/lit/ - Literature

There are a lot of threads here about Mishima relative to the vast majority of authors. Probably because he's a short and easy read like Camus, and he has the same cachet for being "deep", not a frivolous writer. Partly on account of being a foreign author and seemingly obscure, too.

nobody cares about mishima because his faggotry is passe nowadays.

This is the only true Mishima.

I have only read 'The Sailor Who Fell from Grace...' and I liked it. Lovely delicate prose, very thematically and symbolically robust. Did Mishima endorse the values and actions of the children?

>How come we never get any threads on Mishima
next to murakami he's probably the most common jap author on /lit/.

the dogmatic leftists that inhabit this place like to belittle him whenever he's brought up.

>>3013408
look at mishima's life. the same confusion (quixotic idealization) with beauty and violence existed even if it took a different form. noboru was probably an idealized version of mishima's youth. LOL

sailor was written well but i've said it plenty of times here. i wanted to choke that little bastard throughout the whole book.

>>3013414
i'm not a dogmatic leftist. i'm a centrist and i may only appear left because mishima was extreme.

http://fuuka.warosu.org/lit/thread/S2971947

Best OP about Mishima ever.

anyone have a download of sun and steel

>>3013429
>http://fuuka.warosu.org/lit/thread/S2971947

SNAP. I was in that thread.

>>3013419
From what I knew of his life, I leant towards the view that he was endorsing it (symbolically rather than literally, of course), but the novel did not seem to paint a very sympathetic picture of Noboru or the ideals he represented at all. If I'd read it without knowledge of Mishima's life, I would almost certainly have interpreted it as a condemnation of what the kids stood for. I was just confused as to whether he was consciously representing the dark side of those ideals, even as he endorsed them, or whether he really was just a total extremist. Or perhaps that there's just a massive culture clash at work, and my interpretation of the book is being contaminated by my Western world view.

>>3013432
Sure you were.

>>3013432
So were the rest of us, mate. All ten of us.

>>3013447
That's depressing

>>3013443
i thought noboru wasn't painted in the best light, however i thought mishima still glorified this kind of absurd violence because it's a theme through many of his works. maybe he thought it was better to express it than to suppress it. especially considering the violent political landscape during that era. for me, i felt like it was doing something absurd, violent or not (although violence or oddball sexuality are the easiest ways to work it into a story) was like freedom or something. like a break from conventions although that runs contrary to conservative ideals. have you ever read "seventeen" or "the silent cry" by oe?

i get irked by mishima because he considered art to have more longevity than a man's life which somehow made it worth more. to me that's idiotic. his sense of morality and value were too extreme for me. it seems to me immature/naive.

>>3013386

aside from Mishima and Murakami, /lit/ seems oblivious of
>Junichiro Tanizaki
>Natsume Soseki
>Banana Yoshimoto
>Yasunari Kawabata
>Kenzaburo Oe
>Sawako Ariyoshi
>Natsuo Kirino
>Hitomi Kanehara
>Ryu Murakami
>Shikibu Murasaki
>Akira Yoshimura

and my personal TOP TIERS
>Shiga Naoya
>Ariyoshi Sawako
>Dazai Osamu

>>3013471
>Banana Yoshimoto
>>Banana Yoshimoto

>>>>>>>Banana Yoshimoto

>>3013471
soseki and kawabata are highly regarded here. soseki used to be talked about a lot more than he is now, granted.

>>3013399
>>3013406

It is certainly difficult to untangle Mishima's text from his personal political convictions and of course his dramatic exit.

That, I feel, has contributed greatly towards publicizing what was otherwise a work that was as "passe" (as anon earlier said) as much as it was nodescript.

Mishima is romanticised to the same extent as how Sylvia Plaith or Louis Althusser have been pedestalled. Some feel that their work touches a more rawer nerve since they lived what they "preached" and remained un-wavered even in the face of death. However a more pragmatist view would be: death does not necessarily and in itself legitimize or sanction one's work.

>>3013471
no kobo abe
no mori ogai
no rynosuke akutagawa
could go on

son, i am disappoint. i was expecting you to name all worthy jap authors that have ever existed.

>>3013491
>rynosuke akutagawa
forgot about him
>mori ogai
am no so familiar with his work, although I have come across his name several times
>kobo abe
i have my reservations against such run-off-the-mill authors who are in it for the commercial opportunities (in the publishing industry) rather than real literary endeavors.

>>3013503
Do you realize Kobo Abe has been dead for about two decades now

You can read his books now, regardless of any capitalism you may think he practiced

itt weaboo /lit/

>>3013471
How is /lit/ oblivious of them when most are on the recommendations chart

>>3013471
What are your favorite short stories by Ariyoshi, Shiga and Dazai?

>>3013512
All of /lit/'s recommendation charts are trash so no one looks at them

>>3013527
What makes that one trash? You can improve it if you like. All the charts are meant to be community efforts, as is the wiki in general. Meaning all of /lit/ works together to make and improve them.

>>3013527
don't be so snide. they aren't bad. i think this one and the other with 100 jap books are both great intros to jap lit and more.

>>3013512
drawing up some vaguely-looking "canonical" chart is one thing.
but having discussions is completely another thing.

>>3013503
>>mori ogai
>am no so familiar with his work, although I have come across his name several times

he was japan's surgeon general for a while. really smart dude. i really like his books. maybe not in the top 5 but he's up there for sure. try the wild geese. not heavy on the philosophy but more on just sentimentality as with most jap greats.

>>3013536
You should try starting some then. The person who complained about /lit/ being oblivious of a list of authors is just as useless, because he offered no discussion points. Start threads on the authors - threads that are more than "what does /lit/ think about blah." State your own opinions and thoughts, then ask some questions that might actually make for good discussion. Then people will discuss.

>>3013516

Shiga
>Kamisori
>Seibei to hyotan
>Han no hanzai
>Kinosaki nite
>Asagao

Dazai
>Shayo

Ariyoshi
>Kokotsu no hito

OP here

I didn't mean to imply we never get Mishima threads. It is merely that I haven't seen any lately myself.

>>3013555
forgot to add.

these are really really difficult to grapple with. feature some pretty obscure kanji and Buddhist references. It's better to have an English translation at hand.

>>3013557
lurkmoar

i haven't posted that in years.

>>3013555
I was asking about about short stories, not novels. You only mentioned your favorites from Shiga. Those really are some of his most excellent stories though. Have you read his novel too?

>>3013557
>How come we never get any threads on Mishima?
>I didn't mean to imply we never get Mishima threads.

>>3013565
I don't have a preference for short stories, however, since you keep insisting, if I did have to make a list then these may just make it:

Dazai
>Yuki no Yo no Hanashi
>Omoide
>Bannen (a collection of smaller stories)

Ariyoshi
>Shiroi tobira
>Kiyu no shi
>Chugoku repoto (mostly a diary of small events rather than a collection of short stories)

>>3013557

I also only made the thread because I read Acts of Worship in the library. I just wanted to see what others thought of Mishima.

I greatly enjoyed the short story Sword for its representation of personal and sporting discipline. It appeared to confront the idea of placing complete discipline in one's actions (beyond sport but evidently influenced by it) as a way of pushing away other repressed emotions; this being what leads to the eventual tragic ending incident.

Mishima's own ability to detach himself from the world of his characters is disciplined when it comes to his storytelling. I found it interesting given Mishima's own end. Can we draw links between Jiro and Mishima? I had assumed /lit/ may know more about him personally.

>>3013600
I figured you may not like them, as most of the authors you named were mainly novelists, and you left out two very major short story authors (akutagawa and ogai). But then you had Shiga as a top tier, so, I was curious.

I'm personally much more a fan of Dazai's wry, fantastical works than the ones that resemble his novels. I hadn't read many of Ariyoshi's stories before, so I was hoping your title dropping would give me recommendations in that way - I loved Kiyu no shi, so I'm hoping I'll like the other two you mentioned as well.

>>3013629
it's sort of like reading H.G.Wells, H.P.Lovecraft, J.L. Borges or even H.C. Andersen for that matter. its a compendium of short stories. Collectively, it's more fun to immerse into such a world. But for me personally, I find it difficult to isolate one singularly.

But aside from that personal gripe, do go ahead and enjoy those short stories. I'm sorry I couldn't be more helpful by way of recommending 'short stories'.

raven? Are you here mate?