Book description
Tokyo, 1912. The closed world of the ancient aristocracy is being
breached for the first time by outsiders - rich provincial familes, a
new and powerful political and social elite.
Kiyoaki has been raised among the elegant Ayakura family - members
of the waning aristocracy - but he is not one of them. Coming of age,
he is caught up in the tensions between old and new, and his feelings
for the exquisite, spirited Satoko, observed from the sidelines by his
devoted friend Honda. When Satoko is engaged to a royal prince,
Kiyoaki realises the magnitude of his passion.
Yukio Mishima was born into a samurai family and imbued with the code
of complete control over mind and body, and loyalty to the Emperor - the
same code that produced the austerity and self-sacrifice of Zen. He
wrote countless stories and thirty-three plays, in some of which he
performed. Several films have been made from his novels, including
The Sound of Waves
,
Enjo
which was based on
The
Temple of the Golden Pavilion
and
The Sailor Who Fell From Grace with the Sea.
Among his other works are the novels
Confessions of a Mask
and
Thirst for Love
and the short story collections
Death in Midsummer
and
Acts of Worship
.
The Sea of Fertility
tetralogy, however, is his masterpiece. After Mishima conceived the
idea of
The Sea of Fertility
in 1964, he frequently said he would die when it was completed. On 25
November 1970, the day he completed
The Decay of the Angel
, the last novel of the cycle, Mishima committed seppuku (ritual
suicide) at the age of forty-five.
