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The Sea of Fertility #3
The Temple of Dawn
Yukio Mishima’s The Temple of Dawn is the third novel in his masterful tetralogy, The Sea of Fertility. Here, Shigekuni Honda continues his pursuit of the successive reincarnations of Kiyoaki Matsugae, his childhood friend.
Travelling in Thailand in the early 1940s, Shigekuni Honda, now a brilliant lawyer, is granted an audience with a young Thai princess—an encounter that radically alters the course of his life. In spite of all reason, he is convinced she is the reincarnated spirit of his friend Kiyoaki. As Honda goes to great lengths to discover for certain if his theory is correct, The Temple of Dawn becomes the story of one man’s obsessive pursuit of a beautiful woman and his equally passionate search for enlightenment.
Travelling in Thailand in the early 1940s, Shigekuni Honda, now a brilliant lawyer, is granted an audience with a young Thai princess—an encounter that radically alters the course of his life. In spite of all reason, he is convinced she is the reincarnated spirit of his friend Kiyoaki. As Honda goes to great lengths to discover for certain if his theory is correct, The Temple of Dawn becomes the story of one man’s obsessive pursuit of a beautiful woman and his equally passionate search for enlightenment.
336 pages, Paperback
First published July 1, 1970
About the author
Yukio Mishima
424 books7,622 followersYukio Mishima (三島 由紀夫) was born in Tokyo in 1925. He graduated from Tokyo Imperial University’s School of Jurisprudence in 1947. His first published book, The Forest in Full Bloom, appeared in 1944 and he established himself as a major author with Confessions of a Mask (1949). From then until his death he continued to publish novels, short stories, and plays each year. His crowning achievement, the Sea of Fertility tetralogy—which contains the novels Spring Snow (1969), Runaway Horses (1969), The Temple of Dawn (1970), and The Decay of the Angel (1971)—is considered one of the definitive works of twentieth-century Japanese fiction. In 1970, at the age of forty-five and the day after completing the last novel in the Fertility series, Mishima committed seppuku (ritual suicide)—a spectacular death that attracted worldwide attention.
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April 8, 2021
This is the third volume of Mishima’s tetralogy, The Sea of Fertility.
THIS REVIEW CONTAINS SPOILERS
Honda, a lawyer and good friend of the young man in the first volume, is still following the various reincarnations of his good friend. The young man died after an ill-fated romance and illness in the first volume, Spring Snow. He was reincarnated as a young idealist rebel in the second volume, Runaway Horses. Around age 20, he committed ritual suicide.
In The Temple of Dawn, he is reincarnated as a young woman, a princess in Thailand. The young woman is isolated because she is considered mentally disturbed because she talks of having lived other lives in Japan. Honda meets with her and even quizzes her on dates and is satisfied that she is the ‘real thing.’ Other than these ‘memories,’ which disappear as she gets older, the young woman is quite normal and eventually visits Honda’s family in Japan. There he spies on her to confirm that she has the ‘three moles’ on her chest that mark the reincarnated individuals. (And for those who follow these things, it is actually common for individuals who claim to be reincarnated to lose those memories of past lives as they leave childhood.)
Honda goes to visit Benares in India and gives us a primer on various Buddhist and Hindu theories related to reincarnation.
The time frame is the late 1930’s, early 1940 when Japan has just signed an alliance with Germany and Italy. Once again a main theme, as in the earlier novels, is the westernization of Japan and how Japanese citizens react to it. Pearl Harbor is attacked and near the end of the book Japanese cities are being bombed.
A continuation of a good story and it kept my attention all the way through. On to the concluding volume - The Decay of the Angel.
THIS REVIEW CONTAINS SPOILERS
Honda, a lawyer and good friend of the young man in the first volume, is still following the various reincarnations of his good friend. The young man died after an ill-fated romance and illness in the first volume, Spring Snow. He was reincarnated as a young idealist rebel in the second volume, Runaway Horses. Around age 20, he committed ritual suicide.
In The Temple of Dawn, he is reincarnated as a young woman, a princess in Thailand. The young woman is isolated because she is considered mentally disturbed because she talks of having lived other lives in Japan. Honda meets with her and even quizzes her on dates and is satisfied that she is the ‘real thing.’ Other than these ‘memories,’ which disappear as she gets older, the young woman is quite normal and eventually visits Honda’s family in Japan. There he spies on her to confirm that she has the ‘three moles’ on her chest that mark the reincarnated individuals. (And for those who follow these things, it is actually common for individuals who claim to be reincarnated to lose those memories of past lives as they leave childhood.)
Honda goes to visit Benares in India and gives us a primer on various Buddhist and Hindu theories related to reincarnation.
The time frame is the late 1930’s, early 1940 when Japan has just signed an alliance with Germany and Italy. Once again a main theme, as in the earlier novels, is the westernization of Japan and how Japanese citizens react to it. Pearl Harbor is attacked and near the end of the book Japanese cities are being bombed.
A continuation of a good story and it kept my attention all the way through. On to the concluding volume - The Decay of the Angel.
August 29, 2018
This third Volume of The Sea of Fertility tetralogy moves toward travelogue more than its predecessors. Honda, now a blue-chip attorney, goes to Siam (now Thailand) in the year 1940. At the start we are well into the Japanese occupation of Manchuria but before the bombing of Pearl Harbor. Honda is in Bangkok representing a Japanese firm in their dispute with a Siamese concern. It’s very hot. It’s surprising how good Mishima is at conveying the sense of a broiling sun.
Honda’s royal Siamese acquaintances—from back in his and Miyoaki’s youth in Volume 1, Spring Snow, see my review—are not in the country, but a little princess of some six years of age is. The little princess is believed by the royal family to be mad since she claims not to be Siamese at all but to be Japanese with a home and loved ones in that distant land. Honda, a dignitary, believing the princess may be another of Miyoaki’s incarnations, is able to arrange a series of audiences with her under the scrutiny of her elderly female attendants. The royal getaway Bang Pa In is richly described. Honda plays games with the little princess.
Then, his case won, Honda’s work in Bangkok is done. As a gift, his grateful employers send him on a pleasure trip to India. He goes to Calcutta (Kolkata) and thence to Benares (Varanasi). The novel here reminds me very much of Shūsaku Endō’s Deep River, See my review. And I wonder if Endo took any cues from Mishima here? They are, after all, both writing about the ghats along the Ganges in Varanasi.
I think another of Mishima’s models was E. M. Forster’s A Passage to India, see my review. I felt there was a vague semblance when Honda went to India, but when he goes to the Buddhist caves in Ajanta, the similarities with the trip to the Marabar Caves in Passage became too marked to ignore. Honda even has an epiphany in the caves, not unlike that of Miss Quested, though he doesn’t confuse it with an assault on his person.
Isao’s death in Volume 2—Runaway Horses—is described here as both glorious and futile. The author uses this theme of dualism with regard to Iaso and, later, Honda. I know that dualism, the body and soul schism, is a concept opposed by some forms of Buddhism, but don’t know if that’s the connection the writer is referencing here. Sometimes you just have to press on with Mishima. This seems to be one of those times.
During the war Honda studies Greek religion as part of his investigations into samsara and reincarnation. The author’s summing up of Honda’s investigations seem oblique. Someday a scholar will probably figure out the lineage of Mishima’s thinking, perhaps even the books he read to develop it, and produce a fat annotated edition. Right now to my knowledge no such exegesis exists in English. One problem for me lies in the passage:
But original sin, I had learned, was a concept invented by Augustine of Hippo as an interpretation of the Expulsion from Paradise, which was later incorporated into early Christian teachings by the Church fathers where it eventually petrified into dogma. See Elaine Pagels’s Adam, Eve, and the Serpent: Sex and Politics in Early Christianity. I looked to see how the term could have been used in relation to pre-Christian, pagan myth and have been assured that none of the ancients viewed it as such; that, in fact, it is a kind of back formation created by modern scholars. See Tearing Apart the Zagreus Myth: A Few Disparaging Remarks on Orphism and Original Sin by R. G. Edmonds. Mishima died by his own hand in 1970 and Professor Edmonds essay did not appear until 1999. So Mishima’s reading of the Zagreus myth was probably the most current scholarly version available to him at the time.
There is an omnireligious and utterly confusing tapestry the author seeks to weave together. There are bits on Shintoism, Confucianism, Hinduism, Mahayana and Theraveda Buddhism, Greek mystery rites, Christianity, Judaism, Islam, etc. I can’t say I understand it all, but puzzling over it does set the synapses to salubriously firing. If anything I think it will demand a serious reread. Given the author’s suicide in 1970, the year this volume was published, one wonders to what extent these meditations were personal, perhaps even part of his final preparations?
Then around p. 220 something happens. Now suddenly, under the influence of the young princess from Thailand, Ying Chan, 17, Honda goes sex wild. Well, I suppose it’s not unlikely. Japan has just been relinquished to civilian control by the departing American occupiers. The communists are rioting. It’s as if the parents are out of the house for the weekend and the kids run amok. Suddenly we find Honda in a park, hiding behind some trees with others nearby, watching youngsters fuck amid the shrubberies. Absolutely nothing in his past prepares us for this.
A conspiracy is then entered into by Honda, his neighbor Keiko, and her twenty year old nephew, Katsumi, which seeks the despoliation of Ying Chan. The conspiracy against this young innocent reminds me very much of certain aspects of Choderlos de Laclos’s Les Liaisons Dangereuses. The plan is for Katsumi is to sexually initiate Ying Chan, who then will turn to her old family friend, Honda, for consolation. It’s hard to imagine what’s going through Honda’s mind. Especially after the recent period of study into samsara and reincarnation. After all, he believes, or once believed, that Ying Chan is the latest incarnation of his friend Miyoaki (Vol. 1), who was subsequently reincarnated as Isao (Vol. 2). And now he wants to bang the third incarnation, Ying Chan? Is this so the fourth incarnation might be his own son? The guy has really gone off his rocker.
Many of Anita Brookner’s characters share a disappointment that they’ve let life pass them by. Honda, coming sexually alive for the first time in his 57 years, reminds me of Brookner’s characters with this exception. Brookner's characters each possess a detailed narrative surrounding their loss, Honda doesn’t seem have one. Moreover, he doesn’t seem capable of articulating one. He suffers no depression like the Brits. He's just suddenly overwhelmed by lust. Ying Chan has apparently driven his celibate nature out of him, but we’re never sure why. Is it lost in translation?
Ah, then on p. 263 he comes to see his lust as an abomination. He resolves not to commit the violation, for then “beauty could no longer exist in this world.” Then “He was waiting for madness to take complete possession of him.” Finally, we come to what for Honda might be called his Brooknerian moment. “If Honda’s imagination let him dream that he would have been of this or that personality were he only young and thus served to protect him through the years at every dangerous emotional point, then his reluctance to recognize his present emotional condition was probably the result of such self-denial in youth. At any rate, it was impossible for him to cry. . . as he walked—not when he was young and not now.” (p.283)
Overall the book comes apart in the second half. The coherence comes and goes. There are some beautiful passages but you’ll have to wait for them. The abstractions surrounding Honda’s shift toward the flesh are far less interesting than his earlier spiritual investigations, or his travels abroad. He has no position in society anymore. That is, no pull or influence as he had when he was a judge and then a lawyer. He is made filthy rich by a propitious windfall. With the loss of his vocation and the easy money has come the loss of his raison d’être. He drifts through lustful scenarios with Yang Chin that he knows are impossible. He consorts with artists and royalty but in post war Japan they seem an oddball lot, a lost generation completely devoid of young men.
That said, this is for me the most fascinating Mishima novel of the ten or so I’ve read. I always have trouble with this author’s work and I’ve come to believe that much of this has so do with the translations. He was well known for using Japanese archaisms in his writing. God knows what snafus this has led his translators into. Reading Mishima is always to some degree a patient slog. But I’ll take what I can get. Recommended with reservations.
Honda’s royal Siamese acquaintances—from back in his and Miyoaki’s youth in Volume 1, Spring Snow, see my review—are not in the country, but a little princess of some six years of age is. The little princess is believed by the royal family to be mad since she claims not to be Siamese at all but to be Japanese with a home and loved ones in that distant land. Honda, a dignitary, believing the princess may be another of Miyoaki’s incarnations, is able to arrange a series of audiences with her under the scrutiny of her elderly female attendants. The royal getaway Bang Pa In is richly described. Honda plays games with the little princess.
Then, his case won, Honda’s work in Bangkok is done. As a gift, his grateful employers send him on a pleasure trip to India. He goes to Calcutta (Kolkata) and thence to Benares (Varanasi). The novel here reminds me very much of Shūsaku Endō’s Deep River, See my review. And I wonder if Endo took any cues from Mishima here? They are, after all, both writing about the ghats along the Ganges in Varanasi.
I think another of Mishima’s models was E. M. Forster’s A Passage to India, see my review. I felt there was a vague semblance when Honda went to India, but when he goes to the Buddhist caves in Ajanta, the similarities with the trip to the Marabar Caves in Passage became too marked to ignore. Honda even has an epiphany in the caves, not unlike that of Miss Quested, though he doesn’t confuse it with an assault on his person.
Standing alone in the cool of the cave, Honda felt as though the darkness around him suddenly began to whisper. The emptiness of the undecorated, colorless caves awakened in him a feeling of some miraculous existence, probably for the first time since he came to India. (p. 78)
Isao’s death in Volume 2—Runaway Horses—is described here as both glorious and futile. The author uses this theme of dualism with regard to Iaso and, later, Honda. I know that dualism, the body and soul schism, is a concept opposed by some forms of Buddhism, but don’t know if that’s the connection the writer is referencing here. Sometimes you just have to press on with Mishima. This seems to be one of those times.
During the war Honda studies Greek religion as part of his investigations into samsara and reincarnation. The author’s summing up of Honda’s investigations seem oblique. Someday a scholar will probably figure out the lineage of Mishima’s thinking, perhaps even the books he read to develop it, and produce a fat annotated edition. Right now to my knowledge no such exegesis exists in English. One problem for me lies in the passage:
The immortal soul, originally holy, must traverse such a dark passage because of the original sin of the flesh: namely the Titan’s murder of Zagreus. (p. 106)
But original sin, I had learned, was a concept invented by Augustine of Hippo as an interpretation of the Expulsion from Paradise, which was later incorporated into early Christian teachings by the Church fathers where it eventually petrified into dogma. See Elaine Pagels’s Adam, Eve, and the Serpent: Sex and Politics in Early Christianity. I looked to see how the term could have been used in relation to pre-Christian, pagan myth and have been assured that none of the ancients viewed it as such; that, in fact, it is a kind of back formation created by modern scholars. See Tearing Apart the Zagreus Myth: A Few Disparaging Remarks on Orphism and Original Sin by R. G. Edmonds. Mishima died by his own hand in 1970 and Professor Edmonds essay did not appear until 1999. So Mishima’s reading of the Zagreus myth was probably the most current scholarly version available to him at the time.
There is an omnireligious and utterly confusing tapestry the author seeks to weave together. There are bits on Shintoism, Confucianism, Hinduism, Mahayana and Theraveda Buddhism, Greek mystery rites, Christianity, Judaism, Islam, etc. I can’t say I understand it all, but puzzling over it does set the synapses to salubriously firing. If anything I think it will demand a serious reread. Given the author’s suicide in 1970, the year this volume was published, one wonders to what extent these meditations were personal, perhaps even part of his final preparations?
Then around p. 220 something happens. Now suddenly, under the influence of the young princess from Thailand, Ying Chan, 17, Honda goes sex wild. Well, I suppose it’s not unlikely. Japan has just been relinquished to civilian control by the departing American occupiers. The communists are rioting. It’s as if the parents are out of the house for the weekend and the kids run amok. Suddenly we find Honda in a park, hiding behind some trees with others nearby, watching youngsters fuck amid the shrubberies. Absolutely nothing in his past prepares us for this.
A conspiracy is then entered into by Honda, his neighbor Keiko, and her twenty year old nephew, Katsumi, which seeks the despoliation of Ying Chan. The conspiracy against this young innocent reminds me very much of certain aspects of Choderlos de Laclos’s Les Liaisons Dangereuses. The plan is for Katsumi is to sexually initiate Ying Chan, who then will turn to her old family friend, Honda, for consolation. It’s hard to imagine what’s going through Honda’s mind. Especially after the recent period of study into samsara and reincarnation. After all, he believes, or once believed, that Ying Chan is the latest incarnation of his friend Miyoaki (Vol. 1), who was subsequently reincarnated as Isao (Vol. 2). And now he wants to bang the third incarnation, Ying Chan? Is this so the fourth incarnation might be his own son? The guy has really gone off his rocker.
Many of Anita Brookner’s characters share a disappointment that they’ve let life pass them by. Honda, coming sexually alive for the first time in his 57 years, reminds me of Brookner’s characters with this exception. Brookner's characters each possess a detailed narrative surrounding their loss, Honda doesn’t seem have one. Moreover, he doesn’t seem capable of articulating one. He suffers no depression like the Brits. He's just suddenly overwhelmed by lust. Ying Chan has apparently driven his celibate nature out of him, but we’re never sure why. Is it lost in translation?
Ah, then on p. 263 he comes to see his lust as an abomination. He resolves not to commit the violation, for then “beauty could no longer exist in this world.” Then “He was waiting for madness to take complete possession of him.” Finally, we come to what for Honda might be called his Brooknerian moment. “If Honda’s imagination let him dream that he would have been of this or that personality were he only young and thus served to protect him through the years at every dangerous emotional point, then his reluctance to recognize his present emotional condition was probably the result of such self-denial in youth. At any rate, it was impossible for him to cry. . . as he walked—not when he was young and not now.” (p.283)
Overall the book comes apart in the second half. The coherence comes and goes. There are some beautiful passages but you’ll have to wait for them. The abstractions surrounding Honda’s shift toward the flesh are far less interesting than his earlier spiritual investigations, or his travels abroad. He has no position in society anymore. That is, no pull or influence as he had when he was a judge and then a lawyer. He is made filthy rich by a propitious windfall. With the loss of his vocation and the easy money has come the loss of his raison d’être. He drifts through lustful scenarios with Yang Chin that he knows are impossible. He consorts with artists and royalty but in post war Japan they seem an oddball lot, a lost generation completely devoid of young men.
That said, this is for me the most fascinating Mishima novel of the ten or so I’ve read. I always have trouble with this author’s work and I’ve come to believe that much of this has so do with the translations. He was well known for using Japanese archaisms in his writing. God knows what snafus this has led his translators into. Reading Mishima is always to some degree a patient slog. But I’ll take what I can get. Recommended with reservations.
June 13, 2020
This is one of the strangest books I've read, and it totally defies the Goodreads rating system. I could give it 5 stars and believe in it, or 1 - I don't think it WORKS, exactly, but it's fascinating, and as part 3 of Mishima's Sea of Fertility Tetralogy, connects and advances the plot through 12 years of Japanese History, from Pearl Harbor all the way through American occupation.
It's a novel of two halves, in the first, Honda, the series protagonist (who only now takes the lead in a book), travels to India, ruminates extensively (and I mean extensively) on architecture, and finds the latest incarnation of his childhood friend: a seven-year-old princess. He travels to India, then back to bombed-out Tokyo (where some extraordinary scenes occur). The depth of research is fascinating in this section, but overbearing, and overwhelming, as Mishima tries to weave a tapestry of beliefs in reincarnation from around the world - I left more confused then informed.
Part two is like...I don't know, think of a 15o page Phillip Roth novella about a suddenly rich, 58 year old peeping tom with an intense desire to see a 19 year old Thai princess naked. It is entertaining, for sure, and it flies by compared to the first half - in some ways I think it might have worked better as a stand alone book, because Honda's character is so bizarrely altered from the first two books, as if Mishima had realized that the plot would only work if he was a peeping tom, and if he was rich. Coincidences string - and yet his desire to find the three small moles that will reveal that the reincarnation has occurred is genuinely narratively exciting. Excellent party scenes - bizarre conversations about mystic lands of permanent orgy - lyric depictions of Mount Fuji - a look at the indignities of post-war Japan - an extremely strange foot kiss - a lot happens.
Mishima is great because he's weird, and this book is very, very weird - one has the unfortunate sense of a writer on deadline, hurtling through his outline and his notes, relying on talent and not craft to get him through. That he even remotely pulls it off is a testament.
It's a novel of two halves, in the first, Honda, the series protagonist (who only now takes the lead in a book), travels to India, ruminates extensively (and I mean extensively) on architecture, and finds the latest incarnation of his childhood friend: a seven-year-old princess. He travels to India, then back to bombed-out Tokyo (where some extraordinary scenes occur). The depth of research is fascinating in this section, but overbearing, and overwhelming, as Mishima tries to weave a tapestry of beliefs in reincarnation from around the world - I left more confused then informed.
Part two is like...I don't know, think of a 15o page Phillip Roth novella about a suddenly rich, 58 year old peeping tom with an intense desire to see a 19 year old Thai princess naked. It is entertaining, for sure, and it flies by compared to the first half - in some ways I think it might have worked better as a stand alone book, because Honda's character is so bizarrely altered from the first two books, as if Mishima had realized that the plot would only work if he was a peeping tom, and if he was rich. Coincidences string - and yet his desire to find the three small moles that will reveal that the reincarnation has occurred is genuinely narratively exciting. Excellent party scenes - bizarre conversations about mystic lands of permanent orgy - lyric depictions of Mount Fuji - a look at the indignities of post-war Japan - an extremely strange foot kiss - a lot happens.
Mishima is great because he's weird, and this book is very, very weird - one has the unfortunate sense of a writer on deadline, hurtling through his outline and his notes, relying on talent and not craft to get him through. That he even remotely pulls it off is a testament.
June 11, 2023
The first two volumes of the tetralogy The Sea of Fertility had utterly won me over. So my expectations were high for the temple of dawn. And the first part met them. I found Shigekuni Honda, who had abandoned the judiciary to get into law. He is now in his fifties and is starting to feel the weight of age. He is not particularly close to his wife. He has no children. At this point in life, anyone turns to the past, nostalgic. The years of youth, the Academy, the Thai princes, and especially his friendship with Kiyoaki Matsugae, who died too early, and this enigmatic sentence: "I will see you again."
Then, as prophesied, the best friend reincarnated as Isao Inuma, a young man with high convictions who also died in his prime life. But the cycle must continue. In 1939, on a business trip to Thailand (he had to settle a commercial dispute), Honda came into contact with the young Ying Chan. At seven, she has funny ideas. "I am not a real Siamese princess. I am the reincarnation of a Japanese, and my country is Japan."
I like how everything is connected, so the presence of the Thai princes in the first volume was not an extra detail but thought from the start, relevant to the plot. I didn't expect an aging lawyer to kidnap a minor royal highness. Instead, Honda embarks on a spiritual, introspective journey to India. Even if this part was more contemplative, shared between religious and philosophical reflections and his observations of Indian customs, I was not bored. Maybe I swiped quickly over a few paragraphs, but overall it was different and exciting.
Unfortunately, the second part left me ambivalent. It takes place a few years after the war. Disillusionment is everywhere, but Honda is part of the privileged class, so it does not suffer too much. One day, he learns that Princess Ying Chan is in Japan to continue her higher education, and he tries to meet her to check if she is the reincarnation of Kiyoaki Matsugae. For her part, she no longer remembers the fads of her childhood, more of the older man. Instead, she became an enigmatic young woman. Too much, perhaps, because I have never connected with it. Ying Chan seemed cold, distant, and inaccessible. Maybe the author Yukio Mishima is having trouble identifying a female protagonist.
Anyway, it follows many adventures I did not understand the usefulness of. Among others, Honda seeks to play matchmakers, attempting to divert the princess through a young man of his acquaintance. Why? Also, at times, I seemed to be a perverse older man on the return of age who finds pleasure in spying on women without their knowledge. But then, events rush to the end, culminating in a disappointing finale. I expected the princess's death, as was the case of the protagonists in the two previous volumes - after all, the cycle of reincarnations must continue, but hers was summarized in a few lines almost shipped.
In any case, I still enjoyed my reading experience. I immersed myself in this extraordinary universe: exotic Thailand, mystical India, and post-war Japan, which is rebuilding and looking for its way—the American occupation, openness to Western culture, certain traditions relegated to oblivion, etc. Yukio Mishima has created an absolute masterpiece. I am as impatient as sad at the idea of embarking on the last volume of the series.
Then, as prophesied, the best friend reincarnated as Isao Inuma, a young man with high convictions who also died in his prime life. But the cycle must continue. In 1939, on a business trip to Thailand (he had to settle a commercial dispute), Honda came into contact with the young Ying Chan. At seven, she has funny ideas. "I am not a real Siamese princess. I am the reincarnation of a Japanese, and my country is Japan."
I like how everything is connected, so the presence of the Thai princes in the first volume was not an extra detail but thought from the start, relevant to the plot. I didn't expect an aging lawyer to kidnap a minor royal highness. Instead, Honda embarks on a spiritual, introspective journey to India. Even if this part was more contemplative, shared between religious and philosophical reflections and his observations of Indian customs, I was not bored. Maybe I swiped quickly over a few paragraphs, but overall it was different and exciting.
Unfortunately, the second part left me ambivalent. It takes place a few years after the war. Disillusionment is everywhere, but Honda is part of the privileged class, so it does not suffer too much. One day, he learns that Princess Ying Chan is in Japan to continue her higher education, and he tries to meet her to check if she is the reincarnation of Kiyoaki Matsugae. For her part, she no longer remembers the fads of her childhood, more of the older man. Instead, she became an enigmatic young woman. Too much, perhaps, because I have never connected with it. Ying Chan seemed cold, distant, and inaccessible. Maybe the author Yukio Mishima is having trouble identifying a female protagonist.
Anyway, it follows many adventures I did not understand the usefulness of. Among others, Honda seeks to play matchmakers, attempting to divert the princess through a young man of his acquaintance. Why? Also, at times, I seemed to be a perverse older man on the return of age who finds pleasure in spying on women without their knowledge. But then, events rush to the end, culminating in a disappointing finale. I expected the princess's death, as was the case of the protagonists in the two previous volumes - after all, the cycle of reincarnations must continue, but hers was summarized in a few lines almost shipped.
In any case, I still enjoyed my reading experience. I immersed myself in this extraordinary universe: exotic Thailand, mystical India, and post-war Japan, which is rebuilding and looking for its way—the American occupation, openness to Western culture, certain traditions relegated to oblivion, etc. Yukio Mishima has created an absolute masterpiece. I am as impatient as sad at the idea of embarking on the last volume of the series.
June 11, 2023
Worst Mishima yet. Yes, even favorite authors have slip-ups, but I don't understand how this tetralogy is considered the pinnacle of his work.
September 14, 2018
This was my first Mishima book and it probably won't be my last. But, as a first book, it probably wasn't the best choice. Passages in the book were lovely, but the book was bogged down by two main problems - one, the book took long pauses to narrate the principles of Zen Buddhism and reincarnation; and two, the there didn't seem to be a clear story arc.
My writing teacher Lester Goran once said that internal narration and flashbacks were story-killers because they took time away from scenes. This is not always true in books, especially if the narration is kept to a minimum and the flashbacks are woven in with care. In this case, however, he is absolutely right. We don't need to go on the character's book-reading journey with him. Any intellectual revelations should be revealed through scenes, dialogue, and action.
As far as the story is concerned, I never felt like there was a coherent arc to what was happening. Often the book felt like loosely related scenes in the life of the character. Beautiful scenes, but unrelated scenes nonetheless. Some of the jarring aspects of the book, I think, came from being introduced to characters from earlier books in the series. For this reason, I would recommend reading the series in order.
Who knows, my own experience of the book might have been very different if I had started from Spring Snow.
My writing teacher Lester Goran once said that internal narration and flashbacks were story-killers because they took time away from scenes. This is not always true in books, especially if the narration is kept to a minimum and the flashbacks are woven in with care. In this case, however, he is absolutely right. We don't need to go on the character's book-reading journey with him. Any intellectual revelations should be revealed through scenes, dialogue, and action.
As far as the story is concerned, I never felt like there was a coherent arc to what was happening. Often the book felt like loosely related scenes in the life of the character. Beautiful scenes, but unrelated scenes nonetheless. Some of the jarring aspects of the book, I think, came from being introduced to characters from earlier books in the series. For this reason, I would recommend reading the series in order.
Who knows, my own experience of the book might have been very different if I had started from Spring Snow.
September 27, 2020
Make-believe
LITERARY TWINS:
Keen observers of transformations in their societies:
Be it political regime, the inheritance laws, mores and national values, religion, Tocqueville covers all of these in his twofold study of the United States.
Democracy in America
H.P. Lovecraft's eye for antiquated cities and the subtle changes marking them over time
I Am Providence: The Life and Times of H.P. Lovecraft
I Am Providence: The Life and Times of H. P. Lovecraft, Volume 2
Akira Kurosawa's autobiographical thing, witnessing the changes informing Japanese society before and after WW2. Both Kurosawa's and Yukio Mishima's works give an account of the slander and paranoia aimed at Koreans in the time leading to and following WW2.
Something Like an Autobiography
Ougarit's quest of urban anomalies and an impossible nexus of urban identity throughout time and space.
Ougarit:
Philip K. Dick's novels and short stories, all questioning reality and the nature of our relation to it as living beings:
The Man in the High Castle
Lies, Inc.
VALIS
Stories dealing with the thorough analysis of sensations & their depletion:
Against Nature
Whatever
The Map and the Territory
Japanese 'Floating World' and decadence:
An Artist of the Floating World
No Longer Human
Elusive women:
Les Diaboliques
Erotical scenarii involving perceptions of the past (e.g. the game with the thai ring between Honda and Ying Chan):
The Book of Laughter and Forgetting
Identity
Infinitesimal decomposition of the flow of time:
Lolita
On a main character becoming a jaded, retired judge, impervious to anything but cynicism or mysticism.
The Death of Ivan Ilych
----
'L'homme trouve toujours des présages à son gré.'
Le juge Honda devenu conseiller en droit international est envoyé par les produits Itsui pour régler un litige en Thaïlande. Il y rencontre la jeune princesse thaï Ying Chan, qui a la certitude d'être la réincarnation d'un Japonais. Il se convainc à moitié qu'il s'agit de la réincarnation d'Isao, son jeune ami de Chevaux échappés : La mer de la fertilité II. Le procès gagné, il décide de poursuivre sa route vers l'Inde, où il visite Bénarès et Ajanta où il assiste à une forme de fin du monde. De retour au Japon, il dit s'être défait de l'altruisme et vivre dans un désintéressement, une désillusion vis-à-vis de l'inanité du monde comme avant d'entreprendre ce voyage.
'A parler franchement, ceux qui n'avaient pas les moyens de se payer un avocat n'avaient pas qualité pour enfreindre la loi.'
-----------------
Flammes et rayons
Le temple de l'aube s'ouvre sur les visions de Honda à Bangkok, toutes de peaux luisantes et lumineuses, rayonnantes d'éclats solaires et de flammes, qui me laissent une forte impression d'au-delà...
Plus tard, l'image des toits des temples de Bangkok, le miracle affreux de Bénarès, le bombardement de Tokyo et la villa de Honda en feu se confondent en une seule et même image qui parachève l'esprit de ce livre...
De ces effets d'échos et de reflets, ce livre est plein :
Image du crépuscule et du Paon roi de sagesse. Image des dames mondaines, des dames de compagnie thaï, et des grues, qui se superposent. Intrication incroyable de la vie avec les motifs des pensées et des songes de Honda.
Voyeurisme, jeux de miroirs
Dans Le Temple de l'aube, chacun est laissé en proie à ses perceptions, dans la solitude de son interprétation particulière des choses.
Honda est ici à la fois trompeur et proie de ses imaginations, de même que son épouse stérile Rié avec les spectres de la jalousie qu'elle nourrit autant qu'elle les redoute.
Ce livre, je crois qu'on pourrait le décrire assez exactement comme un immense montage complexe d'illusions superposées et confondues les unes aux autres, à l'image des figures que Honda découvre sur les temples de Bangkok.
Wat Pho, Bangkok
Finalement, ce qui apparaît dans ce livre crucial, c'est la duplicité, mieux, la complexité de toutes choses.
Honda se révèle voyeur, alors que rien ne nous y prépare vraiment dans les tomes précédents. (hormis peut-être sa fascination pour la tour creuse du palais de justice qui surplombe la ville et de laquelle il peut tout observer en contrebas, dans Chevaux échappés). Il est même reconnu par un autre voyeur dans les fourrés, qui le traite en complice lorsqu'il le reconnaît dans la rue.
J'en viens à me demander : quel rôle a Honda a réellement eu sur les vies de Kiyoaki et de Isao ?
C'est une question que je me suis posé à plusieurs reprises personnellement. Quelle est mon incidence sur les évènements dans le monde, que j'en sois conscient ou non ?
Dans cette optique de voyeur, Honda cherche à profiter de l'observation de Ying Chan sans prétendre s'insérer dans la vie d'un autre être.
Une autre question se pose tout de suite :
Pourquoi Honda ne ressent-il pas d'émotions réelles, directement, par lui-même ? Pourquoi a-t-il besoin de "s'emparer d'une vie nouvelle" ?
On a alors des aperçus déplaisants, crus et stupéfiants de Honda.
Il monte des stratagèmes inouïs pour son plaisir (la piscine), formule une combinaison avec Keiko et son neveu Katsumi pour déflorer Ying Chan. Rien moins qu'une sorte de viol organisé, observé par Honda.
Aperçus souterrains de la cruauté masochiste de Rié.
C'est alors qu'on remarque que Honda... vit par les livres... et derrière eux.
La prétention, le faux-semblant, l'imposture
En Thaïlande, Honda a pour guide l'insinuante et médiocre Hishikawa. Hishikawa est un artiste raté, fat et faux.
Honda est ensuite pénétré par la laideur et la fausseté des "Messieurs" japonais en villégiature en Thaïlande.
... par celle des prétentions artistiques de Makiko et sa disciple Mme Tsukibahara, dont l'exhibition permanente de sa douleur de mère éplorée savamment entretenue comme un fond de commerce le dégoûte.
... par celle d'Iinuma et son son étalage de bravoure lorsqu'il raconte sa tentative de suicide ratée à Honda et s'en glorifie...
Par Makiko, elle-même voyeuse des pulsions des autres, qu'elle ne ressent pas elle-même.
... par celle du libertin de pacotille Imanishi, écrivain-critique du monde flottant, qui fantasme sur un royaume de licence sexuelle, parodie du roman Le temple de l'aube, parodie de la conscience ayana et de l'éternel retour, parodie de Mishima, portant chemises hawaiiennes !
Toutes formes de fausseté ou de cabotinage dont la nullité est sûrement mise en relief par la vérité des incarnations précédentes de son ami.
Finalement, Honda réalise qu'il a été le prétexte, l'alibi pour Keiko dans sa relation lesbienne avec Ying Chan.
Mise en abîme de la création littéraire, phénomène de la conscience ayana aussi, semence parfumée aussi.
Mise en abîme du voyeurisme du lecteur (hypocrite lecteur, mon semblable...).
Vers l'authenticité
Honda est l'homme de la complexité. Il est en mue, en perpétuel dépouillement, les incarnations successives de Kiyoaki/Isao/Ying Chan, ce sont aussi les siennes.
Honda accablé, effondré d'insignifiance, pénétré de l'influence nulle qu'il a eue sur son époque. La peine qu'il en conçoit. Réalise la vanité des désirs. Du moins leur incidence nulle sur ce qui pourrait conduire à leur réalisation.
Son "incarnation" précédent connaît une forme de mort à Bénarès, où il assiste à la célébration de la fin du monde et à sa renaissance simultanée, fin de la raison, dissolution dans l'effroyable sainteté de la mort.
Honda aspire alors à des désirs inassouvissables. C'est la signature de sa quête de pureté et d'une volupté d'anéantissement. Son attrait pour Ying Chan prend la forme d'amour mystique, enrichi de toute la symbolique ésotérique qu'il étudie au même moment. Qui n'a jamais connu ça dans l'emprise du sentiment amoureux ?
Ici, les "hallucinations" visuelles et auditives, présentes déjà dans Neige de printemps et Chevaux échappés se font significatives. Tout ce kaléidoscope d'échos visuels, auditifs, symboliques (échos, parodies, simulacres, dérision) finit bel et bien par détruire partiellement l'illusion de la trame du temps chronologique.
La farce de l'histoire : singeries et imitation, effacement et absence
La trame historique est incroyablement discrète.
Le Siam est devenu Thaïlande, forte monarchie, fort nationalisme, forte occidentalisation (famille princière à Lausanne, mouvement Yuwachon, inspiré des Jeunesses hitlériennes).
26/02/1936 : Incident avec la Chine, fin de l'agitation interne au Japon.
De retour à Bangkok, dégradation des relations entre Thaïs et Japonais.
07/12/1941: W USA - Japon
Mai 1945 : Tokyo bombardée à répétition
// Honda étudie le samsara et la transmigration. Vision de cendres flottantes se mêle à l'affreux miracle de Bénarès.
Occupation US : Keiko Hisamatsu, nouvelle voisine de Honda, émancipée, divorcée, amante d'officier US.
1947 : disparition des tribunaux spéciaux et du tribunal des conflits administratifs.
Honda gagne son procès interminable, s'achète une ville en vue du mont Fuji.
Honda prend ce qui lui arrive, l'impermanence, comme elle vient, avec désinvolture et fatalisme. Puis, convaincu de la stérilité de l'existence, de l'inanité de toutes choses, il quête la déraison.
Visitant les ruines de la demeure Matsugae, il y rencontre Tadeshina.
Honda retrouve Makiko (amante de Isao Iinuma).
1er mai 1952
Émeutes et présages de révolution.
1967 : Honda rencontre la jumelle de Ying Chan, apprend la mort de la dernière, mordue par un serpent, sans qu'on vienne la sauver à temps. Sans qu'elle aie pu faire l'usage du soutra de Honda.
Étude savante du Bouddhisme
Étudie les liens entre cultes et pensée grecque, cultes et pensée orientale (dionysisme, enthousiasme, extase, samsara, réincarnation), intention mystique, transmise dans le sacrement de l'Eucharistie, pont de l'unité avec l'univers.
=> Honda attaque la question de l'essence, qui est elle aussi sujette au Samsara, ce qui pose la question de son siège.
+ Belle habileté du texte de Mishima qui excite l'appétit pour les matières ésotériques que Honda étudie.
Sectes Theraveda (Birmanie, Thai, Cambodge)
Milindapañha du canon thaï : la pensée est cause du samsara, mais n'est pas le corps migratoire.
Boudhisme nayana : La réalité existe constamment en passé, présent et avenir.
vs
Bouddhisme mahayana, dont doctrine yuishiki : La réalité n'existe qu'au présent, il n'est ni passé, ni avenir.
Cette doctrine propose une résolution de la contradiction entre samsara et anatman (non-personnalité). La voici :
Nous sommes dotés de 5 sens, d'esprit et du manas (= capacité à percevoir le moi et l'identité individuelle).
Mais aussi d'alayavijnana = "conscience ultime".
L'alaya entrepose toutes les "semences" du monde des phénomènes, flux constant.
= 8 consciences au total.
Si la conscience alaya est pure, le pouvoir qui engendre le samsara et la réincarnation est une force extérieure à elle, karmique.
Si la conscience alaya ne l'est pas (= doctrine yuishiki),
les semences karmiques sont causes indirectes et c'est la conscience alaya, corps migratoire, qui est la force qui engendre samsara & réincarnation.
En d'autres termes, les semences de la conscience alaya engendrent cette conscience et forment la loi naturelle. La conscience alaya est donc le fruit de la récompense des êtres sensibles et la cause fondamentale de toute existence.
La conscience alaya façonne les illusions du monde où nous vivons. Tout se réduit à l'idéation :
Par l'attribution de noms
Par l'attachement au moi
Par la semence des 3 mondes (trailokya) : illusion composée des désirs sensuels, formes et amorphisme du pur esprit, cause des 3 mondes de souffrance et d'illusion, de qui dépendent les destinées.
En conséquence :
= Cause et effet simultané et pourtant alterné de la conscience alaya, qui garantit la réalité et l'existence.
= Le monde et la conscience alaya sont simultanés, alternants et interdépendants.
= Conception agnostique du monde et solipsisme.
*****
JUMEAUX LITTÉRAIRES :
Observateurs alertes des transformations de leur société :
Le régime politique, les lois sur l'héritage, les mœurs, les valeurs nationales, la religion. Tocqueville couvre tous ces sujets et d'autres dans son étude en deux livres des États-Unis.
De la Démocratie en Amérique, tome I
De la Démocratie en Amérique, tome II
L'œil de Lovecraft pour les antiquités, les particularismes et les subtils changements dans le temps des villes de la Nouvelle Angleterre et plus largement de tous les États qu'il a pu visiter.
I Am Providence: The Life and Times of H.P. Lovecraft
I Am Providence: The Life and Times of H. P. Lovecraft, Volume 2
L'autobiographie partielle de Akira Kurosawa, qui observe les changements qui modèlent la société japonaise avant et après la Seconde guerre mondiale. L'œuvre de Kurosawa comme celle de Yukio Mishima rend compte des bruits et calomnies, de la paranoïa qui cible les Coréens alors.
Something Like an Autobiography
La quête d'Ougarit, qui cherche des anomalies et des noyaux d'identité urbaines qui transcendent le temps et l'espace :
Ougarit
Les romans et nouvelles de Philip K. Dick, qui tous à leur façon questionnent la realité et sa nature, la relation des êtres vivants à elle :
The Man in the High Castle
Lies, Inc.
VALIS
Fictions qui explorent les sensations et visent à leur épuisement :
À rebours
La carte et le territoire
La décadence et le monde flottant au Japon.
An Artist of the Floating World
La Déchéance d'un homme
Femmes impénétrables :
Les Diaboliques
Scenarii érotiques qui mettent en jeu une obsession ou un symbole passé :
Le Livre du rire et de l'oubli
L'identité
La découpe du temps en tranches infimes par le narrateur observateur :
Lolita
Un personnage principal qui devient un juge désabusé, imperméable à tout affect hormis le cynisme, l'égotisme ou le mysticisme :
La mort d'Ivan Ilitch
BANDE-SON :
Phlegethon - Phonotek
LITERARY TWINS:
Keen observers of transformations in their societies:
Be it political regime, the inheritance laws, mores and national values, religion, Tocqueville covers all of these in his twofold study of the United States.
Democracy in America
H.P. Lovecraft's eye for antiquated cities and the subtle changes marking them over time
I Am Providence: The Life and Times of H.P. Lovecraft
I Am Providence: The Life and Times of H. P. Lovecraft, Volume 2
Akira Kurosawa's autobiographical thing, witnessing the changes informing Japanese society before and after WW2. Both Kurosawa's and Yukio Mishima's works give an account of the slander and paranoia aimed at Koreans in the time leading to and following WW2.
Something Like an Autobiography
Ougarit's quest of urban anomalies and an impossible nexus of urban identity throughout time and space.
Ougarit:
Philip K. Dick's novels and short stories, all questioning reality and the nature of our relation to it as living beings:
The Man in the High Castle
Lies, Inc.
VALIS
Stories dealing with the thorough analysis of sensations & their depletion:
Against Nature
Whatever
The Map and the Territory
Japanese 'Floating World' and decadence:
An Artist of the Floating World
No Longer Human
Elusive women:
Les Diaboliques
Erotical scenarii involving perceptions of the past (e.g. the game with the thai ring between Honda and Ying Chan):
The Book of Laughter and Forgetting
Identity
Infinitesimal decomposition of the flow of time:
Lolita
On a main character becoming a jaded, retired judge, impervious to anything but cynicism or mysticism.
The Death of Ivan Ilych
----
'L'homme trouve toujours des présages à son gré.'
Le juge Honda devenu conseiller en droit international est envoyé par les produits Itsui pour régler un litige en Thaïlande. Il y rencontre la jeune princesse thaï Ying Chan, qui a la certitude d'être la réincarnation d'un Japonais. Il se convainc à moitié qu'il s'agit de la réincarnation d'Isao, son jeune ami de Chevaux échappés : La mer de la fertilité II. Le procès gagné, il décide de poursuivre sa route vers l'Inde, où il visite Bénarès et Ajanta où il assiste à une forme de fin du monde. De retour au Japon, il dit s'être défait de l'altruisme et vivre dans un désintéressement, une désillusion vis-à-vis de l'inanité du monde comme avant d'entreprendre ce voyage.
'A parler franchement, ceux qui n'avaient pas les moyens de se payer un avocat n'avaient pas qualité pour enfreindre la loi.'
-----------------
Flammes et rayons
Le temple de l'aube s'ouvre sur les visions de Honda à Bangkok, toutes de peaux luisantes et lumineuses, rayonnantes d'éclats solaires et de flammes, qui me laissent une forte impression d'au-delà...
Plus tard, l'image des toits des temples de Bangkok, le miracle affreux de Bénarès, le bombardement de Tokyo et la villa de Honda en feu se confondent en une seule et même image qui parachève l'esprit de ce livre...
De ces effets d'échos et de reflets, ce livre est plein :
Image du crépuscule et du Paon roi de sagesse. Image des dames mondaines, des dames de compagnie thaï, et des grues, qui se superposent. Intrication incroyable de la vie avec les motifs des pensées et des songes de Honda.
Voyeurisme, jeux de miroirs
Dans Le Temple de l'aube, chacun est laissé en proie à ses perceptions, dans la solitude de son interprétation particulière des choses.
Honda est ici à la fois trompeur et proie de ses imaginations, de même que son épouse stérile Rié avec les spectres de la jalousie qu'elle nourrit autant qu'elle les redoute.
Ce livre, je crois qu'on pourrait le décrire assez exactement comme un immense montage complexe d'illusions superposées et confondues les unes aux autres, à l'image des figures que Honda découvre sur les temples de Bangkok.
Wat Pho, Bangkok
Finalement, ce qui apparaît dans ce livre crucial, c'est la duplicité, mieux, la complexité de toutes choses.
Honda se révèle voyeur, alors que rien ne nous y prépare vraiment dans les tomes précédents. (hormis peut-être sa fascination pour la tour creuse du palais de justice qui surplombe la ville et de laquelle il peut tout observer en contrebas, dans Chevaux échappés). Il est même reconnu par un autre voyeur dans les fourrés, qui le traite en complice lorsqu'il le reconnaît dans la rue.
J'en viens à me demander : quel rôle a Honda a réellement eu sur les vies de Kiyoaki et de Isao ?
C'est une question que je me suis posé à plusieurs reprises personnellement. Quelle est mon incidence sur les évènements dans le monde, que j'en sois conscient ou non ?
Dans cette optique de voyeur, Honda cherche à profiter de l'observation de Ying Chan sans prétendre s'insérer dans la vie d'un autre être.
Une autre question se pose tout de suite :
Pourquoi Honda ne ressent-il pas d'émotions réelles, directement, par lui-même ? Pourquoi a-t-il besoin de "s'emparer d'une vie nouvelle" ?
On a alors des aperçus déplaisants, crus et stupéfiants de Honda.
Il monte des stratagèmes inouïs pour son plaisir (la piscine), formule une combinaison avec Keiko et son neveu Katsumi pour déflorer Ying Chan. Rien moins qu'une sorte de viol organisé, observé par Honda.
Aperçus souterrains de la cruauté masochiste de Rié.
C'est alors qu'on remarque que Honda... vit par les livres... et derrière eux.
La prétention, le faux-semblant, l'imposture
En Thaïlande, Honda a pour guide l'insinuante et médiocre Hishikawa. Hishikawa est un artiste raté, fat et faux.
Honda est ensuite pénétré par la laideur et la fausseté des "Messieurs" japonais en villégiature en Thaïlande.
... par celle des prétentions artistiques de Makiko et sa disciple Mme Tsukibahara, dont l'exhibition permanente de sa douleur de mère éplorée savamment entretenue comme un fond de commerce le dégoûte.
... par celle d'Iinuma et son son étalage de bravoure lorsqu'il raconte sa tentative de suicide ratée à Honda et s'en glorifie...
Par Makiko, elle-même voyeuse des pulsions des autres, qu'elle ne ressent pas elle-même.
... par celle du libertin de pacotille Imanishi, écrivain-critique du monde flottant, qui fantasme sur un royaume de licence sexuelle, parodie du roman Le temple de l'aube, parodie de la conscience ayana et de l'éternel retour, parodie de Mishima, portant chemises hawaiiennes !
Toutes formes de fausseté ou de cabotinage dont la nullité est sûrement mise en relief par la vérité des incarnations précédentes de son ami.
Finalement, Honda réalise qu'il a été le prétexte, l'alibi pour Keiko dans sa relation lesbienne avec Ying Chan.
Mise en abîme de la création littéraire, phénomène de la conscience ayana aussi, semence parfumée aussi.
Mise en abîme du voyeurisme du lecteur (hypocrite lecteur, mon semblable...).
Vers l'authenticité
Honda est l'homme de la complexité. Il est en mue, en perpétuel dépouillement, les incarnations successives de Kiyoaki/Isao/Ying Chan, ce sont aussi les siennes.
Honda accablé, effondré d'insignifiance, pénétré de l'influence nulle qu'il a eue sur son époque. La peine qu'il en conçoit. Réalise la vanité des désirs. Du moins leur incidence nulle sur ce qui pourrait conduire à leur réalisation.
Son "incarnation" précédent connaît une forme de mort à Bénarès, où il assiste à la célébration de la fin du monde et à sa renaissance simultanée, fin de la raison, dissolution dans l'effroyable sainteté de la mort.
Honda aspire alors à des désirs inassouvissables. C'est la signature de sa quête de pureté et d'une volupté d'anéantissement. Son attrait pour Ying Chan prend la forme d'amour mystique, enrichi de toute la symbolique ésotérique qu'il étudie au même moment. Qui n'a jamais connu ça dans l'emprise du sentiment amoureux ?
Ici, les "hallucinations" visuelles et auditives, présentes déjà dans Neige de printemps et Chevaux échappés se font significatives. Tout ce kaléidoscope d'échos visuels, auditifs, symboliques (échos, parodies, simulacres, dérision) finit bel et bien par détruire partiellement l'illusion de la trame du temps chronologique.
La farce de l'histoire : singeries et imitation, effacement et absence
La trame historique est incroyablement discrète.
Le Siam est devenu Thaïlande, forte monarchie, fort nationalisme, forte occidentalisation (famille princière à Lausanne, mouvement Yuwachon, inspiré des Jeunesses hitlériennes).
26/02/1936 : Incident avec la Chine, fin de l'agitation interne au Japon.
De retour à Bangkok, dégradation des relations entre Thaïs et Japonais.
07/12/1941: W USA - Japon
Mai 1945 : Tokyo bombardée à répétition
// Honda étudie le samsara et la transmigration. Vision de cendres flottantes se mêle à l'affreux miracle de Bénarès.
Occupation US : Keiko Hisamatsu, nouvelle voisine de Honda, émancipée, divorcée, amante d'officier US.
1947 : disparition des tribunaux spéciaux et du tribunal des conflits administratifs.
Honda gagne son procès interminable, s'achète une ville en vue du mont Fuji.
Honda prend ce qui lui arrive, l'impermanence, comme elle vient, avec désinvolture et fatalisme. Puis, convaincu de la stérilité de l'existence, de l'inanité de toutes choses, il quête la déraison.
Visitant les ruines de la demeure Matsugae, il y rencontre Tadeshina.
Honda retrouve Makiko (amante de Isao Iinuma).
1er mai 1952
Émeutes et présages de révolution.
1967 : Honda rencontre la jumelle de Ying Chan, apprend la mort de la dernière, mordue par un serpent, sans qu'on vienne la sauver à temps. Sans qu'elle aie pu faire l'usage du soutra de Honda.
Étude savante du Bouddhisme
Étudie les liens entre cultes et pensée grecque, cultes et pensée orientale (dionysisme, enthousiasme, extase, samsara, réincarnation), intention mystique, transmise dans le sacrement de l'Eucharistie, pont de l'unité avec l'univers.
=> Honda attaque la question de l'essence, qui est elle aussi sujette au Samsara, ce qui pose la question de son siège.
+ Belle habileté du texte de Mishima qui excite l'appétit pour les matières ésotériques que Honda étudie.
Sectes Theraveda (Birmanie, Thai, Cambodge)
Milindapañha du canon thaï : la pensée est cause du samsara, mais n'est pas le corps migratoire.
Boudhisme nayana : La réalité existe constamment en passé, présent et avenir.
vs
Bouddhisme mahayana, dont doctrine yuishiki : La réalité n'existe qu'au présent, il n'est ni passé, ni avenir.
Cette doctrine propose une résolution de la contradiction entre samsara et anatman (non-personnalité). La voici :
Nous sommes dotés de 5 sens, d'esprit et du manas (= capacité à percevoir le moi et l'identité individuelle).
Mais aussi d'alayavijnana = "conscience ultime".
L'alaya entrepose toutes les "semences" du monde des phénomènes, flux constant.
= 8 consciences au total.
Si la conscience alaya est pure, le pouvoir qui engendre le samsara et la réincarnation est une force extérieure à elle, karmique.
Si la conscience alaya ne l'est pas (= doctrine yuishiki),
les semences karmiques sont causes indirectes et c'est la conscience alaya, corps migratoire, qui est la force qui engendre samsara & réincarnation.
En d'autres termes, les semences de la conscience alaya engendrent cette conscience et forment la loi naturelle. La conscience alaya est donc le fruit de la récompense des êtres sensibles et la cause fondamentale de toute existence.
La conscience alaya façonne les illusions du monde où nous vivons. Tout se réduit à l'idéation :
Par l'attribution de noms
Par l'attachement au moi
Par la semence des 3 mondes (trailokya) : illusion composée des désirs sensuels, formes et amorphisme du pur esprit, cause des 3 mondes de souffrance et d'illusion, de qui dépendent les destinées.
En conséquence :
= Cause et effet simultané et pourtant alterné de la conscience alaya, qui garantit la réalité et l'existence.
= Le monde et la conscience alaya sont simultanés, alternants et interdépendants.
= Conception agnostique du monde et solipsisme.
*****
JUMEAUX LITTÉRAIRES :
Observateurs alertes des transformations de leur société :
Le régime politique, les lois sur l'héritage, les mœurs, les valeurs nationales, la religion. Tocqueville couvre tous ces sujets et d'autres dans son étude en deux livres des États-Unis.
De la Démocratie en Amérique, tome I
De la Démocratie en Amérique, tome II
L'œil de Lovecraft pour les antiquités, les particularismes et les subtils changements dans le temps des villes de la Nouvelle Angleterre et plus largement de tous les États qu'il a pu visiter.
I Am Providence: The Life and Times of H.P. Lovecraft
I Am Providence: The Life and Times of H. P. Lovecraft, Volume 2
L'autobiographie partielle de Akira Kurosawa, qui observe les changements qui modèlent la société japonaise avant et après la Seconde guerre mondiale. L'œuvre de Kurosawa comme celle de Yukio Mishima rend compte des bruits et calomnies, de la paranoïa qui cible les Coréens alors.
Something Like an Autobiography
La quête d'Ougarit, qui cherche des anomalies et des noyaux d'identité urbaines qui transcendent le temps et l'espace :
Ougarit
Les romans et nouvelles de Philip K. Dick, qui tous à leur façon questionnent la realité et sa nature, la relation des êtres vivants à elle :
The Man in the High Castle
Lies, Inc.
VALIS
Fictions qui explorent les sensations et visent à leur épuisement :
À rebours
La carte et le territoire
La décadence et le monde flottant au Japon.
An Artist of the Floating World
La Déchéance d'un homme
Femmes impénétrables :
Les Diaboliques
Scenarii érotiques qui mettent en jeu une obsession ou un symbole passé :
Le Livre du rire et de l'oubli
L'identité
La découpe du temps en tranches infimes par le narrateur observateur :
Lolita
Un personnage principal qui devient un juge désabusé, imperméable à tout affect hormis le cynisme, l'égotisme ou le mysticisme :
La mort d'Ivan Ilitch
BANDE-SON :
Phlegethon - Phonotek
April 25, 2023
Al treilea volum din tetralogia "Marea fertilitatii" ce continua intamplarile din viata avocatului Shigekuni Honda. In stilul meu caracteristic, am inceput sa citesc seria cu cel de-al patrulea volum, apoi cu cel de-al doilea, ajungand acum la cel de-al treilea si inca nu am reusit sa fac rost de primul. :)
Pot insa zice cu mana pe inima ca il iubesc pe Mishima si toata aceasta minunata serie.
In "Akatsuki no tera" Honda are 47 de ani si este un respectat avocat ce are ocazia sa calatoreasca in Bangkok, Tailanda unde trebuie sa rezolve un important litigiu. Acolo afla ca o printesa de doar 7 anisori afirma, foarte sigura pe ea, ca ea de fapt nu este ce pare, ci reincarnarea unui baiat japonez. Honda se gandeste instant la prietenul sau mort Kiyoaki, care, in partea a doua a tetralogiei, a mai avut o reincarnare, in persoana lui Isao. Reusind sa se intalneasca cu Ying Chan, mica printesa, aceasta ii povesteste despre sfarsitul tragic al lui Isao, convingandu-l pe Honda ca intr-adevar se afla in prezenta spiritului prietenului sau.
Timpul trece si la 18 ani printesa merge sa studieze in Japonia unde il reintalneste pe Honda. Fata nu pare sa-si mai aminteasca de episodul intalnirii din copilarie si Honda realizeaza ca este din ce in ce mai indragostit si atras fizic de catre ea. Avocatul isi va petrece timpul urzind tot felul de tertipuri si planuri pentru a reusi sa ramana in intimitate cu ea si sa o vada dezbracata. Desigur, ca sa verifice daca are cele trei alunite, ca ale lui Kiyoaki.
Avem parte de descrieri superbe ale Bangkokului si mai tarziu, prezentarea amanuntita a Indiei. Se face referire la zeitele Kali si Sati precum si la zeul Shiva. De asemenea ne este relevat cum explica budismul reincarnarea, precum si conceptele de Samsara si Karma.
De-a lungul romanului se aduc in discutie bombardamentul si razboiul cu America, insa destul de vag, autorul neinsistand asupra acestui subiect si nu aflam prea multe despre cat de afectat este Honda de toate acestea. Curios este pentru mine cum poate o cultura inferioara sa subjuge una superioara cum era cea japoneza, la ea acasa.
Trebuie sa recunosc ca volumul de fata nu mi-a placut atat de mult ca partile II si IV, deoarece mi-a fost greu sa inteleg intentiile lui Honda vizavi de printesa. De asemenea avem iarasi parte de o scena de voyeurism (ca in "Amurgul pescarului"), cand Honda se uita printr-o gaura a unui perete la printesa facand dragoste cu alta femeie. Culmea, isi cheama si sotia sa priveasca iar aceasta, initial e scandalizata, dar apoi, ii intelege scopurile lui Honda.
In incheiere atasez cateva citate, pentru ca textul este la fel de elevat si frumos cum ne-a obisnuit Mishima de fiecare data:
"Daca infractiunile se nasc din necesitate sau din prostie, oare nu s-ar putea spune ca moravurile si datinile pe care se bazeaza legile sunt la fel de necugetate?"
"Singurul motiv pentru care tinerii vorbesc mereu despre viitor este acela ca nu-l au. Detinerea unui lucru prin eliberarea lui era un secret al posesiei, necunoscut de tineri."
"Istoria este sovaielnica precum o tanara fecioara inainte de accepta dragoste."
"Honda auzea mereu o voce inumana, parca strigatul seducator al unei femei. Mai tarziu si-a dat seama ca era glasul iadului."
"Tinerii cer mereu duritate, insa sunt atrasi de afectiune. Poate moartea sa reprezinte acea afectiune?"
"Stiu ca exista doar doua roluri pentru fiintele din aceasta lume: cei care tin minte si cei care sunt tinuti minte." (De retinut!)
"Nu era in stare sa formuleze pareri potrivite despre barbati. Nu putea nici sa-i citeasca dintr-o privire, nici sa-i imparta in categorii: porci ori lupi ori legume. Tocmai aceasta femeie, dintre toate ocupatiile posibile, alesese sa scrie poezii." (Ironie de cea mai buna calitate, a la Mishima)
Pot insa zice cu mana pe inima ca il iubesc pe Mishima si toata aceasta minunata serie.
In "Akatsuki no tera" Honda are 47 de ani si este un respectat avocat ce are ocazia sa calatoreasca in Bangkok, Tailanda unde trebuie sa rezolve un important litigiu. Acolo afla ca o printesa de doar 7 anisori afirma, foarte sigura pe ea, ca ea de fapt nu este ce pare, ci reincarnarea unui baiat japonez. Honda se gandeste instant la prietenul sau mort Kiyoaki, care, in partea a doua a tetralogiei, a mai avut o reincarnare, in persoana lui Isao. Reusind sa se intalneasca cu Ying Chan, mica printesa, aceasta ii povesteste despre sfarsitul tragic al lui Isao, convingandu-l pe Honda ca intr-adevar se afla in prezenta spiritului prietenului sau.
Timpul trece si la 18 ani printesa merge sa studieze in Japonia unde il reintalneste pe Honda. Fata nu pare sa-si mai aminteasca de episodul intalnirii din copilarie si Honda realizeaza ca este din ce in ce mai indragostit si atras fizic de catre ea. Avocatul isi va petrece timpul urzind tot felul de tertipuri si planuri pentru a reusi sa ramana in intimitate cu ea si sa o vada dezbracata. Desigur, ca sa verifice daca are cele trei alunite, ca ale lui Kiyoaki.
Avem parte de descrieri superbe ale Bangkokului si mai tarziu, prezentarea amanuntita a Indiei. Se face referire la zeitele Kali si Sati precum si la zeul Shiva. De asemenea ne este relevat cum explica budismul reincarnarea, precum si conceptele de Samsara si Karma.
De-a lungul romanului se aduc in discutie bombardamentul si razboiul cu America, insa destul de vag, autorul neinsistand asupra acestui subiect si nu aflam prea multe despre cat de afectat este Honda de toate acestea. Curios este pentru mine cum poate o cultura inferioara sa subjuge una superioara cum era cea japoneza, la ea acasa.
Trebuie sa recunosc ca volumul de fata nu mi-a placut atat de mult ca partile II si IV, deoarece mi-a fost greu sa inteleg intentiile lui Honda vizavi de printesa. De asemenea avem iarasi parte de o scena de voyeurism (ca in "Amurgul pescarului"), cand Honda se uita printr-o gaura a unui perete la printesa facand dragoste cu alta femeie. Culmea, isi cheama si sotia sa priveasca iar aceasta, initial e scandalizata, dar apoi, ii intelege scopurile lui Honda.
In incheiere atasez cateva citate, pentru ca textul este la fel de elevat si frumos cum ne-a obisnuit Mishima de fiecare data:
"Daca infractiunile se nasc din necesitate sau din prostie, oare nu s-ar putea spune ca moravurile si datinile pe care se bazeaza legile sunt la fel de necugetate?"
"Singurul motiv pentru care tinerii vorbesc mereu despre viitor este acela ca nu-l au. Detinerea unui lucru prin eliberarea lui era un secret al posesiei, necunoscut de tineri."
"Istoria este sovaielnica precum o tanara fecioara inainte de accepta dragoste."
"Honda auzea mereu o voce inumana, parca strigatul seducator al unei femei. Mai tarziu si-a dat seama ca era glasul iadului."
"Tinerii cer mereu duritate, insa sunt atrasi de afectiune. Poate moartea sa reprezinte acea afectiune?"
"Stiu ca exista doar doua roluri pentru fiintele din aceasta lume: cei care tin minte si cei care sunt tinuti minte." (De retinut!)
"Nu era in stare sa formuleze pareri potrivite despre barbati. Nu putea nici sa-i citeasca dintr-o privire, nici sa-i imparta in categorii: porci ori lupi ori legume. Tocmai aceasta femeie, dintre toate ocupatiile posibile, alesese sa scrie poezii." (Ironie de cea mai buna calitate, a la Mishima)
December 19, 2018
Bereket Denizi dörtlemesinin üçüncü cildi olan Şafak Tapınağı şimdiye kadar okuduğum Mişima’nın kaleminden çok farklı. Bir defa kitap ilk iki kitabın hikayesinden kopuk yazılmış. Honda, İimuna gibi kahramanlar tanıdık olsa da öykü yok gibi.
İki bölümlü kitabın ilk bölümü tamamiyle felsefik ve mistik düşüncelere ayrılmış. Bu bölümde Mişima Doğu mistisizmi Budizm, Hinduizm, yine Hint kökenli bir çeşit dinsel metin sayılan Manu Yasaları, Brahman’cılık ve bunların alt katmanları veya çeşitleri ile ilgili geniş bir inceleme ve sorgulama yapıyor. Yoğun metafizik düşünceler gerçeklerden uzakta. İç arayışını ve hesaplaşmasını din ve felsefe üzerinden gerçekleştiriyor. Milliyetçiliği ve ülkücü-muhafazakarlığı kişilik olarak tam oturmuşken inanç sistemini oturtmaya çalışması açık olarak kendini gösteriyor. Hızını alamıyor bu düşüncelerini Antik Yunan mitolojisine, Olimpos tanrılarına ve 16. yüzyılda yaşamış T. Campanella’ya kadar uzatıyor. Çokca yeni bilgiler edinmeme rağmen bu bölümü sıkılarak okudum.
İkinci bölüm ergen hayallerle dolu bir aşk peşinde koşuşu anlatıyor. Erotizmi ilk kez kullanıyor sanırım. Bu bölümü de keyifle okumadığımı belirteyim.
Beni en çok rahatsız eden husus 2. Dünya Savaşı sırasında geçen bir öyküde ne atom bombasından, ne milyonlarca ölümden ne de hep öğündüğü Japon kültür ve geleneklerinin bu dönemde ne olduğundan, İmparatorluktan hiç bahsetmemesi oldu. Aslında bu kitabın birinci bölümünü belki de bağımsız olarak yazmaya cesaret edemediğinden Bereket Denizi serisinin içine yerleştirdi diye düşünüyorum. Sıra son ciltte.
İki bölümlü kitabın ilk bölümü tamamiyle felsefik ve mistik düşüncelere ayrılmış. Bu bölümde Mişima Doğu mistisizmi Budizm, Hinduizm, yine Hint kökenli bir çeşit dinsel metin sayılan Manu Yasaları, Brahman’cılık ve bunların alt katmanları veya çeşitleri ile ilgili geniş bir inceleme ve sorgulama yapıyor. Yoğun metafizik düşünceler gerçeklerden uzakta. İç arayışını ve hesaplaşmasını din ve felsefe üzerinden gerçekleştiriyor. Milliyetçiliği ve ülkücü-muhafazakarlığı kişilik olarak tam oturmuşken inanç sistemini oturtmaya çalışması açık olarak kendini gösteriyor. Hızını alamıyor bu düşüncelerini Antik Yunan mitolojisine, Olimpos tanrılarına ve 16. yüzyılda yaşamış T. Campanella’ya kadar uzatıyor. Çokca yeni bilgiler edinmeme rağmen bu bölümü sıkılarak okudum.
İkinci bölüm ergen hayallerle dolu bir aşk peşinde koşuşu anlatıyor. Erotizmi ilk kez kullanıyor sanırım. Bu bölümü de keyifle okumadığımı belirteyim.
Beni en çok rahatsız eden husus 2. Dünya Savaşı sırasında geçen bir öyküde ne atom bombasından, ne milyonlarca ölümden ne de hep öğündüğü Japon kültür ve geleneklerinin bu dönemde ne olduğundan, İmparatorluktan hiç bahsetmemesi oldu. Aslında bu kitabın birinci bölümünü belki de bağımsız olarak yazmaya cesaret edemediğinden Bereket Denizi serisinin içine yerleştirdi diye düşünüyorum. Sıra son ciltte.
November 7, 2020
Benim seride okumakta en çok zorlandığım kitaptı. Özellikle de kitabın ilk bölümü Budizm, Hinduizm ve Şintoizm üzerine detaylı bilgiler ve değerlendirmeler içeriyor. Budizmin Yunan mitolojisinden nasıl beslendiğini, hatta satır aralarında mitolojinin Hristiyanlığı dahi nasıl etkilediğine dair atıflar var. Hindistan sürecine giriş yaparken; “Hinduizmin dostça kucaklayarak Budizmi boğduğu” şeklindeki ifadesi bir noktada da Budizmin Japonya’da erken dönemlerde kabul edilip daha sonra Şintoizm tarafından dışlanıp yabancılaştırılmasına dair görüşlerini dolaylı bir ifadesi gibi. Zaten bu kitabın temelini Mişima’nın din, felsefe ve doğu inanışlarıyla reenkarnasyona dair düşünce akışı oluşturuyor. Ancak doğu felsefelerine ve dinlerin kökeni konularına yabancı biriyseniz biraz sıkıcı ve tatsız bir okuma olacaktır.
Kitabın ikinci bölümü ise birinci bölümden oldukça kopuk ve farklı bir hal alıyor. Serinin ilk iki kitabına kıyasla tarihi konulardan da oldukça uzak. İkinci Dünya Savaşı’na hazırlık, savaş süreci ve yenilginin sonrasını içermesine karşın bu süreçler çok silik. Zira Bahar Karları’nda Japonya’nın Doğu-Batı çarpışması arasında kalması ve geçirdiği dönüşüm, ikinci kitap olan Kaçak Atlar’da ise, iki savaş arası siyasi ve askeri ortam ile uç oluşumlara dair yüksek perdeden ve açık bir anlatım var. Ancak Şafak Tapınağı’nda Japonya’nın Amerika ile olan savaşı, atom bombaları ve yenilgiden doğan yeni toplum kinizmle anlatıyor. Bir açıdan Japonya ve imparatorluğun onurunu kendi hayatından önde tutan bir isim için kaybedilen bir savaşı anlatabilmenin zorluğu söz konusu. Bu gerçeği göz önüne alınca, Hinduizm, Manu Yasaları ve reenkarnasyon döngülerinin kitabın öne çıkanı haline gelmesi şaşırtıcı değil.
İnsani duyguların inceliği ve zayıflığı karşısında karakterlerin karanlık derinliği; iç huzur arayışındayken bastırılmış “ben”liği serbest bırakma gereksinimi ve yaşlanmaya karşı bir isyan olarak ölüme duyulan özlem gibi tezatlar ve tasvirlerle yoğunlaştırılmış şiirsel bir anlatı Mişima’nın klasiği olarak bu kitapta da göz önünde. O yüzden serinin diğer kitaplarına nazaran zayıf kalsa da doyurucu bir okuma.
“ Aşık olmak, çekiciliği, cahilliği, düzensiLiği ve kavrama yoksunluğu sayesinde, başkalarıyla ilgili düşlemler, oluşturabilen kişilere tanınmış bir ayrıcalıktı.”
“İmgeleminin kanserli hücresi tarafından kemirilmektense, ani, mutlak bir felaketle karşılaşmak çok daha iyiydi.”
“Alın yazısına inanmak, yaşamın dolandırılmak olduğu inancına götürüyordu insanı. İnsanın varoluşuna gelince... bunun, doyum yoksunluğundan başka hiçbir anlamı yoktu.”
“İğrenç olan her şeyin - sefahat, ölüm, çılgınlık, salgın hastalıklar, yıkımlar - yüreği baştan çıkarıp ruhu dışarıya çekmesi nasıl mümkün olabilirdi? Ruhlar neden sakin, karanlık ve sessiz yuvalarından ayrılarak “var olmak” zorundaydılar? İnsan yüreği dingin sürekliliği neden geri çeviriyordu?”
“Zaman, ister başarıda olsun isterse başarısızlıkta, insanı er geç hayal kırıklığına götürüyordu; hayal kırıklığını önceden sezmekse bir işe yaramıyor, yalnızca insanı karamsarlığa sürüklüyordu. Önemli olan, ölerek de olsa bu sezgiye göre davranmaktı.”
Kitabın ikinci bölümü ise birinci bölümden oldukça kopuk ve farklı bir hal alıyor. Serinin ilk iki kitabına kıyasla tarihi konulardan da oldukça uzak. İkinci Dünya Savaşı’na hazırlık, savaş süreci ve yenilginin sonrasını içermesine karşın bu süreçler çok silik. Zira Bahar Karları’nda Japonya’nın Doğu-Batı çarpışması arasında kalması ve geçirdiği dönüşüm, ikinci kitap olan Kaçak Atlar’da ise, iki savaş arası siyasi ve askeri ortam ile uç oluşumlara dair yüksek perdeden ve açık bir anlatım var. Ancak Şafak Tapınağı’nda Japonya’nın Amerika ile olan savaşı, atom bombaları ve yenilgiden doğan yeni toplum kinizmle anlatıyor. Bir açıdan Japonya ve imparatorluğun onurunu kendi hayatından önde tutan bir isim için kaybedilen bir savaşı anlatabilmenin zorluğu söz konusu. Bu gerçeği göz önüne alınca, Hinduizm, Manu Yasaları ve reenkarnasyon döngülerinin kitabın öne çıkanı haline gelmesi şaşırtıcı değil.
İnsani duyguların inceliği ve zayıflığı karşısında karakterlerin karanlık derinliği; iç huzur arayışındayken bastırılmış “ben”liği serbest bırakma gereksinimi ve yaşlanmaya karşı bir isyan olarak ölüme duyulan özlem gibi tezatlar ve tasvirlerle yoğunlaştırılmış şiirsel bir anlatı Mişima’nın klasiği olarak bu kitapta da göz önünde. O yüzden serinin diğer kitaplarına nazaran zayıf kalsa da doyurucu bir okuma.
“ Aşık olmak, çekiciliği, cahilliği, düzensiLiği ve kavrama yoksunluğu sayesinde, başkalarıyla ilgili düşlemler, oluşturabilen kişilere tanınmış bir ayrıcalıktı.”
“İmgeleminin kanserli hücresi tarafından kemirilmektense, ani, mutlak bir felaketle karşılaşmak çok daha iyiydi.”
“Alın yazısına inanmak, yaşamın dolandırılmak olduğu inancına götürüyordu insanı. İnsanın varoluşuna gelince... bunun, doyum yoksunluğundan başka hiçbir anlamı yoktu.”
“İğrenç olan her şeyin - sefahat, ölüm, çılgınlık, salgın hastalıklar, yıkımlar - yüreği baştan çıkarıp ruhu dışarıya çekmesi nasıl mümkün olabilirdi? Ruhlar neden sakin, karanlık ve sessiz yuvalarından ayrılarak “var olmak” zorundaydılar? İnsan yüreği dingin sürekliliği neden geri çeviriyordu?”
“Zaman, ister başarıda olsun isterse başarısızlıkta, insanı er geç hayal kırıklığına götürüyordu; hayal kırıklığını önceden sezmekse bir işe yaramıyor, yalnızca insanı karamsarlığa sürüklüyordu. Önemli olan, ölerek de olsa bu sezgiye göre davranmaktı.”
January 14, 2018
الجزء الثالث من الرباعية اليابانية الأشهر (بحر الخصب)
يناقش ميشيما في هذا الجزء تيمتيّ الدين والغريزة الجسدية، ويبدو أنه استوعب البون الشاسع بينهما فأفرد لكل منهما قسماً، وهذا هو الكتاب الوحيد بين الكتب الأربعة الذي قُسِّم بهذا الشكل.
في القسم الأول يسافر المحامي هوندا إلى الهند ويشهد الاحتفالات البوذية هناك. ورغم أن بعض الوصف بديع إلا أنه أطنب في الحديث عن البوذية بشتى مذاهبها. لست بغير مهتم بالأديان ولكنني أقرأ رواية وليس خطاباً طويلاً. كان الكاتب يثرثر في مونولج طويل عن التجسد وعن مراحل الإيمان. غاب تركيزي كثيراً لدرجة أنني كنت أقلب بعض الصفحات وأنا أفكر في سعر الطماطم الذي ارتفع. كل مايُكتبه الأجانب عن الهند يسلب اللب عادة، لكنني لم أجد ميشيما بارعاً في ذلك، لا يمكن مقارنة وصفه للطقوس الهندوسية بوصف أي.أم فورستر لطقوس ميلاد كريشنا في رائعته "رحلة إلى الهند"، على سبيل المثال. كان يابانياً على أي حال، فلم ينفك عن تذكير القارئ بأن الشوارع كانت قذرة. أنصحك ألا تدعو يابانياً إلى بلدك، فلا بد أنه سيعود ليشبعها ذماً، فليس ميشيما هو الكاتب الياباني الوحيد الذي فعل ذلك.
أما القسم الثاني فكان أخف وطأة، حيث زخر بالشخصيات اللطيفة: كيكو قوية الشكيمة واسعة الحيلة، وميكيكو الشاعرة الماكرة التي استمرت معنا من الجزء السابق، بالإضافة إلى إيمانيشي، الكهل المأفون المولع بالجنس. ستجد في هذا القسم الهراء الياباني المعتاد المتعلق بالميول الجنسية: التلصص، المثلية وغير ذلك. ولكن من باب الإنصاف، تخللت هذا الجزء أحداث لا بأس بها ونقاشات طريفة.
تعاصر هذه الرواية أحدث الحرب العالمية الثانية، ثارت حماستي فقد ظننت أنها ستقدم روايات للحرب من وجهة نظر يابانية وعلى لسان شخصيات عادية غير سياسية. غير أن ميشيما فضل المرور عليها مرور الكرام. لا ألومه فهو يعلم مايريده من هذه الرباعية، ولم يكن الهدف منها التأريخ على قدر علمي، لذا فقد أصاب فيما ذهب إليه وإن أحبطني.
مرة أخرى يظهر التجسد كتيمة رئيسية في الرواية، حيث يظهر كيواكي بهيئة بشرية أخرى. كما ذكرت في الجزء السابق. لم يقنعني الطرح كثيراً ولم أفهم الفكرة بصراحة. ليس هناك رابط حقيقي بين الشخصيات التي تجسدت، لا بناء على لُب الشخصية، ولا على مبدأ الثواب والعقاب على حياة سابقة. آسف ميشيما، لم تؤثر في أفكارك بالرغم من أنني أحب هذه الخيالات التي تعطينا أملاً بأننا-بشكل ما- سنبقى على قيد الحياة بعد أن يزورنا هادم اللذات.
يناقش ميشيما في هذا الجزء تيمتيّ الدين والغريزة الجسدية، ويبدو أنه استوعب البون الشاسع بينهما فأفرد لكل منهما قسماً، وهذا هو الكتاب الوحيد بين الكتب الأربعة الذي قُسِّم بهذا الشكل.
في القسم الأول يسافر المحامي هوندا إلى الهند ويشهد الاحتفالات البوذية هناك. ورغم أن بعض الوصف بديع إلا أنه أطنب في الحديث عن البوذية بشتى مذاهبها. لست بغير مهتم بالأديان ولكنني أقرأ رواية وليس خطاباً طويلاً. كان الكاتب يثرثر في مونولج طويل عن التجسد وعن مراحل الإيمان. غاب تركيزي كثيراً لدرجة أنني كنت أقلب بعض الصفحات وأنا أفكر في سعر الطماطم الذي ارتفع. كل مايُكتبه الأجانب عن الهند يسلب اللب عادة، لكنني لم أجد ميشيما بارعاً في ذلك، لا يمكن مقارنة وصفه للطقوس الهندوسية بوصف أي.أم فورستر لطقوس ميلاد كريشنا في رائعته "رحلة إلى الهند"، على سبيل المثال. كان يابانياً على أي حال، فلم ينفك عن تذكير القارئ بأن الشوارع كانت قذرة. أنصحك ألا تدعو يابانياً إلى بلدك، فلا بد أنه سيعود ليشبعها ذماً، فليس ميشيما هو الكاتب الياباني الوحيد الذي فعل ذلك.
أما القسم الثاني فكان أخف وطأة، حيث زخر بالشخصيات اللطيفة: كيكو قوية الشكيمة واسعة الحيلة، وميكيكو الشاعرة الماكرة التي استمرت معنا من الجزء السابق، بالإضافة إلى إيمانيشي، الكهل المأفون المولع بالجنس. ستجد في هذا القسم الهراء الياباني المعتاد المتعلق بالميول الجنسية: التلصص، المثلية وغير ذلك. ولكن من باب الإنصاف، تخللت هذا الجزء أحداث لا بأس بها ونقاشات طريفة.
تعاصر هذه الرواية أحدث الحرب العالمية الثانية، ثارت حماستي فقد ظننت أنها ستقدم روايات للحرب من وجهة نظر يابانية وعلى لسان شخصيات عادية غير سياسية. غير أن ميشيما فضل المرور عليها مرور الكرام. لا ألومه فهو يعلم مايريده من هذه الرباعية، ولم يكن الهدف منها التأريخ على قدر علمي، لذا فقد أصاب فيما ذهب إليه وإن أحبطني.
مرة أخرى يظهر التجسد كتيمة رئيسية في الرواية، حيث يظهر كيواكي بهيئة بشرية أخرى. كما ذكرت في الجزء السابق. لم يقنعني الطرح كثيراً ولم أفهم الفكرة بصراحة. ليس هناك رابط حقيقي بين الشخصيات التي تجسدت، لا بناء على لُب الشخصية، ولا على مبدأ الثواب والعقاب على حياة سابقة. آسف ميشيما، لم تؤثر في أفكارك بالرغم من أنني أحب هذه الخيالات التي تعطينا أملاً بأننا-بشكل ما- سنبقى على قيد الحياة بعد أن يزورنا هادم اللذات.
December 18, 2016
bereket denizi dörtlemesinin üçüncü romanı şafak tapınağı 1940'tan 1967'ye uzun bir zaman dilimini kapsıyor. japonya'da ikinci dünya savaşının toplumdaki geleneksel-batıcı kutuplaşmasının üstünü kendi karanlık örtüsüyle örttüğünü ve örtü çekildiğinde geriye kalan enkazı görüyoruz. ama mişima ilginç biçimde romanın merkezine almıyor bunu. arka planda, detaylarda, satır aralarında işleniyor büyük yıkım. romana baştan sona umutsuzluk ve umutsuzluktan kaynaklanan kayıtsızlık hakim.
tutkulu, inançlı, inançları uğruna ölümü göze alan kahramanların sahneden çekilip bu romanda başrolün ilk iki romanda yaşananları tavır almadan izleyip gözlemekle yetinen honda karakterine kalması da umutsuzluğun hikaye içindeki en büyük göstergesi. aklın ve akılcılığın katı savunucusu honda yaşlandıkça hayatındaki boşluğu görüyor, bir sorgulama sürecine giriyor ama arayışları, savruluşları onu daha büyük bir boşlukla yüzleştirmekten başka sonuç vermiyor.
şafak tapınağı'nın dörtlemenin en zayıf romanı olması bir tarafa, baskın umutsuzluk ve kayıtsızlığının yazarından bağımsız olmadığını söylemek mümkün.
tutkulu, inançlı, inançları uğruna ölümü göze alan kahramanların sahneden çekilip bu romanda başrolün ilk iki romanda yaşananları tavır almadan izleyip gözlemekle yetinen honda karakterine kalması da umutsuzluğun hikaye içindeki en büyük göstergesi. aklın ve akılcılığın katı savunucusu honda yaşlandıkça hayatındaki boşluğu görüyor, bir sorgulama sürecine giriyor ama arayışları, savruluşları onu daha büyük bir boşlukla yüzleştirmekten başka sonuç vermiyor.
şafak tapınağı'nın dörtlemenin en zayıf romanı olması bir tarafa, baskın umutsuzluk ve kayıtsızlığının yazarından bağımsız olmadığını söylemek mümkün.
November 26, 2020
Farklı kültürlerin farklı dini bilgilerini okumak ilgimi ve alâkamı çekti. Mişima'yı tebrik ediyorum bu konuda. İlk iki kitap bağlantısını Hindistan ziyaretinde bile koparmadı görüşündeyim. İlk iki kitaptan daha zor ve derin buldum.
April 8, 2012
I was slightly scared going into this one. Not only was I aware that the translator had changed, but I also heard that it was really boring, with Honda just being indolent, visiting shrines, and rambling existentially the entire time. While it's true that Honda, as a character, may not be the most exciting person in the world, and that I struggled through his touring of India (and the majority of part 1 in general) I can't stress enough how this book picked up the thematic power of the series and took it into overdrive.
There's so much reflection on Buddhism and the nature of spiritual transmigration that it could almost function as a textbook on the material. At times, it even read like one. But it's understandable. The main focus has undoubtedly shifted to the central theme of reincarnation, and Honda, who is all but convinced of it's potency and truth, has to confront this new bizarre apparition of his friend, Kiyoaki, manifested in the form of a Thai princess.
With every book, the concept of beauty has evolved, but through the same lens. At the end of the previous book, Runaway Horses, the paradigm of beauty seemed to have been set as 'death', but now, in a more theoretical sense, beauty has been restructured as something that can only be held in memory, and is in itself not real. At the beginning of The Temple of Dawn, in the very first chapter, when Honda is being talked to by a failed artist (who is functioning as his tour guide in Thailand), he is surprised by how "beautiful" the eponymous Temple of Dawn is in the evening sky. His tour guide, flapping his lips in an irritating fashion, touches upon (in my opinion) the very soul of this book by describing the horizon in nostalgic terms:
"The numerous bits of logic which people have so stubbornly cherished during the day are all drawn into the vast emotional explosion of the heavens and the spectacular release of passions, and people realize the futility of all systems. In other words, everything is expressed for at most ten or fifteen minutes and then it's all over."
Honda, who is our prime Mr. Reason, furthers his development as a human being, emotional and spontaneous throughout the course of this book. As both literary and character development, Mishima is recentering the work on Honda, the viewer, the voyeur, the one who is watching all of life transpire. He has always been what the work is about, but never has he been so integral to the arc of the plot itself. "What's beginning? Nothing. Everything is ending." Mishima, as we know from his life, was thoroughly against the concept of reincarnation and Buddhism. But it is a fascinating subject, and judging by the way he's writing this series, I can't help but think he agrees and disagrees with it all at the same time.
There's so much reflection on Buddhism and the nature of spiritual transmigration that it could almost function as a textbook on the material. At times, it even read like one. But it's understandable. The main focus has undoubtedly shifted to the central theme of reincarnation, and Honda, who is all but convinced of it's potency and truth, has to confront this new bizarre apparition of his friend, Kiyoaki, manifested in the form of a Thai princess.
With every book, the concept of beauty has evolved, but through the same lens. At the end of the previous book, Runaway Horses, the paradigm of beauty seemed to have been set as 'death', but now, in a more theoretical sense, beauty has been restructured as something that can only be held in memory, and is in itself not real. At the beginning of The Temple of Dawn, in the very first chapter, when Honda is being talked to by a failed artist (who is functioning as his tour guide in Thailand), he is surprised by how "beautiful" the eponymous Temple of Dawn is in the evening sky. His tour guide, flapping his lips in an irritating fashion, touches upon (in my opinion) the very soul of this book by describing the horizon in nostalgic terms:
"The numerous bits of logic which people have so stubbornly cherished during the day are all drawn into the vast emotional explosion of the heavens and the spectacular release of passions, and people realize the futility of all systems. In other words, everything is expressed for at most ten or fifteen minutes and then it's all over."
Honda, who is our prime Mr. Reason, furthers his development as a human being, emotional and spontaneous throughout the course of this book. As both literary and character development, Mishima is recentering the work on Honda, the viewer, the voyeur, the one who is watching all of life transpire. He has always been what the work is about, but never has he been so integral to the arc of the plot itself. "What's beginning? Nothing. Everything is ending." Mishima, as we know from his life, was thoroughly against the concept of reincarnation and Buddhism. But it is a fascinating subject, and judging by the way he's writing this series, I can't help but think he agrees and disagrees with it all at the same time.
June 18, 2018
La principessa Chiaro di Luna
Il terzo libro della tetralogia di Mishima, scritto negli ultimi anni di vita, non è sicuramente all'altezza del primo, il bellissimo "Neve di primavera".
Quest'opera e suddivisa in due parti: la I ambientata in Tailandia nel 1941 ; col protagonista Honda di ormai 47 anni: guardandosi allo specchio "aveva visto solo (...) il volto di un uomo che aveva vissuto troppo a lungo". E' un ricco avvocato in viaggio di lavoro, disilluso sulla possibilità di incidere nella Storia; si trova però al cospetto degli accadimenti della II Guerra Mondiale.
Qui visita il Tempio dell'Alba e chiede di essere presentato alla piccola principessa Chiaro di Luna, di appena 7 anni, incuriosito dalla convinzione di questa di essere la reincarnazione di un giapponese. Lui pensa subito si tratti dell'amico Kiyoaki deceduto in gioventù.
La II parte invece è ambientata in Giappone 11 anni dopo, nel '52, ormai largamente americanizzato anche nella mentalità comune.
Honda ha quindi 58 anni: "l'anzianità era , ad ogni modo, una dichiarazione di bancarotta (...). Le esperienze non erano altro che ossi rosicchiati e ripuliti in un piatto".
La bellissima Chiaro di Luna si trova in Giappone per ragioni di studio, nello splendore dei suoi 18 anni, ormai lontana dalle congetture infantili. Entra, inconsapevole, nelle ossessioni passionali senili del ricchissimo uomo. "I giapponesi di un'epoca lontana, raggiunta l'età di Honda, avrebbero pensato di costruirsi una tomba (...). Ed ecco che Honda invece costruiva una piscina nella sua villa" ove poter ammirare la giovane principessa.
Nel breve passo riportato, secondo me, sono racchiusi i due temi centrali del romanzo : la degenerazione culturale e non solo del Giappone e l'orrore per la vecchiaia (incubi dello Stesso Mishima che non volle raggiungere l'età del protagonista ; si tolse la vita a 45 anni). L'autore coltivava il mito della giovinezza e della prestanza fisica, qui personificate nella prorompente principessa. Egli stesso, dapprima gracile ragazzino, con duri esercizi divenne un aitante giovane uomo, ossessionato dal decadimento fisico.
L'occidentalizzazione, anzi l'americanizzazione, del Giappone divenne un'altra fonte d'inquietudine per Mishima. Qui ne dà una rappresentazione impietosa : ogni virtù pare bandita e la libertà di costumi degradata ad avvilente licenza.
Nell'immaginario, la principessa Chiaro di Luna pare quasi incontaminata; porta inconsapevolmente lo splendore della sua giovinezza ; nella fantasia di Honda addirittura volteggia sulle ali di un pavone dalle candide piume.
Il finale sorprende, ma l'autore ha disseminato qua e là elementi di presagio.
Il terzo libro della tetralogia di Mishima, scritto negli ultimi anni di vita, non è sicuramente all'altezza del primo, il bellissimo "Neve di primavera".
Quest'opera e suddivisa in due parti: la I ambientata in Tailandia nel 1941 ; col protagonista Honda di ormai 47 anni: guardandosi allo specchio "aveva visto solo (...) il volto di un uomo che aveva vissuto troppo a lungo". E' un ricco avvocato in viaggio di lavoro, disilluso sulla possibilità di incidere nella Storia; si trova però al cospetto degli accadimenti della II Guerra Mondiale.
Qui visita il Tempio dell'Alba e chiede di essere presentato alla piccola principessa Chiaro di Luna, di appena 7 anni, incuriosito dalla convinzione di questa di essere la reincarnazione di un giapponese. Lui pensa subito si tratti dell'amico Kiyoaki deceduto in gioventù.
La II parte invece è ambientata in Giappone 11 anni dopo, nel '52, ormai largamente americanizzato anche nella mentalità comune.
Honda ha quindi 58 anni: "l'anzianità era , ad ogni modo, una dichiarazione di bancarotta (...). Le esperienze non erano altro che ossi rosicchiati e ripuliti in un piatto".
La bellissima Chiaro di Luna si trova in Giappone per ragioni di studio, nello splendore dei suoi 18 anni, ormai lontana dalle congetture infantili. Entra, inconsapevole, nelle ossessioni passionali senili del ricchissimo uomo. "I giapponesi di un'epoca lontana, raggiunta l'età di Honda, avrebbero pensato di costruirsi una tomba (...). Ed ecco che Honda invece costruiva una piscina nella sua villa" ove poter ammirare la giovane principessa.
Nel breve passo riportato, secondo me, sono racchiusi i due temi centrali del romanzo : la degenerazione culturale e non solo del Giappone e l'orrore per la vecchiaia (incubi dello Stesso Mishima che non volle raggiungere l'età del protagonista ; si tolse la vita a 45 anni). L'autore coltivava il mito della giovinezza e della prestanza fisica, qui personificate nella prorompente principessa. Egli stesso, dapprima gracile ragazzino, con duri esercizi divenne un aitante giovane uomo, ossessionato dal decadimento fisico.
L'occidentalizzazione, anzi l'americanizzazione, del Giappone divenne un'altra fonte d'inquietudine per Mishima. Qui ne dà una rappresentazione impietosa : ogni virtù pare bandita e la libertà di costumi degradata ad avvilente licenza.
Nell'immaginario, la principessa Chiaro di Luna pare quasi incontaminata; porta inconsapevolmente lo splendore della sua giovinezza ; nella fantasia di Honda addirittura volteggia sulle ali di un pavone dalle candide piume.
Il finale sorprende, ma l'autore ha disseminato qua e là elementi di presagio.
July 13, 2022
سومین کتاب چهارگانه.
بر دوراهی شرق و غرب. تقابل روح و آگاهی، ادراک و خیال. منطق سرسخت قضایی یا سپردن خود به جریان چیزها. دید زدن مخفیانه یا تلاش برای برهمزدن نظم درونی کائنات.
در ابتدای کتاب، هوندای وکیل را داریم که حالا مدتهاست سرمست از پیروزیهای متعددش در دعاوی برای خود اسم و رسمی به هم زده و این بار هم برای یک سفر کاری به جنوب شرق آسیا آمده. سفر طولانی او در تایلند و هند اما، بیش از این که اثری در پیشبرد داستان داشته باشد، بیشتر شبیه به تحقیقی میدانی و مفصل است دربارهی ش��خههای مختلف هندویسم و بودیسم. او که در زندگیاش دو تجربهی سهمگین معنوی را پشت سر گذاشته اما همیشه خِرَدش را در جایگاه برتر نگاه داشته، به جستوجوی آن چیزی میرود که خودش هم نمیداند چیست. معبدهای مسحورکنندهی تایلند، بودای خوابیده، مراسم خشن قربانی در هند. اما آنچه بیش از همه او را دگرگون میکند تجربهی مردهسوزی در کنارهی رود گنگ است. تجربهای به یک اندازه مشمئزکننده و سحرانگیز. و اینجاست که میشیما یک مفهوم کلیدی را پررنگ میکند: دید زدن. دزدکی، از سر لذت و بدون میل یا توانایی دخالت. دیدن برای دیدن.
و میبینیم که این کاری بوده که هوندا نه فقط در این سفر و به عنوان ناظری خارجی، بلکه در تمام زندگیاش به بهترین شکل انجام میداده. دید زدن زندگیها و روابط اطرافیانش و لذت بردن از شور زندگی که خودش هیچ وقت نداشته، بدون اینک�� بتواند وقفهای در چرخهی تناسخ ایجاد کند. این احتمالن بزرگترین کشف هونداست. خاموش کردن چراغ خرد و غرق شدن در رودِ چیزها. و از این جا به بعد محدودیتی برای دیدزنی وجود ندارد. این لذت چشمچرانانه در معبد سپیدهدم حتا از حالت استعاری خودش خارج میشود و جنبهای کاملن شهوانی و ملموس به خود میگیرد.
برخلاف کتابهای قبل که روایتگر دورهای چند ماهه از زندگی هوندا و دایرهی آشنایان او بودند، این بار با بازهی بسیار وسیعتری روبهروییم. میشیما از ابتدای جنگ دوم جهانی شروع میکند، سالهای خرابی و بعد اشغال ژاپن را پشت سر گذاشته و بلاخره به دوران بازسازی و آمریکاییشدن وارد میشود. و البته این دورهی ۱۰ ساله در فهم روح ژاپن قرن بیستم بسیار کلیدیست. فرایند غربی شدن که سالهای قبلتر شروع شده و تعارضات بسیاری را آبستن بوده، به نقطهی عطفی جدی میرسد. آنچه در این دوران در خیابانهای ژاپن رخ میدهد، بمباران و نابودی، فقر، و بعد اعتراضات خیابانی، مابهازایی درونی در هوندا دارد. او ثروت هنگفتی به دست آورده اما به همان اندازه آشفتهتر است. و گویی از جایی به بعد او تصمیم میگیرد به جای حل معما، خودش و آشفتگی خودش را دید بزند و از این راه به برترین لذت برسد.
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ترجمه و ویراستاری نشر نگاه کتاب پر از ایراد بود. البته در کتابهای قبلی هم دیده میشد اما بسیار کمتر. سختی ترجمه بهخصوص در فصلهایی که نظریات مختلف آیینهای آسیایی رو توضیح میده قابل درکه اما ایرادات پایهای نگارشی خیر. و یه ستاره به همین خاطر کم میکنم.
بر دوراهی شرق و غرب. تقابل روح و آگاهی، ادراک و خیال. منطق سرسخت قضایی یا سپردن خود به جریان چیزها. دید زدن مخفیانه یا تلاش برای برهمزدن نظم درونی کائنات.
در ابتدای کتاب، هوندای وکیل را داریم که حالا مدتهاست سرمست از پیروزیهای متعددش در دعاوی برای خود اسم و رسمی به هم زده و این بار هم برای یک سفر کاری به جنوب شرق آسیا آمده. سفر طولانی او در تایلند و هند اما، بیش از این که اثری در پیشبرد داستان داشته باشد، بیشتر شبیه به تحقیقی میدانی و مفصل است دربارهی ش��خههای مختلف هندویسم و بودیسم. او که در زندگیاش دو تجربهی سهمگین معنوی را پشت سر گذاشته اما همیشه خِرَدش را در جایگاه برتر نگاه داشته، به جستوجوی آن چیزی میرود که خودش هم نمیداند چیست. معبدهای مسحورکنندهی تایلند، بودای خوابیده، مراسم خشن قربانی در هند. اما آنچه بیش از همه او را دگرگون میکند تجربهی مردهسوزی در کنارهی رود گنگ است. تجربهای به یک اندازه مشمئزکننده و سحرانگیز. و اینجاست که میشیما یک مفهوم کلیدی را پررنگ میکند: دید زدن. دزدکی، از سر لذت و بدون میل یا توانایی دخالت. دیدن برای دیدن.
و میبینیم که این کاری بوده که هوندا نه فقط در این سفر و به عنوان ناظری خارجی، بلکه در تمام زندگیاش به بهترین شکل انجام میداده. دید زدن زندگیها و روابط اطرافیانش و لذت بردن از شور زندگی که خودش هیچ وقت نداشته، بدون اینک�� بتواند وقفهای در چرخهی تناسخ ایجاد کند. این احتمالن بزرگترین کشف هونداست. خاموش کردن چراغ خرد و غرق شدن در رودِ چیزها. و از این جا به بعد محدودیتی برای دیدزنی وجود ندارد. این لذت چشمچرانانه در معبد سپیدهدم حتا از حالت استعاری خودش خارج میشود و جنبهای کاملن شهوانی و ملموس به خود میگیرد.
برخلاف کتابهای قبل که روایتگر دورهای چند ماهه از زندگی هوندا و دایرهی آشنایان او بودند، این بار با بازهی بسیار وسیعتری روبهروییم. میشیما از ابتدای جنگ دوم جهانی شروع میکند، سالهای خرابی و بعد اشغال ژاپن را پشت سر گذاشته و بلاخره به دوران بازسازی و آمریکاییشدن وارد میشود. و البته این دورهی ۱۰ ساله در فهم روح ژاپن قرن بیستم بسیار کلیدیست. فرایند غربی شدن که سالهای قبلتر شروع شده و تعارضات بسیاری را آبستن بوده، به نقطهی عطفی جدی میرسد. آنچه در این دوران در خیابانهای ژاپن رخ میدهد، بمباران و نابودی، فقر، و بعد اعتراضات خیابانی، مابهازایی درونی در هوندا دارد. او ثروت هنگفتی به دست آورده اما به همان اندازه آشفتهتر است. و گویی از جایی به بعد او تصمیم میگیرد به جای حل معما، خودش و آشفتگی خودش را دید بزند و از این راه به برترین لذت برسد.
--------
ترجمه و ویراستاری نشر نگاه کتاب پر از ایراد بود. البته در کتابهای قبلی هم دیده میشد اما بسیار کمتر. سختی ترجمه بهخصوص در فصلهایی که نظریات مختلف آیینهای آسیایی رو توضیح میده قابل درکه اما ایرادات پایهای نگارشی خیر. و یه ستاره به همین خاطر کم میکنم.
Read
April 13, 2023Much has been said about this book. The third in a tetralogy, it is known for its meandering considerations on reincarnation across Hindu and Buddhist traditions, a very narrow and deep dive into one particular topic that turned off many readers. Ironically, I found it by far the most interesting aspect. That along with the very Mishima-like depictions of architecture and nature, both of which are perhaps at their zenith.
None of that can possibly save it, though, because so much is taken up by a grown man salivating over a seven year old girl and later when she is seventeen. This includes a passage regarding Honda's- the protagonist of the series, whose character is essentially murdered in this volume- imagining holding said seven year old's (it is worth mentioning the age anew, it truly is) thighs as she urinates. If the pedophilia was not bad enough, it is compounded by a heavy dose of "exoticism" as this Thai girl's body and beauty are time and time again linked to "tropical" and thus "unthinking" and "mysterious" appeal. This being Mishima, this obsession is defined as such (which, somehow, does not stop commentors from referring to this as a "love story") and much intellectualizing goes into it. In other words, what we have is a man in his forties lusting after a child/teen but this has implications that are wider and pertain to the warped way in which he sees the world. Yet that does not matter as it is unconvincing. Instead we are subjected to Mishima's penchant for detailed description, fully unleashed on this character.
All this would be already be beyond the pale but if one considers the historical background of Japan's involvement in a brutal war that left scars a bit all over Asia, it is magnified, to the point that Mishima ends up being right without wanting to: there is, indeed, more going on than a depraved man's sick urges, namely, a nation that at one time was deeply depraved and its sick urges.
The historical connection matters on a deeper level, too, since the text itself reinforces it time and time again. History, what it means, what it does not mean and what it means to Japan in particular: all this is articulated as a main concern of Honda's and one around which much of the whole tetralogy is structured. 'The structure of History' (or lack thereof) could almost be a subtitle to 'The Sea of Fertility' and its thematic scheme of continuity through change- or change through continuity- which is what 'reincarnation' ends up being.
This brings me to what I want to focus on in this review. What does history mean to Japan? Early in the novel, before its ugliness fully revealed itself, Honda ponders the question of "unadulterated Japan". He wonders whether it is possible to live a life worth living in "modern" Japan, by which one is to understand, post-Meiji, a country now tainted with Western influences. It is worth quoting:
"Unlike the Spaniards, who preserved their national sport of bullfighting despite the accusations of animal lovers throughout the world, the Japanese, when the nation had embraced a new culture and ethic at the end of the last century, turned their efforts to eliminating the barbaric customs of preceding generations. As a result, the genuine, unadulterated national spirit was subordinated, its energy erupting from time to time in explosions of violence which repelled and alienated the people even more."
What is this 'adulterated national spirit'?
"However, whatever frightening mask it might assume, the national spirit in its original state was of pristine whiteness. Traveling through a country like Thailand, Honda realized more clearly than ever the simplicity and purity of things Japanese, like transparent stream water through which one could glimpse pebbles below, or the probity of Shinto rites. Honda’s life was not imbued with such spirit. Like the majority of Japanese he ignored it, behaving as though it did not exist and surviving by escaping from it. All his life he had dodged things fundamental and artless: white silk, clear cold water, the zigzag white paper of the exorciser’s staff fluttering in the breeze, the sacred precinct marked by a torii, the gods’ dwelling in the sea, the mountains, the vast ocean, the Japanese sword with its glistening blade so pure and sharp. Not only Honda, but the vast majority of Westernized Japanese, could no longer stand such intensely native elements."
The Japanese people, apparently, were simply not Japanese enough. Good thing Mishima is here to set them straight, yeah!
Losing the snark- which, I'll be honest, is something of an effort- we are presented with a project of sorts. The history of Japan ran around well defined lines of cultural homogeneity in which cultural virtues of belonging, tradition, a shared imagery and religious understanding were firmly set, all this having been destroyed, or at least severally damaged, by Western anything.
The image on which the above panegyric passage reaches its climax is that of 'the Japanese sword with its glistening blade so pure and sharp'. This has a significance within the text proper and a specific the narrative continuity but very obviously goes quite beyond that. The action takes place, at this point, in the early years of the War, a time when the Japanese sword was not merely symbolic but was being wielded from Shangai to Nanking. It was also the metonym for the Japanese war effort in all its brutality. In fact, Buddhist thinkers hailed it as the bringer of civilization to the hordes of Asia (refer to Zen at War for more on this), with flights of rhetoric that are not that different from Mishima's. The decades between the War and the 70's, when Temple was published, were not enough to clue in Mishima on just what this 'Japanese sword' truly represented to millions.
The problem resides in the notion of 'unadulterated'. It goes without saying that no country or culture is ever 'unadulterated' but in this case there is a deeper irony at work. In order to write this and all of his books, Mishima had to use kanji. Chinese characters have served the writing of the Japanese language for centuries on end, as is done to this day. To the point that in writing 'unadulterated Japan', Mishima wrote the name of his country as [日本], and the adjective was surely written in kanji as well (I cannot say which one as I have no access to the original text). In fact, even if he were to deviate from the normative spelling and written it in phonetic characters alone- kana- he would still be using a system build on kanji. Hiragana and katana were developed, mostly, so as to fix the spelling of Chinese characters.
This deep irony is not dead either. To this day, right wing Japanese groups are exceedingly fond of waving massive flags with mottos lovingly rendered in blown up kanji, even as they are most ferociously against "foreign influences". The connection is closer than may seem at first, these flags often feature giant pictures of none other than Mishima Yukio himself.
The book has further issues, too, of an internal nature. There is a certain clunkiness as connections are explored- and dare I say, forced- between the current timeline and Kioyaki/Isao from the preceding books. These were actual characters, deeply flawed but their respective books articulated a specific, very individual point of view that was theirs. So while Isao is a patriotic idiot, a mixture of self-sabotage and weaponized naivety, I found him worthy of pity. Kiyoaki's tragedy smacks of privilege but it does eventually graduate to something sad, and it is both a result of his environment and his own individuality. Ying Chin, the Thai princess, lacks this. She is ahistorical in a novel that is deeply concerned with history and, even worse, she is not a character in her own right. She is mostly all surface as we are not given any insight into her that does not come from Honda's projection. What she thinks, wants, likes, her own inner universe, none of that matters.
The closest we come to it,
Recurring themes that the two previous books had woven into patterns are now telegraphed so that the denouement is nothing short of clunky.
Historical fiction intersects with the time in which it was written and with when it is read and this one is no exception. Mishima was very aware, perhaps even morbidly so, that the intellectuals of his day were hardly on board with his highly skewed views (not that the thread of ultra patriotic lunacy does not run from pre-War all the way to the present time, but how represented it is by the country's writing community does wane). I would be willing to wager that this explains the two 'artist' characters who are depicted as utter idiots, precisely because of their avowed vocation. The most important of this likes to wax poetic about absurd sexual utopias (that not surprisingly read as mini-horror stories) , and comes across as someone, or a composite of people, who criticized Mishima. It is interesting that this guy's affected intellectualism does mirror Mishima's- and that Honda recognizes in him a version of himself, albeit a loathsome one.
The intersection with the current day hit me immediately, in many ways, one of the most crucial of them pertaining to Honda's role as a lawyer. He is disillusioned with the practice of law and has ossified into being a firm believer in the incorrigibility of people (making him a prime candidate to join the Supreme Court of Japan) and is, at the start of the book, working in civil law. He is sent to Thailand in order to represent a Japanese firm that is being sued over not producing goods in their proper condition. The intricacies of international law are gone into with some detail and the Japanese firm wins.
As I type this, there is hot contestation in Japan over a 2018 decision by a South Korean court, demanding Mitsubishi Heavy Industry pay compensation to four plaintiffs who were explored as wartime labor. History matters, its burdens are heavy, its toll is great and there is no telling, as of now, how this will eventually be settled.
None of that can possibly save it, though, because so much is taken up by a grown man salivating over a seven year old girl and later when she is seventeen. This includes a passage regarding Honda's- the protagonist of the series, whose character is essentially murdered in this volume- imagining holding said seven year old's (it is worth mentioning the age anew, it truly is) thighs as she urinates. If the pedophilia was not bad enough, it is compounded by a heavy dose of "exoticism" as this Thai girl's body and beauty are time and time again linked to "tropical" and thus "unthinking" and "mysterious" appeal. This being Mishima, this obsession is defined as such (which, somehow, does not stop commentors from referring to this as a "love story") and much intellectualizing goes into it. In other words, what we have is a man in his forties lusting after a child/teen but this has implications that are wider and pertain to the warped way in which he sees the world. Yet that does not matter as it is unconvincing. Instead we are subjected to Mishima's penchant for detailed description, fully unleashed on this character.
All this would be already be beyond the pale but if one considers the historical background of Japan's involvement in a brutal war that left scars a bit all over Asia, it is magnified, to the point that Mishima ends up being right without wanting to: there is, indeed, more going on than a depraved man's sick urges, namely, a nation that at one time was deeply depraved and its sick urges.
The historical connection matters on a deeper level, too, since the text itself reinforces it time and time again. History, what it means, what it does not mean and what it means to Japan in particular: all this is articulated as a main concern of Honda's and one around which much of the whole tetralogy is structured. 'The structure of History' (or lack thereof) could almost be a subtitle to 'The Sea of Fertility' and its thematic scheme of continuity through change- or change through continuity- which is what 'reincarnation' ends up being.
This brings me to what I want to focus on in this review. What does history mean to Japan? Early in the novel, before its ugliness fully revealed itself, Honda ponders the question of "unadulterated Japan". He wonders whether it is possible to live a life worth living in "modern" Japan, by which one is to understand, post-Meiji, a country now tainted with Western influences. It is worth quoting:
"Unlike the Spaniards, who preserved their national sport of bullfighting despite the accusations of animal lovers throughout the world, the Japanese, when the nation had embraced a new culture and ethic at the end of the last century, turned their efforts to eliminating the barbaric customs of preceding generations. As a result, the genuine, unadulterated national spirit was subordinated, its energy erupting from time to time in explosions of violence which repelled and alienated the people even more."
What is this 'adulterated national spirit'?
"However, whatever frightening mask it might assume, the national spirit in its original state was of pristine whiteness. Traveling through a country like Thailand, Honda realized more clearly than ever the simplicity and purity of things Japanese, like transparent stream water through which one could glimpse pebbles below, or the probity of Shinto rites. Honda’s life was not imbued with such spirit. Like the majority of Japanese he ignored it, behaving as though it did not exist and surviving by escaping from it. All his life he had dodged things fundamental and artless: white silk, clear cold water, the zigzag white paper of the exorciser’s staff fluttering in the breeze, the sacred precinct marked by a torii, the gods’ dwelling in the sea, the mountains, the vast ocean, the Japanese sword with its glistening blade so pure and sharp. Not only Honda, but the vast majority of Westernized Japanese, could no longer stand such intensely native elements."
The Japanese people, apparently, were simply not Japanese enough. Good thing Mishima is here to set them straight, yeah!
Losing the snark- which, I'll be honest, is something of an effort- we are presented with a project of sorts. The history of Japan ran around well defined lines of cultural homogeneity in which cultural virtues of belonging, tradition, a shared imagery and religious understanding were firmly set, all this having been destroyed, or at least severally damaged, by Western anything.
The image on which the above panegyric passage reaches its climax is that of 'the Japanese sword with its glistening blade so pure and sharp'. This has a significance within the text proper and a specific the narrative continuity but very obviously goes quite beyond that. The action takes place, at this point, in the early years of the War, a time when the Japanese sword was not merely symbolic but was being wielded from Shangai to Nanking. It was also the metonym for the Japanese war effort in all its brutality. In fact, Buddhist thinkers hailed it as the bringer of civilization to the hordes of Asia (refer to Zen at War for more on this), with flights of rhetoric that are not that different from Mishima's. The decades between the War and the 70's, when Temple was published, were not enough to clue in Mishima on just what this 'Japanese sword' truly represented to millions.
The problem resides in the notion of 'unadulterated'. It goes without saying that no country or culture is ever 'unadulterated' but in this case there is a deeper irony at work. In order to write this and all of his books, Mishima had to use kanji. Chinese characters have served the writing of the Japanese language for centuries on end, as is done to this day. To the point that in writing 'unadulterated Japan', Mishima wrote the name of his country as [日本], and the adjective was surely written in kanji as well (I cannot say which one as I have no access to the original text). In fact, even if he were to deviate from the normative spelling and written it in phonetic characters alone- kana- he would still be using a system build on kanji. Hiragana and katana were developed, mostly, so as to fix the spelling of Chinese characters.
This deep irony is not dead either. To this day, right wing Japanese groups are exceedingly fond of waving massive flags with mottos lovingly rendered in blown up kanji, even as they are most ferociously against "foreign influences". The connection is closer than may seem at first, these flags often feature giant pictures of none other than Mishima Yukio himself.
The book has further issues, too, of an internal nature. There is a certain clunkiness as connections are explored- and dare I say, forced- between the current timeline and Kioyaki/Isao from the preceding books. These were actual characters, deeply flawed but their respective books articulated a specific, very individual point of view that was theirs. So while Isao is a patriotic idiot, a mixture of self-sabotage and weaponized naivety, I found him worthy of pity. Kiyoaki's tragedy smacks of privilege but it does eventually graduate to something sad, and it is both a result of his environment and his own individuality. Ying Chin, the Thai princess, lacks this. She is ahistorical in a novel that is deeply concerned with history and, even worse, she is not a character in her own right. She is mostly all surface as we are not given any insight into her that does not come from Honda's projection. What she thinks, wants, likes, her own inner universe, none of that matters.
The closest we come to it,
Recurring themes that the two previous books had woven into patterns are now telegraphed so that the denouement is nothing short of clunky.
Historical fiction intersects with the time in which it was written and with when it is read and this one is no exception. Mishima was very aware, perhaps even morbidly so, that the intellectuals of his day were hardly on board with his highly skewed views (not that the thread of ultra patriotic lunacy does not run from pre-War all the way to the present time, but how represented it is by the country's writing community does wane). I would be willing to wager that this explains the two 'artist' characters who are depicted as utter idiots, precisely because of their avowed vocation. The most important of this likes to wax poetic about absurd sexual utopias (that not surprisingly read as mini-horror stories) , and comes across as someone, or a composite of people, who criticized Mishima. It is interesting that this guy's affected intellectualism does mirror Mishima's- and that Honda recognizes in him a version of himself, albeit a loathsome one.
The intersection with the current day hit me immediately, in many ways, one of the most crucial of them pertaining to Honda's role as a lawyer. He is disillusioned with the practice of law and has ossified into being a firm believer in the incorrigibility of people (making him a prime candidate to join the Supreme Court of Japan) and is, at the start of the book, working in civil law. He is sent to Thailand in order to represent a Japanese firm that is being sued over not producing goods in their proper condition. The intricacies of international law are gone into with some detail and the Japanese firm wins.
As I type this, there is hot contestation in Japan over a 2018 decision by a South Korean court, demanding Mitsubishi Heavy Industry pay compensation to four plaintiffs who were explored as wartime labor. History matters, its burdens are heavy, its toll is great and there is no telling, as of now, how this will eventually be settled.
June 3, 2023
currently and forever will be in disbelief over how good this was. omg
July 3, 2022
70th book of 2022.
On paper this was due to be my favourite of the tetralogy so far. Leaning heavily into the travelling Mishima did as research for the series, this book's first half is more travelogue, and is filled with beautiful descriptions of Bangkok, India and of course, Japan. There are also numerous chapters that border on being non-fiction exploring Buddhism and the history of reincarnation. All this interests me greatly. However, the central character of this novel, the 19-year-old Thai princess Ying Chan, did not. Honda is now in his 50s, a lawyer, and becoming more and more obsessed with the idea of reincarnation and its reality. Likewise, he becomes obsessed with this girl, many years his junior, and spends most of the second half of the novel trying to see her naked. (Peephole, à la The Sailor Who Fell From Grace with the Sea included.) So, yes, the very political right-wing elements of Runaway Horses were somehow more compelling. Who knew. It just felt like a lot of wasted words in this installment. At over 300 pages long, it felt lacking of substance. Mishima's writing is as stunning as ever, though. The ending is very dramatic, and felt very inspired by the ending of his friend's (Kawabata) novel (Snow Country). Just one book left and the tetralogy is done.
On paper this was due to be my favourite of the tetralogy so far. Leaning heavily into the travelling Mishima did as research for the series, this book's first half is more travelogue, and is filled with beautiful descriptions of Bangkok, India and of course, Japan. There are also numerous chapters that border on being non-fiction exploring Buddhism and the history of reincarnation. All this interests me greatly. However, the central character of this novel, the 19-year-old Thai princess Ying Chan, did not. Honda is now in his 50s, a lawyer, and becoming more and more obsessed with the idea of reincarnation and its reality. Likewise, he becomes obsessed with this girl, many years his junior, and spends most of the second half of the novel trying to see her naked. (Peephole, à la The Sailor Who Fell From Grace with the Sea included.) So, yes, the very political right-wing elements of Runaway Horses were somehow more compelling. Who knew. It just felt like a lot of wasted words in this installment. At over 300 pages long, it felt lacking of substance. Mishima's writing is as stunning as ever, though. The ending is very dramatic, and felt very inspired by the ending of his friend's (Kawabata) novel (Snow Country). Just one book left and the tetralogy is done.
"But without talent how can one go on living?"
"If the untalented had to die, everybody in Japan would be dead," Makiko responded in amusement.
Honda observed this exchange with a shudder.
April 21, 2024
Mişima'nın Bereket Denizi dörtlemesinin en az sevilen kitabı olan Şafak Tapınağı, benimse en iştahla okuduğum kitap oldu. Diğerlerinden daha iyi olduğunu düşünmüyorum ama daha sürükleyici, daha cesur, daha doğrudandı, çok hevesle okudum.
Bu tabii kitabın problemli yanları olmadığı anlamına gelmiyor. Yapısal olarak diğerlerinden farklı bir kitap bu, birinci bölümde serinin başından beri tanıdığımız Honda'nın Tayland ve Hindistan'a yaptığı seyahati okuyoruz. Çocukluk arkadaşı Kiyoaki'nin farklı bedenlerde yer yüzüne geri döndüğüne inanan Honda bu kitapta da yine bir bedenin peşine düşüyor. Bu kısımları temellendirmek için ilk bölümde uzun uzun yeniden doğuşa dair türlü mistik teorilere yer verilmiş. Antik Yunan'dan Budizm'e uzanan hatları didikliyor, epeyce kavramsal tartışmalara giriyor Mişima. Açıkçası buralar benim gibi mistisizme pek ilgi duymayan biri için epeyce zorlayıcıydı. Konuyu temellendirmek için bunları anlatmasını anlıyorum ama romanın akışını bozacak denli uzun ve detaylı olduğunu söylemem lazım.
İkinci kısımda ise birden son derece dünyevi bir hikayenin içinde buluyoruz kendimizi. 57 yaşında gelmiş erdemli karakterimiz Honda, içinde o güne dek varlığından haberdar bile olmadığı son derece karanlık yanlar keşfediyor. Üç kitaptır "bu nasıl Japon edebiyatı, hiç tuhaf cinsel fanteziler okumadık" diyordum, sonunda vardık oraya... Japonların tenle ve tene dair olanla kurdukları mistik, tekinsiz, sansürsüz ilişkiyi okumak her defasında hem rahatsız edici, hem merak uyandırıcı oluyor, yine öyle oldu.
Ancak açıkçası Honda'nın ruhani olandan bedensel olana uzanan yolculuğunda ikna edici olmayan yanlar bulduğumu söylemem lazım. İlk iki kitapta bambaşka çizilen bu karakterin geçirdiği büyük dönüşümü daha iyi anlatabilirdi yazar gibime geliyor. İkinci Dünya Savaşı sonrası Japon toplumun yaşadığı büyük yıkım ve hayal kırıklığı da sadece satır aralarında verilmiş. Bundan öncekilerde anlatısını çok daha toplumsal bir yerden kuran Mişima, bu defa tamamen kişisel olana odaklanıyor. Bu da kitabı okuması daha kolay ama sanki biraz daha yüzeysel hale getiriyor. İlginç mi, çok ilginç ama serinin geri kalanına göre biraz kopuk bir metin Şafak Tapınağı. Böyle.
Bu tabii kitabın problemli yanları olmadığı anlamına gelmiyor. Yapısal olarak diğerlerinden farklı bir kitap bu, birinci bölümde serinin başından beri tanıdığımız Honda'nın Tayland ve Hindistan'a yaptığı seyahati okuyoruz. Çocukluk arkadaşı Kiyoaki'nin farklı bedenlerde yer yüzüne geri döndüğüne inanan Honda bu kitapta da yine bir bedenin peşine düşüyor. Bu kısımları temellendirmek için ilk bölümde uzun uzun yeniden doğuşa dair türlü mistik teorilere yer verilmiş. Antik Yunan'dan Budizm'e uzanan hatları didikliyor, epeyce kavramsal tartışmalara giriyor Mişima. Açıkçası buralar benim gibi mistisizme pek ilgi duymayan biri için epeyce zorlayıcıydı. Konuyu temellendirmek için bunları anlatmasını anlıyorum ama romanın akışını bozacak denli uzun ve detaylı olduğunu söylemem lazım.
İkinci kısımda ise birden son derece dünyevi bir hikayenin içinde buluyoruz kendimizi. 57 yaşında gelmiş erdemli karakterimiz Honda, içinde o güne dek varlığından haberdar bile olmadığı son derece karanlık yanlar keşfediyor. Üç kitaptır "bu nasıl Japon edebiyatı, hiç tuhaf cinsel fanteziler okumadık" diyordum, sonunda vardık oraya... Japonların tenle ve tene dair olanla kurdukları mistik, tekinsiz, sansürsüz ilişkiyi okumak her defasında hem rahatsız edici, hem merak uyandırıcı oluyor, yine öyle oldu.
Ancak açıkçası Honda'nın ruhani olandan bedensel olana uzanan yolculuğunda ikna edici olmayan yanlar bulduğumu söylemem lazım. İlk iki kitapta bambaşka çizilen bu karakterin geçirdiği büyük dönüşümü daha iyi anlatabilirdi yazar gibime geliyor. İkinci Dünya Savaşı sonrası Japon toplumun yaşadığı büyük yıkım ve hayal kırıklığı da sadece satır aralarında verilmiş. Bundan öncekilerde anlatısını çok daha toplumsal bir yerden kuran Mişima, bu defa tamamen kişisel olana odaklanıyor. Bu da kitabı okuması daha kolay ama sanki biraz daha yüzeysel hale getiriyor. İlginç mi, çok ilginç ama serinin geri kalanına göre biraz kopuk bir metin Şafak Tapınağı. Böyle.
September 7, 2015
The third novel in the Sea of Fertility tetralogy, unlike the other two I think this one really needs the reader to have gone through Spring Snow and Runaway Horses first to be able to follow what is going on properly - and not just the action, as the first third of the book is centred on Honda's quest for a coherent theory of reincarnation, something without internal contradictions that would square with his logical way of thinking.
Yet for this first third I could not stop wondering whether this was Honda's or Yukio Mishima investigation: indeed (though it could be down to translation) at some point the writing comes out as if the narrator is lecturing the reader, when he writes
Although the writing is beautiful, I did find many passages over the top, overcomplicated in their effort to describe Honda's inner struggle, somewhat trying too hard, if any such thing can be written about Mishima. Definitely less satisfying for me than the previous two books in the tetralogy.
Yet for this first third I could not stop wondering whether this was Honda's or Yukio Mishima investigation: indeed (though it could be down to translation) at some point the writing comes out as if the narrator is lecturing the reader, when he writes
The Yuishiki theory originated in the Mahayana Abhidharma sutras, and as we shall see,"Puzzled" probably best described how I felt through the first third of this book. The rest is also very different from the other two - while those were centred on purity, here all is decay, or at least its menacing shadow. The person Kiyoaki reincarnates into is just a vessel this time: Honda the man gets center stage here, and we are served an unflattering portrait of a middle aged man bored and unsatisfied, with a bored and unsatisfied wife whom he mostly ignores, and who fills his day with cheap, sordid, pathetic thrills, joining the ranks of other pieces of that period (Alberto Moravia springing immediately to my mind).
Although the writing is beautiful, I did find many passages over the top, overcomplicated in their effort to describe Honda's inner struggle, somewhat trying too hard, if any such thing can be written about Mishima. Definitely less satisfying for me than the previous two books in the tetralogy.
July 21, 2019
Fact: I'm not sure that I could love anything I might read by Mishima as much as I did his Runaway Horses, which is to me the best book of the now three that I've read in this tetraology. At the same time, Temple of Dawn is also an amazing and unforgettable novel, albeit (in my opinion) with not quite the same level of consistent intensity reached in the first two books. However, when all is said and done, it's another Mishima novel that kept me entirely entranced and on my own planet while reading. That so rarely happens.
more soon after book four.
more soon after book four.
February 29, 2016
Serinin ilk iki kitabını öyle bir iştahla ve keyifle okudum ki, bu kitaptan beklentim çok büyüktü. En azından, bu romanın; okuyucusuna sunduklarından daha farklıydı. Şunu söylemek isterim ki, aslında bu kitaba puanlamam dörttür. Ancak Mishima'nın bazı bölümlerdeki efsane anlatımları elimin dörde gitmesini engelledi.
Serinin ilk iki kitabı birbirinin üzerine çok fazla gitmeden ancak ayrıntılarda birbirini tinsel olarak tamamlayan kitaplardı. Kendi başlarına bütünlükleri olan, fazla dağılmayan ancak çok geniş göndermeleri olan eserlerdi. Fakat bu roman diğer iki romanın şimdiye kadar getirmiş olduklarını derinleştirmek için yazılmış hissi verdi bana. Üç kitap içerisindeki en yoğun anlatıma sahip, hikayenin arka planda olduğu, daha çok düşüncelerden bahsedildiği bu cildi; özellikle ilk 150 sayfasında yoğun şekilde bahsettiği doğu mistizmiyle hem okuma keyif olarak, hem de romanların genel biçimi olarak ciddi olarak ayrılıyor. Bu bölümler bana Moby Dick'in bilimsel tarafını hatırlattı. Aynı Melville'ın bir bilim adamı gözü ile balinalara yaklaşması gibi Mishima'da ciddi bir filozof, keşif, sofu, guru gibiymişçesine konusuna yaklaşmış. Aynı zamanda bu inançlar toplamını (Budizm, Hinduizm vb.) tarihi açıdan ve fıtrat açısından incelemiş. Bu yüzden zaman zaman zor anlar yaşatabiliyor. Hikayenin akışıyla bir noktada birleşen, ancak ayrı olarak da ciddi bir metin sayılabilecek bu bölümler; okuyucuya doğu mistizmini hiç de genel olmayan hatları ile kavramak zorunluluğunu yaratıyor. Haliyle bu beklemediğimiz bir yük. Bu bir eleştiri değil daha çok kitabın taşıdığı derinlik açısından çok daha başka bir noktada durduğunu belirtmek içindi.
Kitaba getireceğim eleştiriler ise (Bu bir spoilerdır.) Bu ruh göçü olayı özellikle ikinci kitapta çok güçlü bir etki yaratmıştı. Fakat ikinci kez ve daha olağandışı bir şekilde vuku bulması hikayeyle kurduğum inandırıcılık bağını zedeledi. Okuduğum şeyin bir kitap olduğunun farkına vardım sık sık. Umarım dördüncü kitapta bu bir şekilde daha iyi bir noktada anlam bulur.
İkinci nokta ise; ilk kitapta izleyebildiğim Japonya'nın arka planı, tarihsel dönüşümleri, kültürel erozyonu, batılılaşmayı bu kitapta çok üstünkörü görüyoruz. Bu konudaki genel anlatımına sadece sonlarda değiniyor. Onun dışında çok fazla bu tarz yerleştirmelere girmiyor.
Üçüncü eleştirim, Japonya'nın II.Dünya Savaşı'nda almış olduğu atom bombaları saldırılarının anlatılmamış ve hiçbir yerde bundan bahsedilmemiş olmaması. Kitabın birinci ve ikinci bölümü arasında yaşanan bu olaylar resmen es geçilmiş. Bu kadar önemli ve keskin bir konuyu yazarın neden yazdığı en ciddi eserinde es geçtiğini cidden merak ettim.
Dördüncü ve son eleştirim ise; kitabın ikinci bölümünden itibaren sanki bağımsız bir hikaye yaratıyormuşçasına Honda ile Prensesin öyküsüne odaklanması. Açıkçası uzun süredir (56 yaşına kadar) hayatını okuduğum, tanıdığım bir adamın böylesi bir dönüşüme uğrayabileceğine inanmadım. Tamamen cinsel taraflarından bahsediyorum. Mishima bu kadar klinik ya da sapkın şeyler yazmaktan keyif duyuyor bende okumaktan mest oluyorum ancak bu bana çok başka bir roman okuyormuşum hissi verdi. O Honda tanıdığım Honda değilmiş gibi. İlk bölümün yoğun mistik göndermelerini, ister istemez ikinci bölümdeki Honda'nın arayışına da yaklaştırmak zorunda hissettim kendimi ve o zaman ulaştığım sonuçlardan çok tatmin olmadım. Bu parçalanmaya bence gerek yoktu.
Asla kötü bir kitap değil. İlk iki kitabın iyiliğinden kaynaklanan bir sönüklük taşıyor sadece bana göre.
Herkese iyi okumalar.
4.5/5
Serinin ilk iki kitabı birbirinin üzerine çok fazla gitmeden ancak ayrıntılarda birbirini tinsel olarak tamamlayan kitaplardı. Kendi başlarına bütünlükleri olan, fazla dağılmayan ancak çok geniş göndermeleri olan eserlerdi. Fakat bu roman diğer iki romanın şimdiye kadar getirmiş olduklarını derinleştirmek için yazılmış hissi verdi bana. Üç kitap içerisindeki en yoğun anlatıma sahip, hikayenin arka planda olduğu, daha çok düşüncelerden bahsedildiği bu cildi; özellikle ilk 150 sayfasında yoğun şekilde bahsettiği doğu mistizmiyle hem okuma keyif olarak, hem de romanların genel biçimi olarak ciddi olarak ayrılıyor. Bu bölümler bana Moby Dick'in bilimsel tarafını hatırlattı. Aynı Melville'ın bir bilim adamı gözü ile balinalara yaklaşması gibi Mishima'da ciddi bir filozof, keşif, sofu, guru gibiymişçesine konusuna yaklaşmış. Aynı zamanda bu inançlar toplamını (Budizm, Hinduizm vb.) tarihi açıdan ve fıtrat açısından incelemiş. Bu yüzden zaman zaman zor anlar yaşatabiliyor. Hikayenin akışıyla bir noktada birleşen, ancak ayrı olarak da ciddi bir metin sayılabilecek bu bölümler; okuyucuya doğu mistizmini hiç de genel olmayan hatları ile kavramak zorunluluğunu yaratıyor. Haliyle bu beklemediğimiz bir yük. Bu bir eleştiri değil daha çok kitabın taşıdığı derinlik açısından çok daha başka bir noktada durduğunu belirtmek içindi.
Kitaba getireceğim eleştiriler ise (Bu bir spoilerdır.) Bu ruh göçü olayı özellikle ikinci kitapta çok güçlü bir etki yaratmıştı. Fakat ikinci kez ve daha olağandışı bir şekilde vuku bulması hikayeyle kurduğum inandırıcılık bağını zedeledi. Okuduğum şeyin bir kitap olduğunun farkına vardım sık sık. Umarım dördüncü kitapta bu bir şekilde daha iyi bir noktada anlam bulur.
İkinci nokta ise; ilk kitapta izleyebildiğim Japonya'nın arka planı, tarihsel dönüşümleri, kültürel erozyonu, batılılaşmayı bu kitapta çok üstünkörü görüyoruz. Bu konudaki genel anlatımına sadece sonlarda değiniyor. Onun dışında çok fazla bu tarz yerleştirmelere girmiyor.
Üçüncü eleştirim, Japonya'nın II.Dünya Savaşı'nda almış olduğu atom bombaları saldırılarının anlatılmamış ve hiçbir yerde bundan bahsedilmemiş olmaması. Kitabın birinci ve ikinci bölümü arasında yaşanan bu olaylar resmen es geçilmiş. Bu kadar önemli ve keskin bir konuyu yazarın neden yazdığı en ciddi eserinde es geçtiğini cidden merak ettim.
Dördüncü ve son eleştirim ise; kitabın ikinci bölümünden itibaren sanki bağımsız bir hikaye yaratıyormuşçasına Honda ile Prensesin öyküsüne odaklanması. Açıkçası uzun süredir (56 yaşına kadar) hayatını okuduğum, tanıdığım bir adamın böylesi bir dönüşüme uğrayabileceğine inanmadım. Tamamen cinsel taraflarından bahsediyorum. Mishima bu kadar klinik ya da sapkın şeyler yazmaktan keyif duyuyor bende okumaktan mest oluyorum ancak bu bana çok başka bir roman okuyormuşum hissi verdi. O Honda tanıdığım Honda değilmiş gibi. İlk bölümün yoğun mistik göndermelerini, ister istemez ikinci bölümdeki Honda'nın arayışına da yaklaştırmak zorunda hissettim kendimi ve o zaman ulaştığım sonuçlardan çok tatmin olmadım. Bu parçalanmaya bence gerek yoktu.
Asla kötü bir kitap değil. İlk iki kitabın iyiliğinden kaynaklanan bir sönüklük taşıyor sadece bana göre.
Herkese iyi okumalar.
4.5/5
February 18, 2013
It's hard enough losing one's friends, now imagine constantly losing the same one and finding him or her again, except that you're much older, they're the same age as when you last saw them and they don't even recognize you. And you're going to lose them again, despite your best efforts. And chances are, it won't even matter. This is the stuff of high emotional tragedy, fraught with urgency and a sense of desperation.
Yet, it's not even the real story of what Mishima is trying to tell here.
Anyone who has read this far into the series knows the basic premise. Former judge and now lawyer Honda keeps running into his doomed friend Kiyoaki, who has an intensely beautiful soul that burns out all too quickly, snuffed out like a flower that shames the grey winter around it, too brilliant to survive before it calls attention to all that is numb around it. He met him again as Isao, a young man who believed in Japan so intensely that his plan to throw the government into chaos could only end in one way, even after Honda had expected him to be saved.
Now we're years later and Honda, now a successful lawyer, happens to hear about a princess in Thailand who claims to be a young Japanese boy (reminding him of the last words Isao said in his presence (although "Runaway Horses" comments that the words were too indistinct to hear clearly, I guess he pieced it together later)). He makes arrangements to meet the child who immediately seems to recognize him and wants to be taken back to Japan. And from there begins an obsession with her life, and maybe the lives beyond lives, that will consume the rest of the novel and years of barely noticed history.
This is the first time we don't really meet Ying Chan, the newest incarnation of his old friend. Unlike the times before where the other two people were in effect the main characters in how we got buried deep in their emotions and how the plot of the book was driven by their actions, we only see her through the lens of Honda and even then only scarcely. Instead she exists in his thoughts, his fantasies, his wishes and desires but her actual appearances in the book are scant, often separated by years and open to an interpretation beyond how Honda is interpreting them. In fact, once she is no longer a young child she barely remembers telling Honda how she used to be his friend and at that point a tug of war begins between his desire to understand his friend better and his desire for Ying Chan, and how one impacts the other. Mishima takes an aspect of the novel I wasn't a fan of at first (Ying Chan basically coming out and saying "Hey, I used to know you" seemed too obvious for what had previously been a mystical and mysterious thing, taking some of the magic out of it) and manages to work his way out of it by wrapping the proceedings in so many psychological layers that teasing them all out becomes a full time job.
Honda has distinguished himself by being more or less an interested bystander in the previous two books and now given the chance to take center stage, he does what we expect and becomes something interesting, a bystander as lead character. He becomes no more active than he was before, drifting through life and observing, all the while become increasingly interested in the thoughts that exist inside his own head, even while painfully realizing that he's far from the most fascinating person who ever lived. As we go through the years of his life, we find that he does well simply by showing up every day and a bit of luck but he's not extraordinary by any means, and its a burden that weighs down on him. He becomes rich and successful but begins to feel that its a bit empty because he hasn't really lived for the experience, he's plodding through and killing time, but what does that mean? Is life about being comfortable if the best you can hope for is not to feel any wide swings of emotions between birth and the time your heart finally stops? He drifts through life without leaving a mark and unlike most of us, he's both acutely and intensely aware of that, how hollow his life seems and how he'll dissipate while barely leaving a stain when he dies. And even as he's not okay with that, the question remains: does he really want to bother to change it? After all, being rich is kind of nice too.
What strikes me with this volume is how little it's tied to the history of Japan. The first two novels felt bound to their eras, an evocation as much as a character study, how times shape the person even as a person tries to shape the time. Here history has no effect on Honda, even as Japan undergoes one of the most significant periods of its history, a little thing called World War Two. The aggression before the war officially begins is barely noticed by Honda and even the years of the war pass by without barely a comment as to the impact or the emotional climate at the time. It hardly affects him and in doing drives us further into his mind, as we track his obsessions and his fascinations and the tiniest details of his mediocrity. As a study of someone who is so ordinary that its often painful, its brilliant.
But he does make you work for it. Good chunks of the novel are devoted to Honda studying the various aspects of Buddhism and these sections can go on for a while, often coming across as fairly dry, academic without being driven, like homework Mishima had to do in order to understand his own novel better, with the attitude of "I had to look this all up so now I'm going to make you read it." They often disrupt the flow of what until that is like the epitome of an ambient techno song, beatless while still being in constant motion. You wouldn't think that inserting more lack of plot into an essentially plotless novel would do that but you can't gain an appreciation for how delicate a balancing act he's doing and how well its working until the Buddhism sections arrive and nearly throw that balance off.
Even plotless it still has its concerns, mostly mortality and aging and there are a number of passages poetically depicting Honda realizing that he's getting older and that he's very much the opposite of a fine wine, despite his success in life. At times it feels like a concern of Mishima's as well and while you never want to read into an author through his work, his suicide after the next novel starts to hover this, the meditations on death and the long slow slide into it becoming almost oppressive. Faced with proof that reincarnation exists, Honda realizes that knowledge means nothing and is only the first step to the better question, what does it mean? Its not one he's capable of answering and even while he constructs elaborate attempts to see Ying Chan naked so he can spot the telltale three moles on her side, you wonder if his reasons for doing this aren't quite what they saw they are. A professional voyeur of sorts, it seems that he'd be willing to stand aside and dispassionately watch his own demise.
In the course, you may wonder what all the point of this is. And then, suddenly, you do. If you've ever read James Joyce's "The Dead", you may get the same feeling, where the story trots along pleasantly enough until they leave and the party and needle without warning hits "awesome". Mishima neatly pulls off the same trick, as a house party at the end kicks the poetic intensity up a notch and the glacial pace seems utterly too fast as all the layers are simultaneously stripped away and becomes smothering all at once. Its as if this is where the heart of the story ultimately lay and the rest was all preamble. It comes together and crashes while Honda stands there and watches it, then goes on with his life as usual. When the tragedy arrives, its almost offhand and detached, as if the story is clearing up old business. But maybe it doesn't matter, like Honda maybe we've already seen what all we need to see in a revelation that is both comforting and terrifying: we will perhaps always be less than we are, but we will be forever.
Yet, it's not even the real story of what Mishima is trying to tell here.
Anyone who has read this far into the series knows the basic premise. Former judge and now lawyer Honda keeps running into his doomed friend Kiyoaki, who has an intensely beautiful soul that burns out all too quickly, snuffed out like a flower that shames the grey winter around it, too brilliant to survive before it calls attention to all that is numb around it. He met him again as Isao, a young man who believed in Japan so intensely that his plan to throw the government into chaos could only end in one way, even after Honda had expected him to be saved.
Now we're years later and Honda, now a successful lawyer, happens to hear about a princess in Thailand who claims to be a young Japanese boy (reminding him of the last words Isao said in his presence (although "Runaway Horses" comments that the words were too indistinct to hear clearly, I guess he pieced it together later)). He makes arrangements to meet the child who immediately seems to recognize him and wants to be taken back to Japan. And from there begins an obsession with her life, and maybe the lives beyond lives, that will consume the rest of the novel and years of barely noticed history.
This is the first time we don't really meet Ying Chan, the newest incarnation of his old friend. Unlike the times before where the other two people were in effect the main characters in how we got buried deep in their emotions and how the plot of the book was driven by their actions, we only see her through the lens of Honda and even then only scarcely. Instead she exists in his thoughts, his fantasies, his wishes and desires but her actual appearances in the book are scant, often separated by years and open to an interpretation beyond how Honda is interpreting them. In fact, once she is no longer a young child she barely remembers telling Honda how she used to be his friend and at that point a tug of war begins between his desire to understand his friend better and his desire for Ying Chan, and how one impacts the other. Mishima takes an aspect of the novel I wasn't a fan of at first (Ying Chan basically coming out and saying "Hey, I used to know you" seemed too obvious for what had previously been a mystical and mysterious thing, taking some of the magic out of it) and manages to work his way out of it by wrapping the proceedings in so many psychological layers that teasing them all out becomes a full time job.
Honda has distinguished himself by being more or less an interested bystander in the previous two books and now given the chance to take center stage, he does what we expect and becomes something interesting, a bystander as lead character. He becomes no more active than he was before, drifting through life and observing, all the while become increasingly interested in the thoughts that exist inside his own head, even while painfully realizing that he's far from the most fascinating person who ever lived. As we go through the years of his life, we find that he does well simply by showing up every day and a bit of luck but he's not extraordinary by any means, and its a burden that weighs down on him. He becomes rich and successful but begins to feel that its a bit empty because he hasn't really lived for the experience, he's plodding through and killing time, but what does that mean? Is life about being comfortable if the best you can hope for is not to feel any wide swings of emotions between birth and the time your heart finally stops? He drifts through life without leaving a mark and unlike most of us, he's both acutely and intensely aware of that, how hollow his life seems and how he'll dissipate while barely leaving a stain when he dies. And even as he's not okay with that, the question remains: does he really want to bother to change it? After all, being rich is kind of nice too.
What strikes me with this volume is how little it's tied to the history of Japan. The first two novels felt bound to their eras, an evocation as much as a character study, how times shape the person even as a person tries to shape the time. Here history has no effect on Honda, even as Japan undergoes one of the most significant periods of its history, a little thing called World War Two. The aggression before the war officially begins is barely noticed by Honda and even the years of the war pass by without barely a comment as to the impact or the emotional climate at the time. It hardly affects him and in doing drives us further into his mind, as we track his obsessions and his fascinations and the tiniest details of his mediocrity. As a study of someone who is so ordinary that its often painful, its brilliant.
But he does make you work for it. Good chunks of the novel are devoted to Honda studying the various aspects of Buddhism and these sections can go on for a while, often coming across as fairly dry, academic without being driven, like homework Mishima had to do in order to understand his own novel better, with the attitude of "I had to look this all up so now I'm going to make you read it." They often disrupt the flow of what until that is like the epitome of an ambient techno song, beatless while still being in constant motion. You wouldn't think that inserting more lack of plot into an essentially plotless novel would do that but you can't gain an appreciation for how delicate a balancing act he's doing and how well its working until the Buddhism sections arrive and nearly throw that balance off.
Even plotless it still has its concerns, mostly mortality and aging and there are a number of passages poetically depicting Honda realizing that he's getting older and that he's very much the opposite of a fine wine, despite his success in life. At times it feels like a concern of Mishima's as well and while you never want to read into an author through his work, his suicide after the next novel starts to hover this, the meditations on death and the long slow slide into it becoming almost oppressive. Faced with proof that reincarnation exists, Honda realizes that knowledge means nothing and is only the first step to the better question, what does it mean? Its not one he's capable of answering and even while he constructs elaborate attempts to see Ying Chan naked so he can spot the telltale three moles on her side, you wonder if his reasons for doing this aren't quite what they saw they are. A professional voyeur of sorts, it seems that he'd be willing to stand aside and dispassionately watch his own demise.
In the course, you may wonder what all the point of this is. And then, suddenly, you do. If you've ever read James Joyce's "The Dead", you may get the same feeling, where the story trots along pleasantly enough until they leave and the party and needle without warning hits "awesome". Mishima neatly pulls off the same trick, as a house party at the end kicks the poetic intensity up a notch and the glacial pace seems utterly too fast as all the layers are simultaneously stripped away and becomes smothering all at once. Its as if this is where the heart of the story ultimately lay and the rest was all preamble. It comes together and crashes while Honda stands there and watches it, then goes on with his life as usual. When the tragedy arrives, its almost offhand and detached, as if the story is clearing up old business. But maybe it doesn't matter, like Honda maybe we've already seen what all we need to see in a revelation that is both comforting and terrifying: we will perhaps always be less than we are, but we will be forever.
September 29, 2022
اممم
لا أعلم، هل مستوى الروايات يتخفض بالتدريج أم أنني فقط أشعر بذلك!
أشعر بأن كل جزء أقل في المستوى من سابقه!
قد يكون ذلك لأن فكرة الرباعية كلها واضحة منذ البداية ويحاول الكاتب الدوران حولها بقصص مختلفة!
فمثلاً، في هذا الجزء، تتمثل روح "كيواكي" في أميرة تبلغ من العمر سبعة أعوام فقط وتقابل "هوندا" وتحاول أن تقنعه بأنها روح الفتى "إيساو" -من الجزء السابق- وجاء يعتذر منه بعد تركه له دون إبداء أسباب!!
نتابع حياة الأميرة "ينج تشان" -التي من المفترض أنها تناسخ لروح بطل الرواية الأساسي- حتى تصل إلى العشرين من العمر، العمر الذي تنتهي فيه حياة البطل لسبب أو لآخر!
للأمانة، لم يعد لدي طاقة لإنهاء هذه الرباعية.
لكن، أذكر نفسي بأنه لم يعد هناك سوى جزء واحد متوسط لنعرف إلى ماذا ستؤول الأمور.
تمت
٢٩ سبتمبر ٢٠٢٢
لا أعلم، هل مستوى الروايات يتخفض بالتدريج أم أنني فقط أشعر بذلك!
أشعر بأن كل جزء أقل في المستوى من سابقه!
قد يكون ذلك لأن فكرة الرباعية كلها واضحة منذ البداية ويحاول الكاتب الدوران حولها بقصص مختلفة!
فمثلاً، في هذا الجزء، تتمثل روح "كيواكي" في أميرة تبلغ من العمر سبعة أعوام فقط وتقابل "هوندا" وتحاول أن تقنعه بأنها روح الفتى "إيساو" -من الجزء السابق- وجاء يعتذر منه بعد تركه له دون إبداء أسباب!!
نتابع حياة الأميرة "ينج تشان" -التي من المفترض أنها تناسخ لروح بطل الرواية الأساسي- حتى تصل إلى العشرين من العمر، العمر الذي تنتهي فيه حياة البطل لسبب أو لآخر!
للأمانة، لم يعد لدي طاقة لإنهاء هذه الرباعية.
لكن، أذكر نفسي بأنه لم يعد هناك سوى جزء واحد متوسط لنعرف إلى ماذا ستؤول الأمور.
تمت
٢٩ سبتمبر ٢٠٢٢
May 15, 2020
تالت كتاب و اقدر اقول اني فهمت اسلب ميشيما و طريقته،دقيق جدا و شرح تفصيلي لكل حاجة و معلومات غزيرة عن العادات و المجتمع الياباني و البلاد المحيطة و الحروب االتي مرت على البلاد.
January 31, 2013
Promising first half, totally unengaging and banal second half. Really quite disappointed as the prose is incredible.
I had several issues with this book which I’m just going to list as bullet points for convenience’s sake:
Firstly I have to say that the one thing that I enjoyed about this book was its beautifully descriptive prose. The book is divided into two parts and I found part one to be a vivid travelogue of Bangkok and the Indian cities visited.
In part one which takes place pre-WWII, the main protagonist, Honda, becomes obsessed with buddhism in Thailand and India and the author devotes several chapters to in-depth explanations of buddhist philosophy. This could only possibly appeal to readers already curious about or interested in buddhism. However, as this is a work of fiction, the reader cannot expect this to be a factuallly authoratative guide to buddhism. Therefore as it cannot be considered as a stand-alone guide to the aspects of buddhist philosophy that it explores, the reader must assume that these profound discussions must be central to the narrative and characterisation.
However, upon returning to Japan, Honda seems to all extents and purposes to continue his everyday life apparently totally unconcerned by the buddhist philosophy with which he had just recently become so obsessed. I find this utterly insincere and unconvincing. Either the author has just wasted all that time and concentration that he forced the reader to devote to understanding part I, or Honda is one of literature’s most shallow characters.
There is practically no mention of the war. Part I is pre-war, part II is post-war, and the decade in between is entirely ignored. That is the author’s perogative but personally I was disappointed as I was expecting some mention of it, but it is conveniently skipped in a ten year leap between the two halves.
This book is the third of a tetralogy but struggled to throw off the encumbrances of previous characters and plots, making constant references that could not be understood unless the previous books had been read. For me, this undermined the ability of the book to be considered as a stand-alone work.
Part two is largely devoted to an awakening of Honda’s latent sexual desire and his obsession with an “exotic beauty” almost forty years his junior. This was not at all what I had been expecting after part one, and I found the two halves totally unconnected in terms of both tone and content. I found part two utterly banal and often distasteful (the plotting with his friends to help him seduce the young girl) and the ending absolutely ridiculous.
This book just did not work for me, and I can’t see myself reading any more Mishima any time soon.
I had several issues with this book which I’m just going to list as bullet points for convenience’s sake:
Firstly I have to say that the one thing that I enjoyed about this book was its beautifully descriptive prose. The book is divided into two parts and I found part one to be a vivid travelogue of Bangkok and the Indian cities visited.
In part one which takes place pre-WWII, the main protagonist, Honda, becomes obsessed with buddhism in Thailand and India and the author devotes several chapters to in-depth explanations of buddhist philosophy. This could only possibly appeal to readers already curious about or interested in buddhism. However, as this is a work of fiction, the reader cannot expect this to be a factuallly authoratative guide to buddhism. Therefore as it cannot be considered as a stand-alone guide to the aspects of buddhist philosophy that it explores, the reader must assume that these profound discussions must be central to the narrative and characterisation.
However, upon returning to Japan, Honda seems to all extents and purposes to continue his everyday life apparently totally unconcerned by the buddhist philosophy with which he had just recently become so obsessed. I find this utterly insincere and unconvincing. Either the author has just wasted all that time and concentration that he forced the reader to devote to understanding part I, or Honda is one of literature’s most shallow characters.
There is practically no mention of the war. Part I is pre-war, part II is post-war, and the decade in between is entirely ignored. That is the author’s perogative but personally I was disappointed as I was expecting some mention of it, but it is conveniently skipped in a ten year leap between the two halves.
This book is the third of a tetralogy but struggled to throw off the encumbrances of previous characters and plots, making constant references that could not be understood unless the previous books had been read. For me, this undermined the ability of the book to be considered as a stand-alone work.
Part two is largely devoted to an awakening of Honda’s latent sexual desire and his obsession with an “exotic beauty” almost forty years his junior. This was not at all what I had been expecting after part one, and I found the two halves totally unconnected in terms of both tone and content. I found part two utterly banal and often distasteful (the plotting with his friends to help him seduce the young girl) and the ending absolutely ridiculous.
This book just did not work for me, and I can’t see myself reading any more Mishima any time soon.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
October 23, 2018
Genelin aksine benim Bereket Denizi serisinde en sevdiğim kitap Şafak Tapınağı oldu. Özellikle Benares'in kaotik ortamıyla ilgili bölüm benim için tüm serinin nirvanası diyebilirim. Yazar bu bölümde bence kokuyu, karmaşayı ve dini aşırılıkları ;insanın bu ortama karşı hissettiği dehşetle karışık vecd halini çok güzel anlatmış. Ama Şafak Tapınağından çok hoşlanmayan okuyucuyuda anlayabiliyorum. Kitapta genel olarak bir ritim bozukluğu var. Yinede konu olarak birinci kitaptaki aşırı estetize edilmiş duygusal gel-gitlerden ya da ikinci kitaptaki idealize edilmiş soylu milliyetçilikten daha ilgi çekici geldi bana.
February 4, 2016
En el otro bolsillo, mi mano tropezó con el paquete de cigarrillos. Me puse a fumar. Me sentía con el espíritu de un hombre que, terminada su labor, echa un pitillo.
Quería vivir.
Lectura muy ardua, sobre todo la primera parte. ¿Cuántas páginas que parecen sacadas de un ensayo sobre las diferentes escuelas budistas del sudeste asiático y la India? ¿50, 100? Se me hicieron infintinas, por culpa de ellas interrumpí la lectura durante muchos días (y por culpa de ellas volví). Mishima tiene un motivo muy concreto a la hora de meter ese inmenso fragmento de ensayo sobre el budismo. Esto está ahí, porque es la época de la guerra. Hay una imposibilidad de narrar la guerra. Honda encerrado en su casa investigando las leyes de Manu y los ciclos de la reencarnación.
Mi parte favorita de todo el libro son los momentos en que lentamente el relato sobre el budismo –que viene explicando Honda- se empieza a fundir con las observaciones del Tokio devastado. Acá es donde se nota la sutileza estilística y la dignidad del autor: narra todo de tal forma que no es dramático, no busca la manipulación sentimental del lector. Unas semanas después del fin de la guerra, con muchas casas medio destruidas o quemadas hasta los cimientos, Honda se dirige caminando hacia el barrio donde estaba la casona de Kiyoaki. Ahora, por supuesto, de esa casona ya no queda nada. Cuando se va acercando y rememorando la vieja construcción, donde solía estar el lago, etc., ve a una mujer sentada de espaldas. Al principio cree que es una mujer de unos 35 años. Pero no; es Tadeshina. Tiene 92 años. Hablan del pasado. Honda la ve muy maltrecha y le regala un huevo crudo, que ella se come inmediatamente. Esto. Este momento en que leo sobre esa vieja decrépita que se pone las mejores ropas y se maquilla para volver a un lugar donde hace muchos años era poco más que criada… creo que es uno de los momentos más memorables de toda la literatura japonesa que he leído.
Después del encuentro con Tadeshina la novela agarra otro ritmo, por momentos se vuelve muy explícita y repetitiva con respecto a las intenciones de los personajes. Mishima es un autor que me desconcierta en muchos aspectos, todo el tiempo se entrega furiosa y obsesivamente tanto a la descripción sutil y poética, o a la cruel y desconcertante.
Luego aparece la influencia/contaminación de Bataille (muchos párrafos parecen calcados de El Erotismo), también del Tanizaki que escribe sobre matrimonios perversos. Se da el lujo de recrear dos obras anteriores suyas; una novela y un cuento (no diré cuales porque son relevantes para el desenlace). Honda es la reencarnación de un prototipo de héroe mishimiano muy particular, el héroe que en principio busca lo apolíneo. Quienes lean esta novela sabrán que no uso esta palabra en vano.
March 26, 2023
As advertised, this was a disappointing step down from the first two parts of The Sea of Fertility, which together comprise two halves of an object you might reasonably describe as a Great Book. This surprises me. The series was always conceived as a tetralogy of four parts from its outset and so I’d therefore assumed it would map out as a roughly balanced quartet, with each part equally integral to Mishima’s master vision; however, The Temple of Dawn can’t help but feel like an extended bonus extra, like Mishima saying And here’s one more thing…
It seems he already said most of what he really needed to say by this point and, lacking the life force-like urgency of the earlier instalments, the book’s material doesn’t soar like it should. There are things which make it worth the time: Mishima’s writing is always fascinating (even if there are notably fewer instances of poetic quotes in this book than most other Mishima); there’s also the usual intriguing concoction of sinister weirdness, creepy eroticism (among other peculiarities, WTF was that thing with the foot?), and stunning descriptions of nature; and, finally, Mishima’s steady conveyance of the passage of time through the war years is historically very interesting. But, although Kiyoake’s permutation in this book held a lot of possibilities, “Ying Chan” remains uninteresting right to her story’s anticlimactic close. The detailed and lengthy digressions into reincarnation don’t work either; they would be interesting at the right time and place, but in a novel which has pacing issues already, devoting so much of its page count to non-fiction on topics the reader isn’t necessarily invested in, isn’t really a sensible move.
This is a fundamentally uneven novel which doesn’t quite add up to the sum of its parts, and which has an ending that doesn’t quite work. It’s also shorter than the first two books by some margin yet still feels long for the amount of worthwhile material inside its 330 pages, the last 150 of which really began to drag.
It seems he already said most of what he really needed to say by this point and, lacking the life force-like urgency of the earlier instalments, the book’s material doesn’t soar like it should. There are things which make it worth the time: Mishima’s writing is always fascinating (even if there are notably fewer instances of poetic quotes in this book than most other Mishima); there’s also the usual intriguing concoction of sinister weirdness, creepy eroticism (among other peculiarities, WTF was that thing with the foot?), and stunning descriptions of nature; and, finally, Mishima’s steady conveyance of the passage of time through the war years is historically very interesting. But, although Kiyoake’s permutation in this book held a lot of possibilities, “Ying Chan” remains uninteresting right to her story’s anticlimactic close. The detailed and lengthy digressions into reincarnation don’t work either; they would be interesting at the right time and place, but in a novel which has pacing issues already, devoting so much of its page count to non-fiction on topics the reader isn’t necessarily invested in, isn’t really a sensible move.
This is a fundamentally uneven novel which doesn’t quite add up to the sum of its parts, and which has an ending that doesn’t quite work. It’s also shorter than the first two books by some margin yet still feels long for the amount of worthwhile material inside its 330 pages, the last 150 of which really began to drag.
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