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Title: The Temple of the Golden Pavilion by Yukio Mishima, Estate of Ivan Morris ISBN: 0-679-75270-6 Publisher: Vintage Pub. Date: 04 October, 1994 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $13.00 |
Average Customer Rating: 4.6 (20 reviews)
Rating: 2
Summary: Inane Internal Instrospective Inferno
Comment: Given the other reviews, this seems a dissenting opinion, but Mishima's "The Temple of the Golden Pavilion" was a pretty laborious read. I read the entire book out loud to an audience and found myself wishing it would come to an end.
All apologies to those who liked this book. I respect that, but the problem for me came in the amount of endless introspection that overflows the pages of "The Golden Pavilion." I don't mind some philosophical pandering in my literature and thoroughly enjoy it when it's done with the uniqueness of Don DeLillo or Milan Kundera. But here, Mishima takes whatever plot is involved in this tale of a temple student gone awry in the face of foreign influence, loss of values, poverty, and psychosis and sucks the life blood right out the marrow of it. This leaves the book with no skeletal structure, no bones, just a big lethargic mushy mass of meandering thoughts and not even well-worded or unique ones at that.
Here's what I mean, we get no less than 5 pages of a bee landing on a Chrysanthemum...somebody help me please. We get laboriously repetitive words (not sure if that's the translators fault or Mishima's) with a mention of the character's Kashiwagi's clubfoot about every other sentence. We get 7 counts of the use of the word, "adumbration" in one paragraph...7 mind you. Who uses the word "adumbration", much less 7 times in a paragraph, 3 in one sentence? Don't get me started.
Not a detail goes by without Mishima turning it over in the character's mind endlessly until we are no longer remotely interested. It's your typical boy loves temple, temple is too beautiful, boy must destroy temple sort of story. And where the plot starts moving along towards the end, Mishima interjects some inane meandering ethereal philosophy that seems to lead nowhere, just to kill the momentum.
On page 255 there's the line, "I was overcome by intense weariness." So true, so true. That's how this book grabbed me through and through.
Rating: 5
Summary: One of Mishima's best
Comment: I reckon The Temple of the Golden Pavilion to be one of the best novels of Mishima. This book is therefore quite something since Mishima in my opinion is one of the best writers of the 20th century. The protagonist is Mizoguchi a shy boy with a speaking problem(or has he problem speaking?). Mizoguchi is mentally and phisically overwhelmed by the building of the Golden Pavilion to such an extent, that it leads to disastrous consequences. If you want to read a great book by one of Japanese finest writers try this one.
Rating: 5
Summary: Yes! Yes! Yes!
Comment: Mishima is one of the most talented writers who arose from the disaster of World War II. *Kinkakuji* is a journey through inner chaos. While the temple symbolizes everything that is beautiful for the book's tragic protaganist, it also reminds him of his own insignificance. The book is written from a Buddhist perspective and gives a glimpse into the paradoxical world that is Japanese.
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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: Confessions of a Mask by Yukio Mishima, Meredith Weatherby ISBN: 081120118X Publisher: New Directions Publishing Corporation Pub. Date: February, 1988 List Price(USD): $12.95 |
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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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Title: The Decay of the Angel by Edward G. Seidensticker, Yukio Mishima ISBN: 0679722432 Publisher: Vintage Pub. Date: 14 April, 1990 List Price(USD): $13.00 |
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Title: The Temple of Dawn by Yukio Mishima ISBN: 0679722424 Publisher: Vintage Pub. Date: 14 April, 1990 List Price(USD): $14.00 |
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