Overview

The second novel in Mishima's masterful Sea of Fertility tetraology Read this classic exploration of political violence, traditional samurai values and right wing nihilism. Isao is a young, engaging patriot, and a fanatical believer in the ancient samurai ethos. He turns terrorist, organising a violent plot against the new industrialists, who he believes are threatening the integrity of Japan and usurping the Emperor's rightful power. As the conspiracy unfolds and unravels, Mishima brilliantly chronicles the conflicts of a decade that saw the fabric of Japanese life torn apart.

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9780099282891

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In Runaway Horses Mishima writes of a desire to destroy or subvert beauty at its height, thus strengthening its appeal and preventing its slow decay New York Times One of the great writers of the twentieth century Los Angeles Times Mishima's novels exude a monstrous and compulsive weirdness, and seem to take place in a kind of purgatory for the depraved -- Angela Carter This tetralogy is considered one of Yukio Mishima's greatest works. It could also be considered a catalogue of Mishima's obsessions with death, sexuality and the samurai ethic. Spanning much of the 20th century, the tetralogy begins in 1912 when Shigekuni Honda is a young man and ends in the 1960s with Honda old and unable to distinguish reality from illusion. En route, the books chronicle the changes in Japan that meant the devaluation of the samurai tradition and the waning of the aristocracy Washington Post Mishima succeeded, unlike any other writer before him, in creating a glittering alloy of Eastern and Western traditions, classical and contemporary forms New York Times

In Runaway Horses Mishima writes of a desire to destroy or subvert beauty at its height, thus strengthening its appeal and preventing its slow decay * New York Times * One of the great writers of the twentieth century * Los Angeles Times * Mishima's novels exude a monstrous and compulsive weirdness, and seem to take place in a kind of purgatory for the depraved This tetralogy is considered one of Yukio Mishima's greatest works. It could also be considered a catalogue of Mishima's obsessions with death, sexuality and the samurai ethic. Spanning much of the 20th century, the tetralogy begins in 1912 when Shigekuni Honda is a young man and ends in the 1960s with Honda old and unable to distinguish reality from illusion. En route, the books chronicle the changes in Japan that meant the devaluation of the samurai tradition and the waning of the aristocracy * Washington Post * Mishima succeeded, unlike any other writer before him, in creating a glittering alloy of Eastern and Western traditions, classical and contemporary forms * New York Times *

This is the second volume of Mishima's tetralogy (cf. Spring Snow, 1972) - his most ambitious if intellectually unadventurous work - representative not only of Japan but also of Mishima's burnished samurai code. Here, as throughout his life and as in the earlier book, he is more than half in love with that easeful death which he ennobles - With death, all is purified while suicide becomes something bright and luxurious. How final it may be becomes conjectural since the handsome young man of Spring Snow who died at its close is now reincarnated, 18 years later, in the impetuous idealist Isao (although this work is supposed to convey many of the religious and philosophic concepts of the East, we are given relatively little, on a superficial level). The story too is equally simple and accessible dealing with Isao's small group of youthful insurgents who will attempt to bring back a Meiji Restoration government (these are the '30's), each killing a prominent figure at this time when the military and the politicians are debasing and exploiting the country. Most evil of all is Kurahara who has perhaps backed his father's Academy of Patriotism and at the close, after the initial attempt has been aborted by Isao's father's betrayal, Isao goes on alone to effect his killing since To know and not to act is not yet to know. As a novel, this still has to bear the burden of its old-fashioned explicitness and sentimental self-indulgence; one reads it not as an imaginative experience but as a replica of a society through the eyes of one of its supreme elitists. (Kirkus Reviews)

In Runaway Horses Mishima writes of a desire to destroy or subvert beauty at its height, thus strengthening its appeal and preventing its slow decay * New York Times * One of the great writers of the twentieth century * Los Angeles Times * Mishima's novels exude a monstrous and compulsive weirdness, and seem to take place in a kind of purgatory for the depraved -- Angela Carter This tetralogy is considered one of Yukio Mishima's greatest works. It could also be considered a catalogue of Mishima's obsessions with death, sexuality and the samurai ethic. Spanning much of the 20th century, the tetralogy begins in 1912 when Shigekuni Honda is a young man and ends in the 1960s with Honda old and unable to distinguish reality from illusion. En route, the books chronicle the changes in Japan that meant the devaluation of the samurai tradition and the waning of the aristocracy * Washington Post * Mishima succeeded, unlike any other writer before him, in creating a glittering alloy of Eastern and Western traditions, classical and contemporary forms * New York Times *

Author Information

Yukio Mishima was born into a samurai family and imbued with the code of complete control over mind and body, and loyalty to the Emperor - the same code that produced the austerity and self-sacrifice of Zen. He wrote countless stories and thirty-three plays, in some of which he performed. Several films have been made from his novels, including The Sound of Waves, Enjo which was based on The Temple of the Golden Pavilion and The Sailor Who Fell From Grace with the Sea. Among his other works are the novels Confessions of a Mask and Thirst for Love and the short story collections Death in Midsummer and Acts of Worship. The Sea of Fertility tetralogy, however, is his masterpiece. After Mishima conceived the idea of The Sea of Fertility in 1964, he frequently said he would die when it was completed. On 25 November 1970, the day he completed The Decay of the Angel, the last novel of the cycle, Mishima committed seppuku (ritual suicide) at the age of forty-five.

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