The Decay of the Angel

Author:   Yukio Mishima
Publisher:   Vintage Publishing
ISBN:  

9780099284574


Pages:   256
Publication Date:   01 February 2001
Recommended Age:   From 0 years
Format:   Paperback
Availability:   To order   Availability explained
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The Decay of the Angel


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Overview

The fourth and final book in Mishima's landmark tetralogy, The Sea of Fertility The dramatic climax of The Sea of Fertility tetraology takes place in the late 1960s. Honda, now an aged and wealthy man, discovers and adopts a sixteen-year-old orphan, Toru, as his heir, identifying him with the tragic protagonists of the three previous novels, each of whom died at the age of twenty. Honda raises and educates the boy, yet watches him, waiting.

Full Product Details

Author:   Yukio Mishima
Publisher:   Vintage Publishing
Imprint:   Vintage Classics
Dimensions:   Width: 12.90cm , Height: 1.60cm , Length: 19.80cm
Weight:   0.181kg
ISBN:  

9780099284574


ISBN 10:   009928457
Pages:   256
Publication Date:   01 February 2001
Recommended Age:   From 0 years
Audience:   General/trade ,  General
Format:   Paperback
Publisher's Status:   Active
Availability:   To order   Availability explained
Stock availability from the supplier is unknown. We will order it for you and ship this item to you once it is received by us.

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Reviews

A major literary creation * New York Times * 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 * One of the great writers of the twentieth century * Los Angeles Times * Japan's foremost man of letters * Spectator * Mishima's novels exude a monstrous and compulsive weirdness, and seem to take place in a kind of purgatory for the depraved -- Angela Carter


In this final part of Mishima's tetralogy, Honda has become a rich old lawyer sustained by his lesbian friend Keiko, whose shallow dabbling in Japanese antiquity Mishima mocks as a failure to reach the dark blood spring of the empire's roots. Honda is impotent from beginning to end, though he finds spasms of joy in control - one of Mishima's preoccupations - of a young man, Toru, who Honda thinks may be one of the chosen, a tribe of beautiful and fierce people mystically marked to die at 20. Instead of dying, Tom becomes blind and inert; Honda finds an eerie extinction in an abbey. A lore of angels - sentient, superior, but mortal beings - permeates the book, along with Mishima's cult of the body and muted throughts about suicide. Toru's inhumanity and utter selfishness is what draws Honda to him: a workerless factory, polished to a perfection of utter bleakness, Honda's mature self-awareness in juvenile form. Mishima killed himself in 1970 at the age of 45, the morning he wrote the last word of this book. The title of the tetralogy, The Sea of Fertility, betokens the dead sea of the moon, said Mishima, and superimposes the image of cosmic nihilism. Fastidiously, distantly written, conscious of its atmosphere of evil, the book ends with a device, as the abbess tells Honda that perhaps sixty years of his life did not exist. A better key to Mishima is found in the young man's diary - I have put together a delicate machine for feeling how it would be if I were to feel like a human being. (Kirkus Reviews)


A major literary creation New York Times 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 One of the great writers of the twentieth century Los Angeles Times Japan's foremost man of letters Spectator Mishima's novels exude a monstrous and compulsive weirdness, and seem to take place in a kind of purgatory for the depraved -- Angela Carter


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. 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 November 25th, 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 45.

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