October 17th

the folded blade dragged

red tears soak into the earth

the mask indignant

I was out with a couple of Japanese colleagues, conversation covered a number of areas and we somehow ended up talking about Yukio Mishima.

Mishima was a complex, fascinating man, a poet and novelist, a nationalist, obsessed with death and seemingly fighting an internal battle about his own sexuality. He was striving to take Japan back to the age of Bushido, and after a failed coup in 1970 and with modern Japan perceivably careering away from the traditions he desperately wanted to protect, he wrote his death poems and took his own life, through the grisly method adopted by Samurai, seppuku.

He seemed out of place in a post war Japan. And this is what fascinates me about the content of his work. There are so many books to read out there, I am slightly ashamed I haven’t read more in my life, but there’s another body of work to pick from, another unique troubled author’s work to explore. The outsider is interesting, whether I agree with their world view or not, trying to understand another’s motivation, ambitions, loves and fears is compelling. And Japan to me seems unique, their insular island psyche, relatively untouched for centuries, remaining apart from the world for so long. Mishima wanted to distance himself, his country, from others and pushed himself, deeper, further into history and tradition in an ultimately futile attempt to achieve that. Perhaps the spectacular style of his demise was his plan all along. A statement. Self destructing, with controlled serenity.