On the 25th November 1970, the Japanese writer Yukio Mishima died. He died in a ritual suicide which was broadcast on television. His suicide, and the central role that he played in a failed political coup has been well documented. Mishima’s last public appearance was intended as a forewarning to the world, a graphic method of self-sacrifice to highlight the decadence inherent to the movement of twentieth-century progressivism. It was apt to depart in such a dramatic fashion, as his entire life, and his work explored the bleakest aspects of modernity. He made a deliberate choice to die in the traditional way of the samurai warriors, a stark counterpoint to the futuristic notions of living, working and dying amongst the remnants of post-war Japan.
However, his life and death have almost overshadowed his work. His artistic brilliance as a writer is rarely spoken of, especially his last work, a tetralogy of novels entitled “The Sea of Fertility”. This was a saga rich in historical detail. It is evident that in his final days he dedicated himself fully to this project, putting his heart and soul, and in the end literally sacrificing his own life to finish it.
His research was exemplary. And painstaking. His love of the Japanese nation, history, culture and people reverberates throughout the books, but there is a tinge of despair for the loss of the old ways. Many modern commentators decry his supposed “fascism” but ignore the important context. Their criticisms are shallow and ignorant, it is easy to throw around accusations of chauvinism or extremism, but it is much harder to truly examine the work in depth. Diminishing him and reducing him to a political caricature is crass because there are so many elements in his work that transcend political categories, and there is a powerfully emotive message which is omitted. His work explores fundamental philosophical themes, and the meanings are complex and multilayered.
The main protagonist is Shigekuni Honda. Honda considers the meaning of life and is caught in a desperate bind between the material, rational world and the vague, subjective notion of the individual human “soul”. He examines the concepts of life, death and rebirth. At the beginning of the series, he is a young student and
searching in vain for something substantial in a state of impermanence, Mishima illuminates his state of mind in vivid and illuminating prose, explaining,
“The only thing that seemed valid to him was to live for the emotions-gratuitous and unstable, dying only to quicken again, dwindling and flaring without direction or purpose”. Fate in particular hangs heavily in his mind.
This becomes abundantly clear when he discovers the corpse of a dog in a river. The arbitrary cruelty of life affects him greatly. The death of an innocent and defenceless animal is just one loss of life in a catalogue of deaths that occur throughout the first book. In this unceasing tale of tragedy he questions the purpose of karma, while in the background there is the very real and frightening prospect of international conflict. Honda’s reveries coincide as foreign generals and diplomats contemplate carving up the map of the world once more without any thought of how this will impact upon the people who will be uprooted.
The second book in the series focuses on the trial of a youth movement of nationalists accused of planning a military takeover of the government. Honda is now working as a judge and is assigned to this case. He is middle-aged and married, but the preoccupations that bedevilled him as a youth remain with him. Justice and mercy, innocence and guilt are perennial themes.
Karma is deeply embedded within these concepts. Amidst the machinations at court, he ponders the fleeting aspect of mortal life, and contrasts it with the apparent immortality and permanence of the natural world. Poetic illustrations of the sacred mountains of Japan are contrasted with the dry business of the legal system. Eventually the conspirators are found not guilty, but shockwaves from the rebellion continue to resound throughout the nation.
In the third book, Honda is sent to Bangkok on a business trip, tasked with settling a legal issue with a Japanese company called Itsui Products who trade with Thailand. He is intoxicated by the landscape and culture and experiences a divine epiphany at a temple. The old familiar feelings return to him, the love of beauty and sentiment and the dislike of cold rationalism. However, as soon as he finds a measure of equilibrium Japan is embroiled in the Second World War, with devastating consequences. In the final book of the series, Honda is elderly and widowed. Japan is barren and struggling to reconcile itself with its militaristic past. Honda himself is rueful, but has found a modicum of meaning in his life as a father to his adopted son. Honda is diagnosed with a terminal illness and on his deathbed realises that what he believed was reality was in fact illusion.
The tone is characteristically and recognisably Mishima. He was renowned as a master of capturing the desolate beauty of nihilism. The books are replete with lengthy meditations on vitality itself, in sharp contrast to the all pervading sense of decay. These vignettes describe an environment inimical to sustaining life. It is a sterile landscape primed for destruction rather than any promise of regeneration or renewal. This magnum opus is a symbol for the limits of ideologies that seek to negate the past.
Ponderings 
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