Star by Yukio Mishima (A review and give-away for the Japanese Literature Challenge 12)

“Not once had I been able to forget so entirely that a town was all hollow, all facades and make believe.”

Rikio Mizuno is a star, playing the leading role of a yakuza, followed by screaming young girls he cares nothing about.

I was exhausted. The girls could scream their way to hell for all I cared. Their shrill voices splashed over me like rancid oil. If only I could line them up and march them all into the mouth of an incinerator. (p. 22)

This jaded attitude is shocking from a 23 year old, just turning 24, who knows that real stars never attend a party even if its for their own birthdays.

It’s better for a star never to be around. No matter how strict the obligation, a star is more of a star if he never arrives. The question of whether he’ll show up gives the event a ceaseless undercurrent of suspense. But a true star never shows. (p. 27)

As I read, I found myself rereading paragraphs several times over, sensing that Rikio was speaking about the set as well as real life. The two seemed intertwined, almost indistinguishable from one another

I was no longer on a set, but in an undeniable reality, a layer inside the strata of my memory. (p. 34)

Over and over again, we are pointed to the isolation he feels. Certainly being a star does not bring the fulfillment he desires.

It’s useless trying to explain what it feels like in the spotlight. The very thing that makes a star worth watching is the same thing that strikes him from the world at large and makes him an outsider. (p. 47)

When the American Academy of Awards displayed the stars hoping to win an Oscar Award on February 24, 2019, I remained largely as unimpressed as I ever have been. Their empty world of facades and images means nothing to me. What is a star more than a flawed character filled with desparation at living for fame?

It’s become a tradition for me to pin up the life-size poster from my current project right inside the front door. That way every night when I get home I’m the first one there to greet me.

The self adoration is so ridden with loneliness it’s heartbreaking.

Written shortly after Yukio Mishima himself had acted in the film “”Afraid to Die,” this novella is a rich and unflinching psychological portrait of a celebrity coming apart at the seams. With exquisite, vivid prose, Star begs the question: is there any escape from how we are seen by others? (back cover)

An even more important question may be, “Is there any escape for a star to care about how he is seen by others?” Because one of the most freeing things in the world is to be fully secure in oneself, secure enough that it doesn’t matter what opinions others may hold.

I found this novella very piercing, one which had me pausing every few pages to ponder the subject of stardom, weighing it against the values I hold dear. It is one of the books for which I am hosting a give-away. If you would like to enter, leave a comment with your opinion on what it means to be a star. I will announce the winner a week from Sunday, March 17, 2019.

Japanese Literature Challenge 12

Several dear blog friends have inquired about hosting another Japanese Literature Challenge, which touches me as it is an interest for which my heart never wants to let go. In the previous eleven years, I have run it from June to January, but now I am beginning with January and ending in March. I think we should have at least three months in which to indulge this passion, especially as I believe that Frances and I spoke of reading The Pillow Book in February.

There will be give-aways during the challenge, which I will send internationally. One of them is the advanced reading copy I have of Mishima’s book Star which will be published by New Directions Publishing April 30, 2019. Another is a book I have from nyrb entitled The Gate by Natsume Soseki. I will also give away a copy of The Emissary by Yoko Tawada which recently won the 2018 National Book Award for Translated Literature. Of course, what would a Japanese Literature Challenge by without Haruki Murakami? I will give away a Vintage Mini copy of his book, Desire, in which the “five weird and wonderful tales collected here each unlock the many-tongued language of desire, whether it takes the form of hunger, lust, sudden infatuation or the secret longings of the heart.” (back cover)

Since blogging has expanded into other social platforms, let’s use #JLC12 on Twitter or Instagram. And if you’ll leave a comment here, on this post, I will publish a weekly update including the book(s) you read and a link to your post if you wrote one.

So please, join The Reading Life, Graasland, Reading The World, Terri Talks Books, Tredynas Days, and me in this year’s Japanese Literature Challenge 12. I am eager to begin.

Of Wych Elms, Shiny Bells and a Star (Thoughts on Tana French’s latest, Henny’s color-along, and Yukio Mishima’s book coming in April)

It took me three weeks to finish Tana French’s The Witch Elm, partly because I’ve been quite distracted this Fall and Winter, and partly because I found it quite long. In between reading chapters about Toby and his cousins, and detective Rafferty’s exploration behind the finding of a body in the wych elm of their uncle’s garden, I have been coloring.

In particular, I have been enjoying Henny’s Christmas color-along of Shiny Bells on YouTube. The template was only $1.75, and she has been putting up daily tutorials here. I figure if more people come to see the origami pages I have published, than the thoughts I have on books, it can do no harm to post a few thoughts on colored pencil. While my drawing only vaguely resembles hers, it is great fun to follow along and learn what she has to say about shading and blending.

I found myself comparing The Witch Elm to Donna Tartt’s The Secret History, one of my favorite novels. They are similar in that both authors create such an atmospheric mood, while bringing their characters to life. The Witch Elm was less than a mystery, I think, than an exploration of relationships, as well as the way that Toby had to manage a series of consequences that had deadly results. I liked it until the end, where I must absorb Toby’s new nature. Or, perhaps it was the nature he had within him all along.

In other news, I am ready to begin two new novels by Yukio Mishima.

One is entitled The Frolic of The Beasts. The other was send to me by New Directions Publishing, entitled Star which will be published April 30, 2019. It is described as such: “For the first time in English, a glittering novella about stardom from “one of the greatest avant-garde Japanese writers of the twentieth century” (Judith Thurman, The New Yorker)

My passion for Japanese literature never wans, and I will be sure to post some thoughts on these as soon as I have read them in case you would be interested in picking them up as well.

I’ve Been Missing Japanese Literature So Much of Late…Coming Soon: Japanese Literature Challenge 9

As June approaches, so my thoughts turn to Japanese literature. For that is when I typically begin the Japanese Literature Challenge which runs through January. I wondered how I would make it fresh this year, but my friend Parrish Lantern felt that it needs no added incentive; reading Japanese Literature is its own reward. For those of us who love it, that is surely so.

But, I’ve been reading Jacqui‘s, and MarinaSofia‘s, posts concerning their #TBR20 (stack of twenty books waiting to be read), and I realized I’d like to do the same with my own stack of Japanese literature. It has accumulated to double stacked shelves, since the first Japanese Literature Challenge begun in 2006, and now I plan to read these books for the ninth Japanese Literature Challenge this year:

I Haven’t Dreamed of Flying For Awhile by Taichi Yamada (purchased because I loved Strangers so much);

Evil and The Mask and Last Winter We Parted by Fuminori Nakamura (because I loved The Thief so much);

The Tattoo Murder Case and Honeymoon to NoWhere (because I’ve not read anything by Akimitsu Takagi before);

Asleep and The Lake by Banana Yoshimoto (because a dear friend bought me Asleep when she heard how much I enjoyed Kitchen, and I was sent a first edition of The Lake years ago);

South of the Border, West of The Sun, After the Quake,and Sputnik Sweetheart by Haruki Murakami (because those are the only three books left that I haven’t read of all he’s written);

Spring Snow and Runaway Horses by Yukio Mashima (because they are books 1 and 2 of his Sea of Fertility series);

The Decay of the Angel and The Temple of Dawn by Yukio Mishima (because they are books 3 and 4 of the Sea of Fertility series);

Nocturnes and Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro, as well as:

A Pale View of Hills and The Buried Giant by Kazuo Ishiguro (because the only book I’ve read by him is The Remains of The Day)

Naomi and Seven Japanese Tales by Junichiro Tanizaki (because I’ve not yet read anything by him, and the Tanizaki Prize is one of the most sought-after writing awards in Japan).

~o0o~

Soon the Japanese Literature Challenge 9 will begin. The review site is here, where those who wish to participate can leave links to their reviews. As a reminder, the challenge runs from June, 2015 until January, 2016, and all you “have” to do is read at least one work of Japanese Literature.

The review site has a page called Suggested Reading in case you’re looking for further titles. However, if anyone wishes to read any of the books I have listed above, I would love to have a shared read together. Just let me know.

I hope you are as eager to begin as I, and remember these famous words from Haruki Murakami: “Whatever it is you’re seeking won’t come in the form you’re expecting.”

We will hold ourselves wide open to possibility.

The Temple of The Golden Pavilion

I have come to a piece of Japanese literature I don’t like very much. Mishima has long been praised as a beloved author, but I wonder what I’m missing…

The Temple of The Golden Pavilion “won an important literary prize in Japan, sold over 300,000 copies, and was made into a successful modern play.” (from the introduction by Nancy Ross) It tells the story of a young man’s obsession with The Golden Temple and his consequent destruction of it.

Mishima points out interesting ideas on the concept of beauty along the way, while also writing about the pathology of someone who is ugly and outcast. Our protagonist has a terrible stutter, his closest friend has club feet, neither are physically strong let alone emotionally. I respect them not at all, nor do I feel much compassion for their plight. They are too cynical, too self-absorbed, too destructive to warrant much worth.

These quotes are the ones which struck me most forcibly. They give me something to ponder while I’m wondering at the fame of this novel:

When people concentrate on the idea of beauty, they are, without realizing it, confronted with the darkest thoughts that exist in this world. That, I suppose, is how human beings are made. (p. 48)

To see human beings in agony, to see them covered in blood and to hear their death groans, makes people humble. It makes their spirits delicate, bright, peaceful. It’s never at such times that we become cruel or bloodthirsty. No, it’s on a beautiful spring afternoon like this that people suddenly become cruel. (p. 106)

I was there alone, and the Golden Temple-the absolute, positive Golden Temple-had enveloped me. Did I possess the temple, or was I possessed by it? Or would it not be more correct to say that a strange balance had come into being at that moment, a balance which would allow me to be the Golden Temple and the Golden Temple to be me? (p. 131)

Later when I came to know Kashiwagi more intimately, I understood that he disliked lasting beauty. His likings were limited to things such as music, which vanished instantly, or flower arrangements, which faded in a matter of days; he loathed architecture and literature. Clearly he would never think of visiting the Golden Temple except on a moonlit night like this. (p. 139)

Perhaps it is because I know so little of Japan’s culture, of the conformity which I understand is almost required of its citizens, that I cannot fully appreciate this novel. To me, it was simply a sad story of a stutterer who could not find peace within himself or the world, who could not live in the shadow of the temple’s great beauty.

I read this novel as a read-along with Tanabata of In Spring It Is The Dawn.