Author: Cameron Aitken

After having released an extensive book on the works of Nabokov, Dr David Vernon has decided that difficulty would not perturb him and has written this rather enlightening book on the works of Yukio Mishima. Once again, Vernon has produced the same interesting and very successful format he employed in his book Ada to Zembala: The Novels of Vladimir Nabokov which blesses us with a small yet comprehensive snapshot into the life of each of Mishima’s works that have been published into English. The book runs as smoothly as Vernon’s previous one; the crystalline prose replete with immensely rich adjectives and well chosen verbs makes this not only an informative read but a thoroughly delightful read as well.

Vernon, as is seemingly his wont, opens with a sprightly introduction which is then followed by a brief biographical chapter on our subject. The great strength of Vernon is that he produces a comprehensive chapter without forswearing the necessary brevity that is required to hold the reader’s interest. Yukio Mishima is an elusive character, and it is nigh on impossible to pinpoint his thoughts or emotions on politics at any given time; and Vernon is right to characterise Mishima as a kind of walking contradiction because his concatenating attitudes on his native Japan are invariably inconsistent and often incompatible. Mishima appears to dislike the permeation of modernity into contemporary Japan yet embraces key enlightenment texts from Western Europe. As Vernon writes:

For many Japanese he is the ultimate outsider, almost a traitor, both for embracing Western literary styles and techniques, and for his dangerous, often romanticized and embellished vision of a traditional Japan, one that borders on a naive and grievous orientalism.

While being a reactionary figure he is also a writer who seeks to create something new, almost to escape Japan in a literary sense. Vernon explains this beautifully, showing us that Mishima almost transcends his surroundings with his ability to blend reality with fantasy. Yet it was a fantasy that could not entirely immure itself against history, and one is hardly surprised to find that the second world war plays an evident role in his writings. Mishima is unable to escape Japanese defeat and remnants of its psychological impact upon him is ubiquitous in his works. The fact that he was declared unfit for service in the Imperial Army appeared to stay with him and plague him for the remainder of his short life.

Dr Vernon does not let any of Mishima’s paradoxical biographical information plague him, for he writes with ease in each chapter. If anything, small biographical details enhance his analysis, especially Mishima’s homosexuality which Vernon believes is blatant in the works. Too much biography in the analysis of a writer’s work can be repellent for the reader but in some cases it can be necessary. The second world war stays with the reader when reading Mishima and its effect is almost present on every page of one of his novels. Vernon is perceptive in his ability to discern how much Mishima’s prose style is affected by this:

Even in his bleaker moments, Mishima retains an ability to convince and transform, to generate significant truths from mere gestures, exquisite possibilities from nothingness, courage from chaos.

Mishima is almost Proustian in this regard. There is a moment in one of his earlier novels where he spends several pages discussing a time he ostensibly remembers a time when the protagonist had a bath during infancy. Mishima’s character, however, is self-reflexive and is unsure as to whether this was a true event or if he is actively fabricating and exaggerating the event. This in itself is a great introduction to Mishima’s insight into the defeat of the second world war: did this really happen and did we really sink?

Vernon introduces each of Mishima’s works with some kind of thematic outlook. It is often worth reading Vernon just to see how he constructs and resolves an argument which he easily sustains throughout the course of the book. He also highlights difficulties with translation which is understandable. For the poststructuralists among us, translation is the ultimate floating signifier and we are unfortunately unable to grasp the full extent of an author’s idiosyncratic intent. Vernon is reassuring when he argues that ‘… although we always undeniably lose something in translation, we lose far more by not reading his books at all.’ He is clear that it is better to have read and lost than to have never read at all.

Dr Vernon excels when he has selected a focus around which he can circumnavigate his musings. It would indeed, however, be interesting to see him attempt a more generalised topic — a theory on poetry, perhaps? I have little doubt that his contribution will be invaluable to the dwindling climate of literary criticism. He invariably has interesting remarks to make on the details that seem to elude many critics. This new book will be popular to those who are interested in the works of Mishima, but may not reach people beyond that because it functions as a compendium and naturally requires a somewhat significant knowledge of the works of Mishima before one can read it. Yet if there is one thing of which I can be perfectly assured, it is that this is contemporary literary criticism at its finest.

Cameron Aitken is a First Class English Literature Graduate and Jazz Musician. He loves poetry and philosophy, and has a background in literary theory. He is also interested in psychoanalysis, and thinks about films through this lens. He is an Early Modernist at heart.