the translation I read was great), but in the sense that it suggests something meaningful that cannot be reduced to an after-the-fact-explanation and can only be properly conveyed by the work itself. The whole book is a slow march to that ending with Ryuji nostalgically ruminating about the dreams of greatness he's leaving behind, completely unaware that he's about to get murdered by kids pursuing a distorted idea of that same greatness, one without the innocence and romanticism that made his so pure but also so unreachable. It's just such a beautiful and bitter scene.

Is there an English translation of "Kyoko's House"? I've never seen people talk about this book.

>>22666117
Think that anon just wants their dopamine fix from (you)s. Just ask him what he thinks of Mishima's suicide and you'll see that he's just giving cursory glances at wikipedia articles.

>>22666117
It deals with issues of modernism invading trad Japan but it isn’t as overt as the metaphor in Sailor and it doesn’t include violent imagery so people here won’t like it.

>>22666951
>t. literally read Mishima and thought "wow, those anons over at /lit/ won't like this
Please use this site less for your own sake

>>22666998
Why is Mishima so sacred to you that you can’t take criticism of him? You have wackos itt >>22663864 calling Sailor the greatest novel of all time. You are all blinded by politics to actually take the book from an objective standpoint. That was all I’m saying. I don’t even think it’s the worst book ever. It’s just mediocre compared to his other work I read.

>>22667014
Why immediately attribute this to politics? Its not so much your opinion of Mishima I find saddening than your readiness to relate it to the supposed wackos in this thread. You will make a generalisation and that is how Mishima will always seem to you.

>>22667054
Because objectively this book is so mediocre that the only reason someone could thing it's anything special, let alone the greatest novel of all time, is if they are /pol/tards who read in wikipedia that Mishima was a "fascist" and now they feel like they must elevate to a masterpiece the only book they have read by him.

>>22663864
>By far one of

>>22667054
I never hated Mishima. I praised Spring Snow several times itt. The supposed love for him here is entirely political bias however.

>Sailor isn’t really the greatest book of all time, guys
>WHY DO YOU HATE MISHINA? WHY YOU HTE MISHIMA?

>>22663864
>By far one of the greatest novels ever written
LMAO Why don't you give us your top 5 so we can all have a laugh?

>>22667069
>Perhaps I simply like it
In all seriousness I think the novel has certain elements that might appeal to the young male reader on /lit/, i.e. the character of the chief. You don't necessarily have to consider Mishima a "fascist" to appreciate that. I personally think Mishima was pedantic politically (read stupid) especially with his outrage at the Humanity declaration considering it wasn't even denying the divine nature of the imperial house just stating he wasn't the Abrahamic form of God.

>>22667105
>the character of the chief
I'd say most people on /lit/, at least the regulars, are around 30 and see themselves reflected in Ryuji.

>>22667069
It's abeautiful (mccarthyism) book, not even caeing (melvillianism) about the subtext. Succinct and no wasted space really. Only pencilneck snobs would radically oppose.

>>22667133
Really? I would've thought that there are more younger people here, at least. Why do you think, disregarding age entirely, that most anons would relate to Ryuji?

>>22667154
>Why do you think, disregarding age entirely, that most anons would relate to Ryuji?
Because anons know very well the feeling of getting older and seeing your dreams whither away as you slowly get murdered by a meaner and more meaningless world than the one where you grew up.

>>22667182
Can confirm. I'm just like Ryuji, with the exception that I'm an incel and I've never done anything exciting like sailing the world, but spiritually I'm him.

This is a book that deserves a top 15 place for sure, I have read half of the top 100 and virtually everything by Mishima. He is a genius alongside Joyce, Mann and others.

>>22667437
>

>>22666881
I think the whole gang of children thing is what took me out of the story a lot.

I found it hard to believe they would kill a man for wanting to live a normal life. He was never even important to the others except for Noboru and they all complain about their own fathers and yet they end up killing Ryuji who has probably done the least to all of them cumulatively.

I guess what I am saying is that I found their motivation weak and their whole ethos didn’t click with me.

>>22667182
This post is better than the entire book. I am standing up applauding.

>>22665634
No, Temple of the Golden Pavilion is the one they teach in literature courses in Japan. Confessions is just his breakout novel. Aside, the original poster labelled Sailor as a chud novel and then unironically referenced Sea of Fertility which contains Runaway Horses.

>>22667441
Why are you mad? Go read something and construct your argument, young man.

To appreciate this book you must approach it as something akin to a painting. It's closer to a koan than a fable. If you're trying to decipher what Mishima is trying to say you're going to run in circles. It's not that there aren't deep themes being explored in it, but there isn't one unified message to take from it. The book is less interested in making a statement or even telling a story than in trying to paint a scenery with complex and subtle emotions.

>>22667752
This reads like a template, it's not entirely wrong either but I think people should just read the book.

>>22667489
That’s because it is a metaphor for ritual suicide over Japan’s fate postwar. It’s not an actual story about kids killing a guy, autismo.