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Title: The Sailor Who Fell From Grace with the Sea by John Nathan, Yukio Mishima ISBN: 0-679-75015-0 Publisher: Vintage Pub. Date: 31 May, 1994 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $12.00 |
Average Customer Rating: 3.86 (37 reviews)
Rating: 4
Summary: A review
Comment: Mishima's "The Sailor Who Fell from Grace with the Sea" is a beautifully written, picturesque short novel about idealism and the conflict between compassion and dispassion. The main character is Noboru, a bright, fatherless 13-year-old boy who hangs out with a few of his schoolmates in a sort of gang. The "chief" of the gang, who thinks far beyond the level of a typical 13-year-old, is the gang's philosophical guide and leader. The chief believes that life is merely a result of the chaos of existence; that society is useless; that fathers, as procreators of society, are condescending and deceitful; and that school is a simulation of the society of adults and therefore is useless as well. He instructs Noboru to perform a morbid rite of passage, the purpose of which seems to be to demonstrate that there is nothing mystical about life; living beings are made up of nothing more than earthly materials and mechanical components, so destroying a living being is no different than breaking a machine.
A sailor at sea lives far away from the foolishness of land-based society, so it's no wonder that Noboru develops an admiration for Ryuji, the sailor who becomes romantically involved with Noboru's mother, Fusako. Noboru is so interested in the sea and ships -- symbols of rugged individualism and the rejection of society -- that his knowledge of the subject rivals Ryuji's. However, when Ryuji decides to give up the sailor's life to marry Fusako and become her business partner, Noboru is disillusioned and wonders if Ryuji is just like all the fathers that the chief berates. As Ryuji starts to metamorphose from Noboru's image of the tough sailor into a sentimental, lenient society dweller, Noboru angrily compiles a list of Ryuji's "infractions". When the chief of Noboru's gang reviews this list, he decides that Ryuji must suffer the consequences. The last chapter of the book is somewhat reminiscent of Edgar Allan Poe's "The Cask of Amontillado" in the way the gang leads Ryuji unsuspectingly to his doom.
When the chief tells Noboru that there are no heroes in the world, Noboru listens but wants to believe that there truly are; he wants to find a heroic ideal in the sailor his mother has just met. The novel illustrates this problem with idealism: We create imaginary heroes because when we try to identify real-life ones, we are inevitably disappointed by their human fallibility.
Rating: 4
Summary: Short but not sweet--in a good way
Comment: Mishima's great achievement with this novel was to compress large ideas and large emotions down into something as compact, detailed and precise as a piece of scrimshaw. It's almost a fever dream of a novel. The whole thing, as translated by John Nathan, has the mannered, stylized feel of an Art Deco print.
This is not to take away from Mishima's tale. He skillfully conveys the impressionism of a newly teenaged boy--the ease with which the boy, whose name is Noburu, believes first one thing, then another, and the vehemence with which he throws himself into his beliefs without first examining them dispassionately. Noburu's actions and reactions are an eerily prescient foreshadowing of the current religious militantism in the middle east and elsewhere--he is but one of millions of young, emotionally immature, inexperienced young people worldwide who chooses the simplicity of violence over the more difficult rewards of education and self-knowledge.
Though I had a feeling that the book would end the way it did, it was still something of a shock--and all the more so because Mishima chooses to stop his narrative just moments before Noburu and his gang commit their first adult atrocity. The delicacy with which Mishima renders this tragic tale is astonishing and makes it easy to understand why this novel is a classic.
Rating: 3
Summary: The Sailor Who Fell from Grace With the Sea
Comment: Mishima's "The Sailor Who Fell from Grace with the Sea" is a beautifully written, picturesque short novel about idealism and the conflict between compassion and dispassion. The main character is Noboru, a bright, fatherless 13-year-old boy who hangs out with a few of his schoolmates in a gang. The "chief" of the gang, who thinks far beyond the level of a typical 13-year-old, is the gang's philosophical guide and leader. The chief believes that life is merely a result of the chaos of existence; that society is useless; that fathers, as procreators of society, are condescending and deceitful; and that school is a simulation of the society of adults and therefore is useless as well. He instructs Noboru to perform a morbid rite of passage, the purpose of which seems to be to demonstrate that there is nothing mystical about life; living beings are made up of nothing more than earthly materials and mechanical components, so destroying a living being is no different than breaking a machine.
A sailor at sea lives far away from the foolishness of land-based society, so it's no wonder that Noboru develops an admiration for Ryuji, the sailor who becomes romantically involved with Noboru's mother, Fusako. Noboru is so interested in the sea and ships -- symbols of rugged individualism and the rejection of society -- that his knowledge of the subject rivals Ryuji's. However, when Ryuji decides to give up the sailor's life to marry Fusako and become her business partner, Noboru is disillusioned and wonders if Ryuji is just like all the fathers that the chief berates. As Ryuji starts to metamorphose from Noboru's image of the tough sailor into a sentimental, lenient society dweller, Noboru angrily compiles a list of Ryuji's "infractions". When the chief of Noboru's gang reviews this list, he decides that Ryuji must suffer the consequences. In the last chapter of the book the gang lead Ryuji unsuspectingly to his doom.
When the chief tells Noboru that there are no heroes in the world, Noboru listens but wants to believe that there truly are; he wants to find a heroic ideal in the sailor his mother has just met. The novel illustrates this problem with idealism: We create imaginary heroes because when we try to identify real-life ones, we are inevitably disappointed by their human fallibility.
Mishima's novel is extremely descriptive and somewhat disturbing. Noboru watches his mother dress and undress in her room from a hole in the wall that separates his room from hers. He sits in his dresser drawer watching her lye on her bed naked and when she gets up to gaze at herself in the mirror Noboru gets upset because he can no longer see her. He also watches his mother and her boyfriend in bed together.
The boy has to dissect a cat as a ritual for the gang he is in. Mishima clearly describes the process Noboru has to go through and everything that happened to the poor cat.
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Title: Spring Snow by Yukio Mishima ISBN: 0679722416 Publisher: Vintage Pub. Date: 14 April, 1990 List Price(USD): $14.00 |
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Title: Snow Country by Edward G. Seidensticker, Yasunari Kawabata ISBN: 0679761047 Publisher: Vintage Pub. Date: 30 January, 1996 List Price(USD): $12.00 |
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Title: The Temple of the Golden Pavilion by Yukio Mishima, Estate of Ivan Morris ISBN: 0679752706 Publisher: Vintage Pub. Date: 04 October, 1994 List Price(USD): $13.00 |
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Title: Chronicle of a Death Foretold by GABRIEL GARCIA MARQUEZ ISBN: 0345310020 Publisher: Ballantine Books Pub. Date: 12 February, 1984 List Price(USD): $6.99 |
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Title: Runaway Horses by Yukio Mishima ISBN: 0679722408 Publisher: Vintage Pub. Date: 14 April, 1990 List Price(USD): $14.95 |
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