The Life and Death of Yukio Mishima

334 Pages·1974·5.27 MB·English

by  Henry Scott Stokes

The Life and Death
of YUKIO MISHIMA
Photo: UPI
The Life and Death
of YUKIO MISHIMA
Henry Scott Stokes
First Cooper Square Press edition 2000
This Cooper Square Press paperback edition of The Life and Death of Yukio Mishima is an
unabridged republication of the edition published in New York in 1995. It is reprinted by
arrangement with Farrar, Straus & Giroux, Inc.
Copyright © 1974, 1995, and 1999 by Henry Scott Stokes
Designed by Paula Wiener
Grateful acknowledgment is extended to Alfred A. Knopf, Inc., for permission to quote
from their copyrighted translations of the works of Yukio Mishima.
We are also grateful to New Directions Publishing Corporation for permission to quote
from two works by Yukio Mishima, Death in Midsummer and Other Stories, copyright ©
1966 by New Directions Publishing Corporation; reprinted by permission of New
Directions Publishing Corporation. Yukio Mishima, Confessions of a Mask, translated by
Meredith Weatherby, copyright © 1958 by New Directions Publishing Corporation;
reprinted by permission of New Directions Publishing Corporation.
Grateful acknowledgment is also extended to Kodansha International Ltd for permission to
quote from their copyrighted translation by John Bester of Yukio Mishima’s Sun and Steel,
and from Landscapes and Portraits by Donald Keene.
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical
means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission
from the publisher, except by a reviewer who may quote passages in a review.
Published by Cooper Square Press
An Imprint of the Rowman & Littlefield Publishing Group
150 Fifth Avenue, Suite 911
New York, New York 10011
Distributed by National Book Network
ISBN 0-8154-1074-3
The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of American
National Standard for Information Sciences—Permanence of Paper for Printed Library
Materials, ANSI/NISO Z39.48–1992. Manufactured in the United States of America.
For Gilbert de Botton
CONTENTS
Prologue
A Personal Impression
ONE
The Last Day
1 Off to the Parade
2 The Fight in the General’s Office
3 Tennō Heika Banzai!
4 Hara-kiri
5 “Out of His Mind”
TWO
Early Life (1925–39)
1 The Chrysanthemum and the Sword
2 Birth
3 Fairy Tales and Fantasies
4 School and Adolescence
THREE
The Making of Yukio Mishima (1940–49)
1 Child of Ancient History
2 The “Irony” of It All
3 Fearful Days
4 Kawabata’s Protégé
FOUR
The Four Rivers (1950–70)
1 Pictures at an Exhibition
2 The River of Writing
Part One 1950–54
Part Two 1955–63
Part Three 1964–70
3 The River of Theater
4 The River of Body
5 The River of Action
Part One “Patriotism”
Part Two Picnic on Mt. Fuji
Part Three Sauna Baths and Secrecy
Part Four The Decay of the Angel
FIVE
Epilogue (1995–99)
Glossary
Chronology
Acknowledgments and Sources
Bibliography
Index
Illustrations
Beauty, beautiful things, those are now my most deadly enemies.
Yukio Mishima, The Temple of the Golden Pavilion
The Life and Death
of YUKIO MISHIMA