Mishima died on this day in 1970. The very excellent Damian Flanagan marking this event a year ago. The sheaths of swords rattle As after years of endurance Brave men set out To tread upon the first frost of the year. Damian FlanaganJapanphilosophical literatureYukio Mishima
Mishima once famously told his wife that “even if I am not immediately understood, it’s OK because I’ll be understood by the Japan of 50 or 100 years time.” The short answer according to the very excellent Mishima scholar Damian Flanagan is “no”. Today marks the 45th anniversary of Mishima’s death. Speaking of which see Yourcenar’s thoughts…
Damian Flanagan reports (in case you are wondering who Donald Keene is). Also check out Damian’s bio of YM. “The Sea of Fertility,” the leviathan that Mishima left behind, is arguably both the most important Japanese literary work written in the last 100 years and, by far, the least understood. Incorporating ideas from noh theater and…
Nice piece especially if one is a Mishima fan and like me one has yet to visit Japan, Japan being one of the very few countries on my travel bucket list: Perhaps this explains why the author Yukio Mishima took his pen name from the city, though the writer claimed that he just happened to be…
Died 44 years ago philosophical literatureYukio Mishima
One of my favourite philosophically orientated novelists is Mishima. I can’t attest to the reliability of this bio-sketch but it’s a start. There is not much scholarly literature on Mishima but here is an appreciation in, of all places, the British Journal of Psychiatry. Paul Schrader made a superb attempt at expressing Mishima’s thinking (insofar as…
Pretty naff cover what with the Aladdin Sane lightening bolt layered over a decent photo. The UK cover is better. Anyway, the books (and periodicals) have a strong dose both of sophisticated and pretty basic humour, counterposed by books of philosophical interest, especially if one is wary of regressive Leftism. The following are the most…
Mishima’s classic published in English (translated by Ivan Morris) on this date in 1959. See Donald Keene’s original review “Beauty Itself Became a Deadly Enemy” in the NYT. aestheticsDonald KeeneJapanphilosophical literatureYukio Mishima
Well of course the reference is to Mishima. Lee Jay Walker grasps the significance of Mishima. [T]he genius of Yukio Mishima is that his books – and thinking – fused the complexities facing individuals in this new world of opportunity – and in the new world of forgetting the past that irked this amazing writer. A…
The very excellent Mishima scholar Donald Keene briefly discusses the English publication of The Temple of the Golden Pavilion almost exactly 57 years ago. What transforms this world is — knowledge. Do you see what I mean? Nothing else can change anything in this world. Knowledge alone is capable of transforming the world, while at the same…
manwithoutqualities 