{"id":30709,"date":"2013-06-23T19:34:46","date_gmt":"2013-06-23T23:34:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/jetwit.com\/wordpress\/?p=30709"},"modified":"2013-06-23T20:21:04","modified_gmt":"2013-06-24T00:21:04","slug":"jq-magazine-book-review-persona-and-the-muddy-dark-spiritualism-of-yukio-mishima","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/jetwit.com\/wordpress\/2013\/06\/23\/jq-magazine-book-review-persona-and-the-muddy-dark-spiritualism-of-yukio-mishima\/","title":{"rendered":"JQ Magazine: Book Review \u2013 \u2018Persona\u2019 and the Muddy, Dark Spiritualism of Yukio Mishima"},"content":{"rendered":"
\""Starting<\/a>

“Starting with an almost psychoanalytic exploration of Mishima’s childhood and on to the evolution of his sexuality, political beliefs and varied artistic influences, Persona<\/em> tries as much as possible to demystify the man himself and his personal contradictions.” (Stone Bridge Press)<\/p><\/div>\n

By\u00a0<\/b><\/em>Sharona Moskowitz<\/b><\/em><\/a>\u00a0(<\/strong>Fukuoka-ken<\/b><\/em><\/a>,<\/strong>\u00a02000-01) for\u00a0<\/b><\/em>JQ<\/strong>\u00a0magazine<\/b><\/em><\/a>. Sharona is interested in fresh, new voices in fiction and creative nonfiction.<\/b><\/em><\/p>\n

Who was Yukio Mishima?\u00a0Persona<\/a><\/i>, the lengthy new tome by Naoki Inose (the current\u00a0Governor of Tokyo<\/a>) and Hiroaki Sato, seeks to answer that question with the use of a comprehensive set of primary resources such as interviews, unpublished writings and personal records. Kimitake Hiraoka was on track to follow in his father and grandfather\u2019s footsteps as a career bureaucrat at the Ministry of Finance.<\/p>\n

In addition to his favorable lineage, he had an impressive education and just the analytical mind such a career would have required. However, he decided to turn his back on the path he had paved for himself and instead try his hand at writing a novel. And so, Yukio Mishima was born and\u00a0Confessions of a Mask<\/a><\/i>\u00a0would become the first literary gift he conferred on Japan and eventually the world.<\/p>\n

One of Japan\u2019s most famous authors and infamous icons is widely remembered for his dramatic public suicide by disembowelment in downtown Tokyo, though the authors of\u00a0Persona<\/i>\u00a0make all attempts to explore every possible aspect of Mishima\u2019s identity without letting his sensational death overshadow his life. Starting with an almost psychoanalytic exploration of his childhood and on to the evolution of his sexuality, political beliefs and varied artistic influences, Persona<\/em> tries as much as possible to demystify the man himself and his personal contradictions; he was a stickler for convention with a penchant for taboo, fiercely Japanese with an affinity for western cultures, a man both highly disciplined and simmering with unchecked passion.<\/p>\n

Persona<\/em> constructs a narrative of Mishima\u2019s life through analyses of his texts as well his interactions with his contemporaries including other literary greats of postwar Japan including Yasunari Kawabata. As his life story unfolds, we see not only his aesthetic sense evolve but a marked change in his political views and radical personal philosophy. Whereas the Japanese might have called him patriotic, a foreign reader would most likely call him jingoistic. In a time when pacifism was the fashion, Mishima went against the grain with his militaristic sensibility which would be on full dramatic display in his death.<\/p>\n

The book also includes some hitherto unknown and rather lurid details of his personal life. One particular anecdote involves a bizarre night with a female date at an all-male disco club in Ginza in which Mishima taunts and humiliates the woman presumably for the sole purpose of his own kicks.<\/p>\n

However complex Mishima\u2019s life and expansive body of work was, it is still his dramatic death that continues to fascinate even those unfamiliar with his oeuvre. His suicide by seppuku was meticulously planned and rehearsed, every last detail accounted for, right down to the headband he wore with a red sun in the center and the words\u00a0shichisho hokoku<\/i>\u00a0written on it, which translates as \u201cto be born seven times to serve the country.\u201d Mishima even made sure his beheader knew exactly where his carotid artery was, lest he miss and embarrass himself with sloppy technique and unnecessary gore.<\/p>\n

In the moments before his death, Mishima turned toward the Imperial Palace from a balcony and shouted \u201cLong Live the Emperor\u201d three times before proceeding to disembowel himself in what the book describes as \u201ca magnificent seppuku\u201d in which \u201ctwenty inches of his intestines came out.\u201d The glorification of suicide as almost an act of poetry hints strongly at the modern Japanese consciousness as well, where taking one\u2019s own life is still considered by many an act of final dignity in the face of shame or defeat.<\/p>\n

Mishima\u2019s biography is probably not for the faint of heart or those with even the slightest aversion to the risqu\u00e9, although the brilliance of his literary work has stood the test of time and continues to speak for itself (albeit arguably\u2014Haruki Murakami is famously not a fan).<\/p>\n

So who was Yukio Mishima? I\u2019m not sure even the man himself could have answered that question.<\/p>\n

For more\u00a0<\/i><\/strong>JQ\u00a0magazine book reviews,\u00a0<\/i><\/strong>click here<\/i><\/strong><\/a>.<\/i><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By\u00a0Sharona Moskowitz\u00a0(Fukuoka-ken,\u00a02000-01) for\u00a0JQ\u00a0magazine. Sharona is interested in fresh, new voices in fiction and creative nonfiction. Who was Yukio Mishima?\u00a0Persona, the lengthy new tome by Naoki Inose (the current\u00a0Governor of Tokyo) and Hiroaki Sato, seeks to answer that question with the use of a comprehensive set of primary resources such as interviews, unpublished writings and personal […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[40,291,58],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-30709","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-books","category-jq-magazine","category-reviews"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pkZ7m-7Zj","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jetwit.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30709","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jetwit.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jetwit.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jetwit.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jetwit.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=30709"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/jetwit.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30709\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":30714,"href":"https:\/\/jetwit.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30709\/revisions\/30714"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jetwit.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=30709"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jetwit.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=30709"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jetwit.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=30709"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}