VINTAGE JAPANESE CLASSICS - following on from the success of Vintage Russian Classics and European Classics, these are covetable new editions of the best Japanese writers on the Vintage list
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 short stories and
thirty-three plays, in some of which he acted. 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 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 forty-five.
Mishima's greatest novel, and one of the greatest of the past
century
*The Times*
Explores the viciousness that lies beneath what we imagine to be
innocence
*Independent*
Told with Mishima's fierce attention to naturalistic detail, the
grisly tale becomes painfully convincing and yields a richness of
psychological and mythic truth
*Sunday Times*
Coolly exact with his characters and their honourable motives. His
aim is to make the destruction of the sailor by his love seem as
inevitable as the ocean
*Guardian*
|
Ask a Question About this Product More... |
|
