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Mishima in the Twenty First Century

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Re: Mishima in the Twenty First Century

#11

Post by howlgarnish »

So here's the thing: it's fairly clear that Mishima did not "die for his cause", or in fact have any expectation that his thoroughly half-assed coup would succeed. For one, there was no plan whatsoever for what they would have done next had the troops they addressed actually joined the putative rebellion.

Mishima had precisely one objective: to die like his own ideal of a warrior, at the peak of his physical prowess. And I know that sounds weird, but if you read his books, every single one harps on this theme almost obsessively, in particular his final "Sea of Fertility" tetralogy. He was born a sickly misfit, but he spent a good portion of his adult life bodybuilding and practicing martial arts to perfect his body, so he could die the perfect death. Fetishistic? Absolutely. Political? Not really.

Re: Mishima in the Twenty First Century

#12

Post by [deleted] »

howlgarnish wrote: post #11

So here's the thing: it's fairly clear that Mishima did not "die for his cause", or in fact have any expectation that his thoroughly half-assed coup would succeed. For one, there was no plan whatsoever for what they would have done next had the troops they addressed actually joined the putative rebellion. Mishima had precisely one objective: to die like his own ideal of a warrior, at the peak of his physical prowess.…

[deleted]

Re: Mishima in the Twenty First Century

#13

Post by axegon_ »

I think I was 12 or 13 when I stumbled upon The Temple of the Golden Pavilion. Till this day is easily in my top 10 favourite books. And oddly enough almost 20 years later the same copy is sitting right besides me on the shelf. I am very interested in getting a copy in another language and reading it just to see how I feel about it(sadly Japanese is out of the question): I've been surprised how different books feel in different languages. On the subject of Mishima, his biography really shocked me when I first read it. Most notably how the book and his life ended - incredibly similar, yet incredibly different. It's really hard to describe it but for anyone who hasn't read the book, I highly recommend it.

Re: Mishima in the Twenty First Century

#14

Post by bsenftner »

NullInvictus wrote: post #7

Maybe it's a vast over-simplification as the article notes, but you cannot get away from the fact that what Mishima did was carry out a right-wing reactionary attempt to incite a military coup against a democratically elected government over what was essentially a culture war. The kind of person who looks romantically at that disgusts me. we need a Mishima? By all means, be the first to spill your guts and call for a…

As I scan the comments, you're one of the few talking sense.

I'm a serious literature head. Mishima lives in a world that creates itself and then tries to impose that desired world on reality, dressing the entire essay in narrative poetry, like a ninja assassin he seeds poisonous concepts disguised as flowers in his readers heads. But their mental soil has none of the fertility of his mind, so they die in his fans, but his fans have fallen in love with his narrative poetry and that is what they cling.

Re: Mishima in the Twenty First Century

#15

Post by claudeganon »

ur-whale wrote: post #10
NullInvictus wrote: post #7

Maybe it's a vast over-simplification as the article notes, but you cannot get away from the fact that what Mishima did was carry out a right-wing reactionary attempt to incite a military coup against a democratically elected government over what was essentially a culture war. The kind of person who looks romantically at that disgusts me. we need a Mishima? By all means, be the first to spill your guts and call for a…

> against a democratically elected government I believe calling the Japanese government of that era "democratically elected" is a bit of a stretch if you consider that the exact same party stayed in power from the mid-fifties to the mid-nineties [1] For a long while after the war, Japanese politics were essentially controlled by the west, something Mishima and many like him - quite understandbly - resented deeply. [1…

Both you and the parent are correct however. The LDP was a wholesale construction by the US, including being proved massive financing and intelligence operations conducted against their opponents. But it was also comprised of former war criminals and members of the fascist regime that led the country into the war that Mishima glorified in the first place.

Having read most of his books and a few biographies, the animating factors behind his politics were a sadism derived from years of abuse at the hands of his family and a self-hatred driven by the homophobia of his time and his failure to be conscripted. There’s very little well-though out critique of any of Japan’s political circumstances in his work. Instead, it’s largely just an appeal to theatricism and violence that he thought would rid him of these feeling of shame.

Re: Mishima in the Twenty First Century

#16

Post by kthxbye123 »

Ideologically, politically and aesthetically Mishima was clearly a dead end, but I’ve always found him of minor interest because his aesthetic was so clearly Westernized in a way that earlier strains of Japanese fascism weren’t. The campy, macho-hysterical aesthetic elements that have been present in western far-right movements from D’Annunzio to Trump weren’t really present in the prewar Japanese military government, but Mishima was really almost their apotheosis. It’s kind of ironic - rather than being a throwback to a pure strain of Japanese masculine identity, he was really a syncretist.

Re: Mishima in the Twenty First Century

#17

Post by pmoriarty »

motohagiography wrote: post #9

Philip Glass' soundtrack to the 80's film Mishima has become one of my favourite albums. The "Mishima VI, Closing" piece is some of his best work. The author's final observation, "Perhaps we need a Mishima to shock us out of our complacency." is something he should be careful about wishing for. (Though the idea of Ian McEwan storming a military base was very funny, I thought Stephen Fry would be even better equipped.…

I'd highly recommend the film you mention, Paul Schrader's Mishima[1] to anyone, not just those interested in the author, though of course especially them. It's one of the most beautiful films I've ever seen, and Philip Glass' music (which I agree is some of his best work) just makes it that much better.

[1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mishima:_A_Life_in_Four_Chapte...

Re: Mishima in the Twenty First Century

#18

Post by disown »

ctchocula wrote: post #5

The conclusion made in this article resonates with a point made by George Orwell in his 1940 review of Mein Kampf that has never ceased to fascinate me: "Also [Hitler] has grasped the falsity of the hedonistic attitude to life. Nearly all western thought since the last war, certainly all ‘progressive’ thought, has assumed tacitly that human beings desire nothing beyond ease, security and avoidance of pain. In such a…

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Re: Mishima in the Twenty First Century

#19

Post by Animats »

howlgarnish wrote: post #11

So here's the thing: it's fairly clear that Mishima did not "die for his cause", or in fact have any expectation that his thoroughly half-assed coup would succeed. For one, there was no plan whatsoever for what they would have done next had the troops they addressed actually joined the putative rebellion. Mishima had precisely one objective: to die like his own ideal of a warrior, at the peak of his physical prowess.…

For background, see the attempted coup of 1936[1], and the Imperial Way Faction.[2] Those were more serious attempts at a coup along much the same lines.

1970 was a bit late to be pushing "Glory or Death".

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/February_26_Incident

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Imperial_Way_Faction

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