/lit/ - Literature

[Anonymous No.15329535]

Am I wrong in feeling disappointed with the ending? Overall it was a beautiful story, but my expectation was that Kiyoaki would go out with a bloody harakiri blaze of glory, rather then offscreen so to speak in a single sentence, the last time we see him he is weak with a fever meakly being smothered to death in his passion.

[Anonymous No.15329555]

kiyo did everything wrong

[Anonymous No.15329566]

>>15329555
Trips of truth

[Anonymous No.15329574]

>>15329535
>kiyoaki
>doing harakiri
are you fucking retarded? you don't deserve to read mishima, go read game of thrones instead

[Anonymous No.15329589]

>>15329535
You're going to love Runaway horses but Kioyaki is not set to be the hot headed kind. I might be wrong because I read it like 8 years ago

[Anonymous No.15329684]

>>15329535
Kiyoaki was all about acting on his feelings and passions, but not in any sort of manly, traditional way. Just wait until you get to Isao

[Anonymous No.15329704]

I edged myself while reading and busted at the final sentence. Definitely not worth it

[Anonymous No.15329713]

ive been putting milk in my tea ever since reading that book

[Anonymous No.15329730]

>>15329713

Good man

[Anonymous No.15329881]

>>15329574
>>15329589
>>15329684
I guess I was under the impression the whole time that he was undergoing a character arc from this decadent teenage boy with his head stuck in his melancholy to a man with a masculine and tangible passion. To a degree this arc did occur a bit but I guess I had overestimated his change in character and did not realize this until the final page, so I guess that was my mistake.

[Anonymous No.15329913]

>>15329730
>>15329713
i only use fresh milk if you catch my drift

[Anonymous No.15329942]

>The path we're taking is not a road, Kiyo, it's a pier, and it ends someplace where the sea begins. It can't be helped.

[Anonymous No.15329996]

>>15329535
>>15329942
>>15329713
I'm looking for a new read should this be it?

[Anonymous No.15330013]

>>15329881
what a brainlet.
Try watching naruto if that's what you're after

[Anonymous No.15330061]

>>15329881
>character arc
This is your mind on video essays

[Anonymous No.15330073]

>>15330061
>mind
Meant brain god damn that roast went to waste

[Anonymous No.15330087]

>>15329535
One major theme of the work is the fusion of the court aristocracy with members of the former warrior class from the outskirts of Tokugawa Japan.
Another is the zeitgeist of the late Meiji and early Taishō period.
Neither of these themes allows for Kiyoaki to commit any kind of ritual suicide, because that tradition was dead in his milieu and in society more generally.

[Anonymous No.15330089]

>>15329996
yeah it's really good.

[Anonymous No.15330233]

>>15330013
>>15330061
How am I a brainlet and what’s wrong with thinking about character arcs?

[Anonymous No.15330735]

Prove me wrong, /lit/

>Spring Snow
Bretty good
>Runaway Horses
High /lit/erature
>Temple of Dawn
Horrible
>Decay of the Angel
Decent

[Anonymous No.15330754]

>>15330735

That's more a less the accepted critique

Parts of Temple of Dawn, especially near the end, are phenomenal though

[Anonymous No.15330785]

is confessions of a mask still good reading even if im normal and not a faggot? does it have homo smex scenes?

[Anonymous No.15330834]

>>15330785

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b_Xx_in6488

[Anonymous No.15330910]

>>15330834
holsy shit

[Anonymous No.15330927]

>>15330233
Not him, but it's because character progression is a meme and has some ugly connotations for how it's used and analysed in other media. Change = depth = good. No change = shallow = bad. And these are automatic conclusions, and it's subject to the ugly lens of realistic character progression.
Fuck that noise. I'd rather have a rich character study instead extraneous conflict or forced progression.
>>15330735
Spring Snow is like his standard romance, sort of like The Sound of the Waves with very nice and tender imagery. The whole ending is a tearjerker. In my head canon, Mishima wrote it for his teacher, Kawabata.
Runaway Horses is probably the best because it's pure Mishima.
Temple suffers from too much buddhist shit. Decay felt the most rushed and I don't even rate it.

[Anonymous No.15331225]

>>15330233
"Character arcs" or "character growth" are not, for lack of a better word, realistic literary devices. They can't be even called that since you don't really see them in good literature. They're things proper for a young audience with the promise of the best years of life still ahead of them, not for serious readers. To give you an idea of what I mean, I've recently finished Jean Améry's account of life in Auschwitz and Gabriel Chevalier's autobiographical recounting of his life as a soldier in WW1. Both authors talk about how they emerged out of their ordeals every bit as ignorant and as deficient as when they first entered into them. They didn't change, their habits remained the same, and overall they remained the same people they were at the start, only traumatised and marked by numerous scars. Character growth is not something that happens in real life, and like the other guy said, an in-depth character study is better than a forced extraneous conflict.

[Anonymous No.15331463]

>>15329535
Bro keep reading. That's part 1.

[Anonymous No.15331482]

>>15331225
Character clearly an happen in real life, it doesnt always happen but people can progressively change in different environments or after traumatic experiences. I don't think there's anything specifically unrealistic about having a character change over the course of a story. I mean ffs the oldest story, the story of Gilgamesh has a character arc, from being a rambunctious young man to a wise old king thats dealt with trauma.

[Anonymous No.15331485]

>>15331482
*character arcs clearly can happen in real life

[Anonymous No.15331529]

>>15329996
The entire Sea of Fertility tetralogy is really awesome. Runaway Horses was probably my favorite but Spring Snow is a beautiful first novel. I'd suggest reading some of his other work before jumping into it though. I don't know if I'd call it "necessary" in the sense that you probably could just jump right into the SOF series and be fine, but reading his earlier works can help you appreciate the development of the themes that become the central points of the tetralogy.

[Anonymous No.15331545]

>>15329996
Continue with Runaway Horses. It's GOAT.

[Anonymous No.15331586]

>>15329535
i wouldn't say you'd be wrong to be disappointed, but there's no way kiyo is going to do anything violent, basically this >>15329589
also if you do want to read more mishima better get used to characters dying somewhat pathetically at the end
it's strange because mishima seems obsessed with youthful & beautiful death but only the first part of that seems to happen regularly in his works