Yukio Mishima in English

One finds the most unexpected things online, such as this clip apparently combining several interviews conducted in English with Yukio Mishima. As one might expect of such a brilliant mind - and contrary to national stereotype - Mishima's English is excellent, and his grammar nearly perfect, despite his never having lived in an English speaking country for years on end.

As you can see from watching the clip, Mishima's life-long pre-occupation with militarism and aestheticized violence - and especially with death through suicide - shine through very clearly, with the stated political goals being quite obviously nothing more than a thin rationalization for impulses of an essentially erotic origin, a fact Mishima pretty much admits himself at the end (indeed, this much should be obvious to anyone who's read Mishima's early novel　「仮面の告白」 aka "Confessions of a Mask"). It's a shame that a guy so talented should have allowed his erotic obsession with violent death to get the better of him in the end, though admittedly the brilliant writings probably wouldn't have been forthcoming without the nihilistic fetishes to serve as their impetus. In any case, at least it can be said on Mishima's behalf that he confined the victims of his violent urges to his own person, which is more than any number of much less talented people with similar desires can boast.

[Via FG.]

Comments

[Cobb]

I very much identify with Mishima in the context for his desire, in the wake of their defeat and during their Westernization, to seek the unity of pen and sword. It was an extraordinary frustration to my upbringing in a Black Nationalist tradition to see the collapse of the realization and momentum while the rhetoric was still being spoken.

I saw in Mishima the longing for a complete discipline, one of honor and of beauty, one in which presence of mind and bearing were absolutely wed to a sense of nation, and of duty to it. That in the appreciation of the person, one could see the honor of the country - something a humiliated society refused to bear.

Now that I think of it in retrospect, his own suicide is reminiscent of the death of John Brown, another whose disappointment in his nation grew so complete as to put him on an inevitably deadly course.

[mueckeh]

Hello,
my kindest regards to you (blog*s author). It seems that we use nearly the same design - I like the unpretentiousness and the blue-grey colour. I came to attention to your blog (and this article) by google alert.
The "about me" text is very short, at least I should like to know where you are living and which your main language is ...
Mine is German and I am living in Hannover /Germany, but Norwegian mother and very much interested in other cultures and languages ...
I named my blog with cultural subjects kultur.typepad.com
which is rather bold - of course I cannot represent the whole culture ... (but on the other side good quality culture has to struggle more and more, so any support is worth the while).
You find my E-Mail-address on the blog (left bar).
Kind regards again - Helge Mücke