Spring Snow

The last book that I finished was Spring Snow, It was a pretty good book. It's by Yukio Mishima who was a relatively famous Japanese author and playwright. Spring snow is actually the first book in a 4 part series (tetralogy) entitled The Sea of Fertility.

On the day that Mishima completed the last in the tetralogy he led a failed coup against the government in an attempt to re-instate the Japanese Monarchy. Once he realised that the attempt failed he commited ritual suicide.

Here is what Gore Vidal had to say about it:

"Telling Bobby Kennedy to go fuck himself at the White House, is trivial indeed when compared to the high drama of cutting oneself open with a dagger and then submitting to decapitation before the army's chief of staff."

So there you have it, now about the book. The book is basicaly an allegory about Japan, or Mishima's dream of Japan. On the surface the book is about the forbidden love (so forbidden that the love didn't exist before it was forbidden, or did it?)between Kiyoaki and Satoko.

Overall I enjoyed the book, although I do think that some information was lost in the translation, as it always is. Mishima is a very descriptive author who likes to describe a scene in detail using very poetic terms. Whether or not this is/was a Japanese style I do not know. Aparently Mishima chose to mimic the style of 18th century English literature so I guess not.

You can check out this site here for a better/more detailed description of the book, but beware that the link does contain some spoilers.

So my suggestion is that if you want to read some Japanese literature this is a pretty good place to start.