/lit/ - Literature

[Anonymous No.6905352]

Where should I start with Mishima

[Anonymous No.6905363]

Confessions of A Mask

and this

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8RfQjFkGsEE

[Anonymous No.6905847]

>>6905363

came to this thread to post the same vid, lol

[Anonymous No.6906522]

>>6905363
No OP, but I have this coming in the mail. I guess i did good.

Would anyone know of a good biography on him?

[Anonymous No.6906527]

>>6905352
>>6905352
start with spring snow, all his other shit is garbage in comparison

[Anonymous No.6906549]

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

start with this

[Anonymous No.6907988]

>>6905352
>Where should I start with Mishima
>>>/hm/

enjoy

[Anonymous No.6907996]

>>6906522
it's hard to find a "good one." everything out there is either overly romanticized because they like him or shows him as a pathetic angsty don Quixote caricature.

[Anonymous No.6908007]

>>6906549
i've actually never seen this despite seeing picture all the time.

d-do they fug?

[Anonymous No.6908033]

>>6905352

Sailor Who Fell From Grace With The Sea... See how you feel after that, but if you liked it then move on to the Sea of Fertility tetralogy

[Anonymous No.6908389]

>>6908033

This. Best place to start, then move on to Spring Snow.

Also, read the short story Patriotism. Intense as fuck.

[Anonymous No.6908404]

>>6906522
Watch Mishima: A Life in Four Parts

Awesome film that pieces together the motivation and philosophy to his suicide, including stagings of a few of his novels.

[Anonymous No.6908411]

Ive read Death in Midsummer (and other stories)
Confessions of a Mask
The Sailor Who Fell from Grace with the Sea

they were all pretty good. I'm thinking of reading Golden Pavilion next

[Anonymous No.6908417]

>>6908404
knowing a bit about his books he really seemed to be obsessed with the idea of beautiful death. Is that the main reason behind it?

[Anonymous No.6908476]

>>6908417
Something along those lines, but there's a lot more to it than that, aspects of which I still haven't fully pieced together. He sees many values of beauty in society to be illusory, and finds real beauty in the pursuit of manliness, in terms of stoicism and physicality. This notion of manliness reaches its climax in death, where a man understands true beauty through the glory of a heroic death. From what I can tell he sees this type of manliness exemplified through a warrior/samurai's life, and as a result has a really strong tendency towards traditional Japanese values. And despite the fact that he's a brilliant writer and prose stylist he saw art as a reflection of life and not a part of it, illusory in the same sense as mentioned before, and sought to move his life more towards a work of art and art into reality. And that naturally cumulated with a heroic suicide that could fit perfectly within a piece of fiction.

That's just my basic, possibly incorrect understanding of it though. He's a great writer and a fascinating historical figure, and both of these elements are deeply intertwined. A lot of his approaches towards manliness feel immature to me (especially with works like The Sailor Who Fell..., where he seems to hold the nihilistic ramblings of 13 year olds to a high moral status), but its so interesting to engage with regardless.

[Anonymous No.6908480]

>>6905352
the ass

[Anonymous No.6908483]

>>6908404
>Watch Mishima: A Life in Four Parts

the movie was retarded as fuck. it overly romanticizes mishima and totally ignores the context of how mishima fit into the rest of Japanese society.

I will say the movie has an excellent soundtrack though. but that's the only thing worthwhile about it.

[Anonymous No.6908494]

>>6908483
Did you really feel Mishima was romanticized in it? He himself in the film notes how people laugh at stagings of his plays when they are supposed to cry, and the anticlimax of his speech to the soldiers was so embarrassing. It really felt like the movie tried its hardest to understand where he was coming from, but it certainly didn't portray him as some kind of wonderful hero.

And yeah, Glass' score is the shit.

[Anonymous No.6908498]

>>6908476
I don't think the point was to highly respect the kids, it did seem like the sailors death was just something people like him would get off on though.

Wasn't it based on Nietzsche philosophy? I wonder how much of it inspired his real life actions.

[Anonymous No.6908504]

>>6908494
>and the anticlimax of his speech to the soldiers was so embarrassing

true to the real event then eh

[Anonymous No.6908509]

>>6908498
I took away that he empathized with the kid's perspective because he made the sailor feel melancholy and regret for abandoning his dreams of glory. And the fact that the kids were going to 'give him back his chance at glory' seems right in line with Mishima's philosophy as I understand it.

[Anonymous No.6908517]

>>6908417
>knowing a bit about his books he really seemed to be obsessed with the idea of beautiful death. Is that the main reason behind it?

there are lots of reasons. he had highly idealized notions of samurai honor, beauty, and hero-worship of various sorts.

he was superficial and immature and would come up with all sorts of pseudo-artistic excuses to not deal with reality. he had a sort of peter pan complex as one of the reasons he wanted to die young was so that his image would be immortalized as a younger man.

basically he underestimated your average japenese at the time and that's why he was scoffed at and ridiculed off the balcony right before his suicide.

for a better look into mishima's psyche I suggest "the silent cry" by kenzaburo oe or possibly "seventeen."

even though mishima called oe an ugly man he did respect oe's work.

[Anonymous No.6908536]

>>6908494
i don't deny that there is a degree of complexity to mishima but all we can do is speculate by putting pieces together of what we've read/seen.

I do think he was romanticized almost as a misunderstood hero of sorts. his suicide wasn't noble to me. it was a waste. the way that part was filmed in particular was disturbing.

it reminds me of kafka's the penal colony where the guy puts himself on the torture device rather than not use it on others anymore. it's where the idealism exceeds any sense of practicality or reality.

[Anonymous No.6908579]

>>6908536
Oh I agree that his suicide wasn't noble. I find it more interesting than anything. The film definitely built him up as being misunderstood, and gave him something of a sympathetic eye to try and understand exactly what he was thinking. In that sense, it is certainly romantic. I just didn't take away that it actively endorsed his philosophy, which is what I think would be overly romantic.

That's an interesting point about Kafka, too. I had thought In the Penal Colony was a fictionalization of Nietzsche's genealogy of morals. Morality begins from an arbitrary form just as the machine begins by inscribing randomly into the prisoner's back, but as time passes both the morality of our society and the lesson of the machine become clear to the society/person as they both insist themselves upon consciousness until accepted as fact. Along those lines, Mishima's warped philosophy became a concrete thing that he tried to apply to world but could only apply to himself and it ended up exceeding any sense of reality in the way you mention it. Hopefully that didn't sound like a load of nonsense.

[Anonymous No.6908597]

>>6908007
No. It's a very specific fetish video that has become a 2chan meme.

[Anonymous No.6908598]

>>6908579
>>6908536
suicide is always noble

[Anonymous No.6908620]

>>6908476

He's popular with western traditionalists who see his mythicism and critique of modernity to be relevant to theirs. He was very nietzschean of course, he believed revolutionary spirit is underpinned by pillars of nihalism and mysticism. Evola said the collapse of the self is identified with the epiphancy of transcendence, Mishima recounts this as being a warrior among the samurai collective. Mishima called heroic sacrifice tradegy but a beautiful fleeting one. He wrote he wanted a natural, spontanious suicide, as such his last act was more theatre in the metapolitical sense than it was serious act of political violence. He was very pessimistic about life in the modern world and Japan

>Japan will disappear and in its stead, an impersonal, empty, neutral, intermediate, opulant, shrewd, economic giant will be left standing in a corner of the far east

He certainly wasn't wrong in this regard. I find his brand of romantic nationalism fascinating tbh, I really want to know more about it

[Anonymous No.6908637]

>>6908579
>Hopefully that didn't sound like a load of nonsense.

not at all. mishima is fascinating to me too...even though I find a lot about him is at odds with my own notions of life and art. i still think he was a good writer...it's just his philosophy was overbaked. i guess he's fun to discuss because he was a batshit crazy.

that's an interesting take on the penal colony.

[Anonymous No.6908656]

>>6908620
I haven't read Evola, but that's an interesting take on it. His politics do seem like a natural extension of his personal idea of transcendence rather than the foundation for them, but I suppose that's the case with many 'radicals'. At the same time his ideology was fueled in large part by a unique approach to aesthetics, which from my limited knowledge seems to make him stand out. I've always wondered if his (apparent) homosexuality fueled his relationship with masculine bodybuilding and samurai lifestyle, or vise versa.

[Anonymous No.6908659]

>>6908411

Do it, great book.

[Anonymous No.6908665]

>>6908579
I think you're being too rational of his ethics and values. I think his actions were counsciously a feeble retaliation against a world he knew couldn't be overcome, and the only "pure" thing he could do was embody his values by practicing them to their inevitable conclusion. Don't forget, his fetishism with "purity" of the soul. I don't believe he thought this would affect the reality of Japanese society but it would serve as a romantic example of revolutionary spirit and martyrdom (however pratically misguided) for future generations

[Anonymous No.6908692]

>>6908665
>I don't believe he thought this would affect the reality of Japanese society but it would serve as a romantic example of revolutionary spirit and martyrdom (however pratically misguided) for future generations
Yeah, you're probably right about that. The parallel to the geneaology/penal colony I made was spur of the moment and a bit undercooked. What you said makes sense in how the expression of his values escalated. Starts with fiction, moves to his metaphorical organization, then to antagonism against society, and finally to his embodiment of the values through seppuku. You can definitely read his entire life as a movement towards the purity of his ideals.

[Anonymous No.6908704]

>>6908656
>His politics do seem like a natural extension of his personal idea of transcendence rather than the foundation for them

I would agree with this, he wasn't a political intellectual and I don't believe he aspired to be one. The role he took I think was to influence the discourse of politics through his abstract beliefs and actions, and leaving this rest to others

[Anonymous No.6908752]

>>6908692
Well I'm only trying to see it from his point of view, his suicide was certainly in my mind a result of the disappointment of his ideals in reality and alienation he felt. He probably did feel he could foster real change in his earlier years but failing this, would rather self destruct with his personal ideal intact than go on. Evola had the same experience, but was more developed in his thought, recognising it was pointless fighting modernity, he would instead focus inward spiritually

[Anonymous No.6908762]

>>6908752
Right, and I'd say trying to see it from his perspective is the best way to go about dissecting his life.

Alright, I have to head to work. Nice talking with you, Misimabro.

[Anonymous No.6908781]

>>6908762
You too, thank you. I've rarely had serious discussion of his work here

[Anonymous No.6909025]

>>6908692
>You can definitely read his entire life as a movement towards the purity of his ideals.

except at the core of his ideals was quixotic nonsense. he thought art was more important than life since art could outlast it. he was too self absorbed and narrow-minded to realize that life itself is the greatest art.

seriously picture him having a kid with a disability or dealing with a parent with dementia. you know for a fact he would come up with some artistic idealized notion to avoid certain responsibilities. this is exactly what these wannabe messianic-types do when the real world hits them.

[Anonymous No.6909160]

>>6909025
He believed life should be lived as art. You can call him narrowminded or self absorbed but all your speculating (and you could this about any real messianic figure in history) just ignores his actual beliefs,belief in higher ideals for the collective, and sacrifical logic is reasserted as the condiction of community, as its secret bond.