James's review
The Decay of the Angel (The Sea of Fertility)
by Yukio Mishima
James's review
The Decay of the Angel (The Sea of Fertility) by Yukio Mishima
James's review
rating:
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Stunning ending to a stunning series. Whenever I try to explain what actually happens in this book, it sounds lame, but after 900 pages or whatever Mishima gets you to let your ironic guard down about Buddhist philosophy/reincarnation/etc. The back cover compares it to Proust, which I'm sure is right, but in a way it's more compelling because the whole tetralogy is tied to a metaphysic according to which the recurrence of memory is something real and something religious instead of just something that happens inside a character's head.
