The Sailor Who Fell from Grace with the Sea (Vintage Classics)

by Yukio Mishima

The Sailor Who Fell from Grace with the Sea (Vintage Classics)

book data

805 ratings, 3.96 average rating, 83 reviews (more data...)

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published

March 11th 1999 (first published 1963) by Vintage

binding

Paperback, 192 pages

isbn

0099284790 (isbn13: 9780099284796)

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other reviews (showing 1-20 of 1034)

All ratings | 5 stars (244) | 4 stars (341) | 3 stars (175) | 2 stars (35) | 1 star (10) | avg 3.96

all | this edition

Tosh

Tosh rated it:

(review of isbn 0679750150)

05/31/08

A very wicked book of sorts, but also a great book on children and how they think. Which is kind of devilish on my part to say - but Mishima captures the kids' view of something very grown-up. The book is very textural in that it is about a lonely woman's erotic impulses as well as her child picking that aspect of her personality or sensuality. Essential book in the Mishima world.

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Jessica

Jessica rated it:

(review of isbn 0679750150)

02/26/08

bookshelves: leetle-boys

Read in February, 2008

recommended to Jessica by: jane smiley; tosh, kimley
recommends it for: voyagers willing to brave the risk of seasickness

Argh. Okay, so I've been agonizing since finishing this book about how many stars to grant it. What should the stars mean? Do they stand for how good I think a book is? Or do they signify how much I enjoyed reading it? I think this is a three-point-fiver for me, really. Argh! It's so tough to say....

This book contained a great deal of five-star material. While there were several words and phrases that really jarred, these could have been clunky translation glitches, and in general the langua...more Argh. Okay, so I've been agonizing since finishing this book about how many stars to grant it. What should the stars mean? Do they stand for how good I think a book is? Or do they signify how much I enjoyed reading it? I think this is a three-point-fiver for me, really. Argh! It's so tough to say....

This book contained a great deal of five-star material. While there were several words and phrases that really jarred, these could have been clunky translation glitches, and in general the language and description was incredible. I mean, it was honestly stunning. Reading this book was so visual, even cinematic, and Mishima describes his characters and their post-war Japanese port city so vividly that you really do see it all, you have to, and it's a lovely thing to behold.

The story is about a widow, Fusako; her thirteen-year-old son, Noburo; and a sailor, Ryuji, who begins a love affair with the mother, the consummation of which is observed by the son through a hole in the wall between his and his mother's rooms. Noboru belongs to a scary, nihilistic cult/gang of kids with a charismatic leader and ruthless philosophy. [As an aside, this whole thing with the kids really reminded me of a book I just started once -- it belonged to Emily K -- about some really scary, nihilistic kids in post-WWII Germany; I thought that book was by Christa Wolf, but now I'm not so sure. Extra credit if anyone knows what I'm talking about!:] The heart of The Sailor Who Fell from Grace with the Sea is the tension between Noboru's adulation of and disappointment in Ryuji.

This book was so beautiful. I mean, I really just don't know how to say that without sounding like a complete tool. The descriptions of the sailor's life at sea and of the mother and the city were just... bleagh. I refuse to use those pukey book review words like "evocative" or whatever, and I won't say some of these passages just made me "ache," because that's gross, no one wants to hear that.... so I'll just keep my opinions about much of this this novel to myself, for all of our sakes.

For me, though -- emphasis on the for me -- I stopped enjoying this book in the last quarter, and while that might've been Mishima's fault (after all, he did have me for the first three quarters, so maybe he did something to lose me), it might also have been more my personal failures as a reader. My problem was that I could see from the beginning where this was all going, but as the event became more obviously imminent I didn't understand what made it inevitable, because the characters just didn't really make sense to me. I didn't understand what the young boys were feeling or why, and I just couldn't relate to it. I just kept thinking, "If I were the sorta guy who'd commit ritual suicide, these characters might really resonate with me; or even if I were more of an expert on Japanese history and culture, I might kind of get what they're on about... but as it is, er, hm.... I really don't."

Now, should an author be able to get any reader to empathize with any character enough to understand his motivations, across boundaries of culture and time and whatever else? Maybe. I'm not sure. Again, I don't know who to blame here, myself for not getting it or Mishima for not making me get it, but the fact that I was totally on board for most of the book but found myself adrift towards the end makes me suspect it might not just be me, but possibly due to problems in the structure of the book. The rhythm there at the end didn't feel quite right to me, in contrast with the beginning and middle, which felt mostly pitch-perfect.

Anyway, though I wasn't as crazy about the latter part of this book as I was about the earlier parts, it's not like it ever got bad. It's a good book.... I should also add that it is also mighty disturbing, because I suppose it'd be irresponsible of me not to say so....less

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Amanda

Amanda rated it:

(review of isbn 0679750150)

04/15/08

bookshelves: fiction, from-the-mouths-of-babes

Has a copy to sell/swap — Read in April, 2008

The Sailor Who Fell From Grace with the Sea follows the adventures of Noburu a 13 year old boy and his crazy gang of schoolmates, "all smallish, delicate boys and excellent students," who try to oppose their relative powerlessness in the world by developing a dark idealistic "philosophy" that glorifies inhumanity and emotional detachment.
We are also told the story of Fusako, Noburu's mother, the widowed proprieter of a successful high-end boutique, and her passiona...more The Sailor Who Fell From Grace with the Sea follows the adventures of Noburu a 13 year old boy and his crazy gang of schoolmates, "all smallish, delicate boys and excellent students," who try to oppose their relative powerlessness in the world by developing a dark idealistic "philosophy" that glorifies inhumanity and emotional detachment.
We are also told the story of Fusako, Noburu's mother, the widowed proprieter of a successful high-end boutique, and her passionate affair with Ryuji, a sailor. We watch as their awkward interactions and a meaningless one night stand evolve into a tender relationship and real need for one another.
We witness Noburu's attempt to rectify the wildly confused emotional response he has when Ryuji, who he initially idolizes for his heroic life at sea, devoid of attachment, and his mother embark on a real relationship, with the credo of his "gang", that labels this sort of emotion as unforgiveable weakness.
Ryuji, in turn, represents the forsaking of youthful idealism for adult responsibility and the need for companionship. This makes Ryuji the embodiment of everything that Noburu and his friends aspire to and also everything that they have profound contempt for.
Ryuji seeks a life at sea as a young man because of his contempt for everything on land, and devotes himself to a romantic vision of death and the glory to be found in this isolated life apart. When we meet him he is beginning to realize that this abstract "glory" may not really be out there and that the comfort and stability he finds in his connection to Fusako, might make the prosaic life on land more appealing than the glorified and lonely sailor's life he has created for himself.
Noburu and his gang are digusted by their hero's disloyal decision to "sell out" and betray their dark and angry ideals. It is interesting because I remember that period of youth where purity is tangible and anger and pain and fundamental belief in something feels like the only logical way to account for the inequity in the world. I remember feeling like I would never become a compromised adult (or "father", as Noboru's gang would label this figure) willing to sacrifice my ideals for anemic insignificant comfort and ease. And I also remember realizing that life is really shades of gray and finding myself too old for my black and white ideals and longing for something soft to make this life more bearable and truly worth living.
In our post-Columbine world the violence that Noburu and his friend's embrace is not that surprising. But the tragedy of their vision-- limited by their youth and their strict ideals-- is shockingly real and painstakingly well thought out.

The ideas in this book are very complex, and that complexity can make reading it difficult. (I am sure that some of this could be attributed to the fact that I was reading the book in translation.) Some of the metaphors that Mishima comes up with are incredibly graceful-- when describing the awkwardness of the reunion between Fusako and Ryuji after a long absence at sea, he writes, "Why should things proceed as smoothly as an arm slips into the sleeve of a coat unworn for half a year?". But I found his descriptions of the blossoming love between Fusako and Ryuji to be so clumsy that, given the dark critical tone of the book, I kept doubting their sincerity.

The author's note tells us that, "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....On November 25, 1970... Mishima committed seppuku (ritual suicide) at the age of 45." Coupled with this fact, one wonders if The Sailor Who Fell From Grace with the Sea is Mishima's account of his attempt to find meaning and principle in his own life.

...less

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Namrirru

Namrirru rated it:

(review of isbn 0679750150)

07/12/07

bookshelves: e, japan

Mishima creates very evil characters but he doesn't condemn them or let them suffer the consequences of their actions. It's very unnnerving. But at the same time, he's an excellent writer and story-teller.

He unloads a lot of philosophy in the text but the reader can't trust that that is what the writer is espousing. Is it just part of the story? What does the author really think about this idea or the treatment of this person. Like the mother. Most of his books I've read, the women are trea...more

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Louis

Louis rated it:

12/04/08

The first Mishima I read, and I was instantly in love (of course) it's both oedipal and misogynistic, tender and brutal, erotic and filthy.
Like many 20th century Japanese authors, his life is one I would probably do best not to replicate, but his passion for writing is admirable. A little too much though.
Definitely, definitely, definitely has to be read through to the end.

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Cheron

Cheron rated it:

(review of isbn 0679750150)

04/25/08

Read in January, 2004

If you've known me for longer than a month, I've mentioned this book to you--so you have already heard me compare it to The Lord of the Flies. I just mean in spirit. It gets uncomfortably lost in the grey matter of a young, disturbed boy who struggles with his sexuality and who has serious mother issues.

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Raegan Butcher

Raegan rated it:

(review of isbn 0679750150)

04/18/08

Read in January, 2008

Strange tale of lust, voyeurism and cruelty from one of Japan's weirdest and most interesting writers. Very macabre yet strangely beautiful and unique.

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Antonius

Antonius added it (review of isbn 0679750150)

09/15/07

bookshelves: japanese-literature

Read in March, 2006

The Sailor Who Fell from Grace with the Sea is a powerful, disturbing, and strangely beautiful novel about a sailor who knows glory awaits him in some form over some horizon and the young boy who idolizes him as a hero, only to see the sailor fall in love with the boy’s widowed mother and give up his dreams of manly greatness to live a life of uneventful peacefulness, leading the boy to feel utterly betrayed and forlorn and to react with loathsome violence against his fallen hero.

T...more

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deLille

deLille rated it:

(review of isbn 0679750150)

04/26/08

Read in October, 1983

recommended to deLille by: My aunt

It was this book that got me turned onto the writings of Yukio Mishima. I've since read - what, maybe a dozen of his books? Mishima is slightly off kilter with the way he views the world, but somehow he can draw you into his twisted thought process so that you think his ideas makes perfect sense. (And then you feel like you are going slightly mad....)

CORRECTION, 4-26-08
THIS NEXT PARAGRAPH DOES NOT APPLY TO "THE SAILOR..."; RATHER, IT'S ABOUT THE MISHIMA'S BOOK, "RUNAWAY H...more

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2 comments

maria

maria rated it:

(review of isbn 0099492695)

06/15/07

if it were just that i sought to comment on the story alone, the narrative, i would have to say i liked this book. i would also have to say that although the point of view shifts between the three main characters: a sailor and a mother and her son, i was most attached to that of the son and the way in which the other characters were often given more life through his eyes. but the reason this book becomes more than just something i like are the ideas. the snatched glimpses through the cupboard in...more

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Mandy

Mandy rated it:

(review of isbn 0679750150)

10/16/08

Read in October, 2008

This is a story about a young boy whose mother is having a relationship with a sailor. He is slightly suffering an Oedipus complex and occasionally mangles baby kittens; but this books saving grace so far has been Mishima's beautiful prose. I found this excerpt in the index and found it really interesting "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 ...more

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Brian

Brian rated it:

(review of isbn 0679750150)

11/11/08

bookshelves: read-2008

Disturbing read. Whenever you have a bunch of kids killing kittens and ripping their insides out, you are definitely looking at trouble ahead.

Written in 1963, this book is about a small band of boys and their belief in the idea of ‘objectivity’, of rejecting the adult world as mere foolishness and sentimentality, and the savage acts this belief led them to.

Mishima’s account of these boys (aged around 13, from moderate to affluent families, and model students with good grades) was i...more

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Lisbeth

Lisbeth rated it:

(review of isbn 0399504893)

04/19/08

Read in January, 2006

A hand-me-down from my brother, Gary, this is one I started, set aside, then finally picked up again and read in its entirety. Written in a deceptively simple style, this story with its various themes is difficult to reduce to a single interpretation. Someone more intellectual and formal-thinking could relate it to post-WWII Japan or to its so-called national character, to nuclear industrialism and the death of nature, to modern or postmodern alienation, to Freudian Oedipal theory, to fascism...more

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Theresa

Theresa rated it:

(review of isbn 0679750150)

07/04/07

Read in June, 2007

recommends it for: people who don't like happy endings

This is a very short and totally engrossing book. I have to say this though: there is a part where a gang of 14 year old nerds kill a kitten and I hated it. If you don't know that before going in and you're sensative that could really piss you off. It didn't happen for real so I could get on with it, but when you think about how it really does happen, it makes you really hate Noboru the kid, even more. I hated him with all my guts and to my understanding, that was Mishima's point. I think I...more

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Lincoln

Lincoln rated it:

(review of isbn 0679750150)

03/19/07

Read in February, 2007

recommends it for: people who dislike cats

This is more of a novella than a novel, and a novella I really dug. The book's opening and final chapters are pure awesomeness and the middle is good enough. The story centers around a young boy who peeps on his mom having sex and, with a group of friends, practices a form of "absolute dispassion" and "objectivity" that leads them to dissect neighborhood cats and curse fathers as the scum of the earth. This author eventually committed ritual suicide after trying and failing t...more

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Stuart

Stuart rated it:

(review of isbn 0679750150)

08/28/08

Read in August, 2008

The many joys of awkward youth, revisited.

Mishima tells a disturbing tale in two parts with four actors. Fusako, the young widow and owner of a high end boutique selling European fashions, Noboru, her thirteen-year-old son, and Ryuji, a sailor who finds himself drawn to her, and the sea.

The power of detachment, or 'objectivity', embodied in Ryuji's nomadic life, and idolized by Noboru and his cadre of friends, drives the narrative. While Mishima's story is filled with elements of horro...more

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David

David rated it:

(review of isbn 0679750150)

07/10/07

Read in July, 2007

recommends it for: anyone but no one in particular

I really wanted to love this book, and there were certainly some parts that I did love, but overall I found that Mishima's prose left me a bit cold. This could be the translation, but I'm just not literary or philosophical enough to appreciate him. I think you'll enjoy this if, unlike me, you loved 'The Stranger,' which left me in a similar state.

"The room as a whole, feverish with a vestige of the noon heat, was as black as the inside of a large coffin, everywhere a shade of darkness,...more

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Alicia

Alicia rated it:

08/31/07

bookshelves: favoritereads

Read in January, 2000

recommends it for: everyone!

I absolutely loved this book! It was dark, and deep and haunting and caught you up in the unpredictability of his narrative. This book was my introduction to Japanese literature, and I have loved everything else I've read by Mishima, and reveled in the disturbing thread in all of his narratives. This book helped me understand Japanese culture, and how it has been shaped or warped by the atomic bomb and years of war. This is an Asian Lord of the Flies, in a way, and a beautifully written book...more

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Paul

Paul rated it:

(review of isbn 0099492695)

01/19/08

Of course we all would like to be able to read translated books in their original languages, but I felt that way about Sailor in particular. Even in translation, the power and precision of Mishima's language is breathtaking, and his powers of description, particularly of setting and how he captures the feeling of times of day, is remarkable. The story itself is both delicately romantic and brimming with unthinkable, callous brutality. It's a surprisingly dense 150 pages or so, and I found mys...more

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Marie

Marie rated it:

(review of isbn 0679750150)

04/12/07

Mishima had a brilliantly focused way with words, and this book is no exception. The children here eventually become pretty evil, and the progression to that place seems casual and ordinary in Mishima's hands. People are all capable of good and evil in his world, and children are no exception. He shows his characters no sympathy but still manages to show, in minute detail, how they are not unlike anyone else, you or I.
Every word is a gem that seems hand-picked. Some sections of the book re...more

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