“On the sun-drenched island of Utajima, young fisherman Shinji returns home from the sea to find his quiet life transformed by the arrival of Hatsue, the beautiful daughter of the island’s wealthiest man. Their attraction is immediate, but in a small tradition-bound community, love is never truly private.”
The preceding paragraph, we think, is a decent, concise back-of-the-book explanation of what Yukio Mishima’s sixth novel is about. That description doesn’t mention, though, that it is written by a closeted gay man who once attempted a coup against the Japanese military, an attempt that ended in his own pre-planned ritual suicide. It doesn’t mention that this tender coming-of-age story was penned by a novelist most known for graphically-violent and sexually-explicit tales of psychological fiction.
This novel presented a first-time anomaly for this podcast in that Aaron and Rodney loved a novel that Rebecca did not. This disparity prompted an important discussion: How trite is a seventy-year-old story allowed to be before it becomes unreadable nonsense?
Press PLAY on the media player below to hear the conversation!
Just In Case We Die 