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Spring Snow

(The Sea of Fertility #1)

Yukio Mishima,

Michael Gallagher (Goodreads Author) (Translator)

4.15 · Rating details · 10,942 ratings · 792 reviews

Tokyo, 1912. The closed world of the ancient aristocracy is being breached for the first time by outsiders - rich provincial families, a new and powerful political and social elite.

Kiyoaki has been raised among the elegant Ayakura family - members of the waning aristocracy - but he is not one of them. Coming of age, he is caught up in the tensions between the old and the ...more

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Paperback, 389 pages

Published November 2000 by Vintage (first published 1968)

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Feb 26, 2019 Jim Fonseca rated it it was amazing

Shelves: japanese-authors, japan

Mishima (1925-1970) was a classic Japanese author. He was a fierce anti-communist who led a band of rebels trying to restore the Emperor. He committed ritual suicide when the plot failed. His best-known work is a tetralogy, The Sea of Fertility, of which this book is the first volume.

Class divisions and changing values in Japan due to western influence aree major themes. The main character is the son of a very wealthy family. How wealthy? They have 40 servants and the boy doesn’t know all their ...more

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Mar 18, 2012 Jeffrey Keeten rated it it was amazing

Shelves: the-japanese

Yukio Mishima felt the Japanese government needed to return to a system based on the samurai code. He was descended from samarais and believed that this code, advocating complete command of one's body and soul combined with a complete loyalty to the emperor, was necessary for Japan to return to prominence. He formed his own army in 1970 and attempted a coup d'état. With a few friends he overpowered the commandant of the Ichigaya Camp — the Tokyo headquarters of the Eastern Command of Japan's ...more

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Mar 30, 2017 William2 rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: japan, 20-ce, fiction, translation

Set near Tokyo in 1912. In Spring Snow Kiyoaki Matsugae is sent as a child be raised on the estate of a Count where he learns all the worst habits of a decadent court. He is slothful, he preens in the knowledge of his superior looks. When 18 years of age he is so self-involved—the familiar disaffectedness of many Mishima protagonists—that even when kissing the woman who loves him he thinks only of how he feels. He's an affected asshole who takes a conscious pleasure in cruelty.

This . . . was

This . . . was further proof of the hidden, savage essence of the elegance he had cultivated for so long. (p. 257)

Kioyaki's friend is the upstanding Shigekuni Honda. He adores Kiyoaki. A hard-working young man who loses himself in thoughts of the niceties of European Natural Law and the Laws of Manu, which at the time of the action, the author tells us, were the foundation of Indian law. He also has an abiding interest in historiography, particularly how he and his peers will be viewed by future generations. This dovetails with the theme of reincarnation which links the four books of The Sea of Fertility cycle.

The vast Matsugae estate is imposing. It is still the period of mourning for the late emperor who was called Meiji in life. So the cherry blossom festival as it turns out will be observed, though on a smaller scale than usual. An imperial prince attends with his wife and other visitors. Their route through the blossoms is girded by a red and white curtain, presumably for purposes of privacy. The Western house is filled with geishas. A platform for their cherry blossom dances is built in the garden. Later, there will be a banquet and a film shown based on a Dickens novel.

Amid it all Kiyoaki is adrift. Satoko is there in all her finery but it's somehow not enough. What is he waiting for? In thrall to his own beauty, his pride, Kiyoaki is at odds with himself, contradictory in his impulses. He is lost, no decisiveness—aside from a snowy rickshaw ride with Satoko, which was her idea—comes from him. His is a rapt passivity. Meanwhile, he stubbornly let's go of Satoko when she is courted by an imperial prince, and thinks good riddance.

Devoid of worry or annoyance, free of all anxiety, Kiyoaki at nineteen liked to see himself as a cold and supremely capable young man. He felt that he was now past some watershed in the course of his life. (p. 163)

But he isn't. Unable to read his own emotions, he takes grief for delight; his "strength of will," as he terms it, when tearing up a letter from Satoko unread, he begins to sense may be cowardice, for she is just about to marry the imperial prince. What a muddle he's in. Though an aristocrat he has known social isolation much of his life. Thus, his misreading of people and situations always in a manner that plays to his own falsely elevated sense of self worth.

Long ago he had resolved to recognize his emotions as his only guiding truth and to live his life accordingly, even if meant a deliberate aimlessness. That principle had now brought him to his present sinister feelings of joy, which seemed to be the brink of a racing plunging whirlpool. There seemed to be nothing left but to throw himself into it. (p. 177)

I won't go into Kiyoaki and Satoko's love affair or the novel's tragic denouement. Suffice it to say that Kiyoaki's comeuppance is quite a spectacle and Honda is there to puzzle over it. The book has a very long fuse. The last 200 pages are far better than the first 200. Despite this uneven start, this is the strongest Mishima novel I have ever read. ...more

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Jun 09, 2018 Karl rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

“Spring Snow” is volume one of Yukio Mishima’s tetralogy ‘The Sea of Fertility”. When the book opens the year is 1912 and the setting Meiji Japan, which has given way to "Taisho democracy", an environment is that of a fading Japanese aristocracy resigned to accept into its midst the creep of a westernization of it’s culture.

Adolescent law student Shigekuni Honda is an impassive friend to Kiyoaki Matsugae, a baron's son of distant samurai descent. Honda's future seems preordained. Kiyoaki is a “Spring Snow” is volume one of Yukio Mishima’s tetralogy ‘The Sea of Fertility”. When the book opens the year is 1912 and the setting Meiji Japan, which has given way to "Taisho democracy", an environment is that of a fading Japanese aristocracy resigned to accept into its midst the creep of a westernization of it’s culture.

Adolescent law student Shigekuni Honda is an impassive friend to Kiyoaki Matsugae, a baron's son of distant samurai descent. Honda's future seems preordained. Kiyoaki is a dreamer who is gripped by the sense that life's slippery fineness is running through his fingers and away from him second by second. He longs to chase the impossible, to ‘bend the world’ into the shape of his ideals.

Kiyoaki's desires eventually encounter the beautiful Satoko Ayakura. Although they have been friends since early childhood, they have grown into a mutual indifference of each other. When Satoko gets engaged to a prince, Kiyoaki is suddenly consumed by an inspired passion for her, and the two fall into an illicit affair that proves the undoing of them both. She get pregnant and then gets an abortion. Honda accepts the job of go-between for the lovers, but can only watch as Satoko renounces the world and exiles herself to a remote, wintry nunnery. Kiyoaki drives himself to pneumonia in a hopeless effort to retrieve her. Dying, clutching Honda's hand, Kiyoaki murmurs that they will meet again someday, ‘beneath the falls’.

Although it sounds a bit melodramatic, in truth the book is amazingly well written, with subtleties, implications, and consequences of environment both human and cultural that cause the reader to marvel at Yukio Mishima’s abilities. A master at work.

The closest equivalent I could suggest for compaison is the love story of ‘Romeo an Juliet’ also a story of star crossed lovers. The story is filled with symbolism, imagery and melancholy.

This Knopf hardcover edition was printed in 1972 and is the first American Edition issued as part of a set of all four books. The cycle consisting of:

Vol 1. - Spring Snow
Vol 2 - Runaway Horses
Vol 3 - The Temple Of Dawn
Vol 4 - Five Signs Of A Gods Decay

The series, which Mishima began writing in 1964 and which was his final work, is usually thought of as his masterpiece. Mishima's ritualistic suicide in 1970 will always overshadow his work. ...more

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Oct 11, 2016 Michael Finocchiaro rated it it was amazing

Shelves: japanese-lit, japanese-20th-c, fiction, novels

It is hard to put words to the beauty and melancholy that Mishima pours into this first of his great tetralogy. The symbolism, the imagery, the characters - everything here is drawn with a fine pencil and eye for detail. The characters reappear in the following books but not as you might expect. This is one of the great monuments of Japanese literature in the 20th C (my other favourite is Soseki's I am a Cat) and it is truly a pleasure to read and savour.

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Mar 21, 2012 B0nnie rated it it was amazing

Shelves: favourite-books

Mishima, like other great writers, has a way of implanting memories in our heads, echoes of other lives. How this magic happens is a mystery but when it does, you feel somehow denser inside, more solid. Spring Snow left me with that feeling, of having increased my gravity and weight, with the lyrical descriptions, history, characters, ceremonies, letters, political intrigue, birds and emerald rings and emerald snakes, and silk kimonos, and more.

At its heart, this is a doomed love story, about Mishima, like other great writers, has a way of implanting memories in our heads, echoes of other lives. How this magic happens is a mystery but when it does, you feel somehow denser inside, more solid. Spring Snow left me with that feeling, of having increased my gravity and weight, with the lyrical descriptions, history, characters, ceremonies, letters, political intrigue, birds and emerald rings and emerald snakes, and silk kimonos, and more.

At its heart, this is a doomed love story, about two beautiful people - Kiyoaki Matsugae, and Satoko Ayakura - whose outward beauty match their inner turmoil.

This excerpt from Kiyoaki’s dream diary is an allegory of the story...which is an allegory…within allegory,

The very night before, he had dreamed of his own coffin, made of unpainted wood. It stood in the middle of an empty room with large windows, and outside, the pre-dawn darkness was shading to a deep blue; it was filled with the sound of birdsong.

A young woman clung to the coffin, her long black hair trailing from her drooping head, her slender shoulders wracked with sobs. He wanted to see her face but could make out no more than her pale, graceful forehead with its delicate peak of black hair.

The coffin was half covered with a leopard-skin bordered in pearls. The first muted glow of the dawn flickered on the row of jewels. Instead of funeral incense, a scent of Western perfume hung over the room with the fragrance of sun-ripened fruit. Kiyoaki seemed to be watching this from a great height, though he was convinced that his body lay inside the coffin.

But sure as he was, he still felt the need to see it there by way of confirmation. However, like a mosquito in the morning light, his wings lost all power and ceased beating in mid-air; he was utterly incapable of looking inside the nailed-down coffin lid. And then, as his frustration grew more and more intense, he woke up.

And Satoko,

...her words had a cold, proud glitter that could not tolerate the intrusion of a third party. In her own mind, she had fashioned their sin into a tiny, brilliant, crystal palace in which she and Kiyoaki could live free from the world around them. A crystal palace so tiny that it would balance on the palm of one’s hand, so tiny that no one else could fit in. Transformed for a fleetingly brief instant, she and Kiyoaki had been able to enter it and now they were spending their last few moments there, observed with extraordinary clarity in all their minute detail by someone standing just outside.

There is a movie, but from the preview it seems to have only caught the surface. But still...

春の雪

Spring Snow is a masterpiece - or at least the beginning of one, as it is the first in a cycle of four novels called the Sea of Fertility. I hope that the other books are as good as this one, but it’s going to be a hard act to follow. ...more

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Sep 03, 2016 Jr Bacdayan rated it really liked it

A book can be either of two things: a key to open locked doors which lead to unique experiences we have not encountered or are impossible for us to attain; while the other is a mirror to show us who we are or remind us of ourselves and the past we have not forgotten. One stirs excitement, the other nostalgia. This time it took the shape of the latter. The book served as a mirror to me, reminding me of a befuddled young man blind to the workings of his heart, prone to exaggerating the simple A book can be either of two things: a key to open locked doors which lead to unique experiences we have not encountered or are impossible for us to attain; while the other is a mirror to show us who we are or remind us of ourselves and the past we have not forgotten. One stirs excitement, the other nostalgia. This time it took the shape of the latter. The book served as a mirror to me, reminding me of a befuddled young man blind to the workings of his heart, prone to exaggerating the simple nuances in the actions of a woman devoted to him, a woman he doubted because of childish fears. But I am not here to talk of myself, I am here because the pain it stirred in me forces me to write.

Kiyoaki, a beautiful yet lethargic young man, is at odds with his equally beautiful childhood friend Satoko. An inexperienced boy when it comes to the desire inside him, he constantly misinterprets and confuses the actions of the young woman who is thoroughly taken with him. His melancholy attitude doesn’t help his cause and he loathes balefully in the estranged pool of his own work. That is until he learns of Satoko’s engagement with a prince, thus the object of his hatred and bewilderment is snatched from him, suddenly out of reach. It is such a curious thing that when something we have ignored for so long is suddenly unavailable to us, we find it infinitely more desirable. The fickle human heart with its itinerant impulses shifts its gear and so the idea of unattainability forces us to acknowledge the taken for granted, the sudden spotlight makes the dull suddenly novel. And it is in this manner that young Kiyoaki realizes the gravity of his passion for Satoko. Doomed from the very start, an affair begins between the childhood friends. In this shared consciousness of tragedy, their love flourishes.

At the very core of this tragic romance Spring Snow serves as Yukio Mishima’s statement against elegance. Being a military man of action, he felt that the Japanese strayed from the righteous way of the Samurai and have alarmingly become slaves of pleasure, smitten with exterior beauty, apathetic to the real world, too taken by the West, too modern. He envisioned a traditional Japan with its graceful simplicity, austere values, and unceasing nationalism and love for the Emperor. The character Kiyoaki is a warning to the people of Japan, a cautionary tale to show the rottenness that elegance is bound to instill in the indolent souls of its time. This very idea is what prompted Mishima to stage a coup d’état in 1970 to restore power to the Emperor. But he failed and thus committed ritual seppuku. However before his death, he was able to complete his tetralogy, the Sea of Fertility, which features Spring Snow as the first of four books. With this in mind, I believe it to be quite irresponsible to fully interpret an incomplete picture. To understand his real intentions, I have to complete the journey by reading the other three works. Yet as a standalone it is rather fascinating to see something that was meant to alarm, instead take one’s breath away with sheer elegance. And so by embodying the object of his scorn, Mishima ironically succeeds in mirroring the very relationship of Kiyoaki and Satoko.

“The path we’re taking is not a road, Kiyo, it’s a pier, and it ends someplace where the sea begins.”

All at once subtle, tender, and painful, this novel manages to evoke a somber tinge of passion in the otherwise luscious backdrop of Taisho Japan. Indeed, like spring snow, a furtive loveliness envelops the landscape of its pages but intertwined with this beauty is a faint cry of desolation, a quiet deadliness that can only enhance its icy elegance. ...more

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Aug 31, 2019 Luís C. rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: presenca, japan, 20th-century, reading-the-world, 2019-readings, on-my-own, favourites

The first novel in Yukio Mishima's famous tetralogy, "Spring Snow" is the story of Kiyoaki, the only son of the new noble Marquis and Marquise Matsugae and owners of a magnificent forty-hectare estate not far from Tokyo.
The Marquis placed his son from an early age in an aristocratic family, the Ayakura, where he was raised in an atmosphere of court nobility near the whimsical and very beautiful Satoko Ayakura two years his senior. Not yet a major and now at his parents' house, Kiyoaki was 18 The first novel in Yukio Mishima's famous tetralogy, "Spring Snow" is the story of Kiyoaki, the only son of the new noble Marquis and Marquise Matsugae and owners of a magnificent forty-hectare estate not far from Tokyo.
The Marquis placed his son from an early age in an aristocratic family, the Ayakura, where he was raised in an atmosphere of court nobility near the whimsical and very beautiful Satoko Ayakura two years his senior. Not yet a major and now at his parents' house, Kiyoaki was 18 years old in 1912 when the Meiji era, a period marked by the end of Japan's policy of voluntary isolation, ended and the Taisho era permeable to Western culture began.
Without being effeminate, Kiyoaki is of exceptional beauty but neither studies nor sports activities interest him, he would rather adept at languid musings and keep in a diary the details of his nightdreams. His tutor for six years, the manly Iinuma, is sorry for his lack of spirit and poor academic performance; even his best friend from a less fortunate background, the studious Honda, is often perplexed by such moods. Although madly in love with each other, Kiyoaki and Satoko both have an unfortunate tendency to complicate things. Planned with the help of the matchmaker Tadeshina, Satoko's next, the slightest flirtation is so unspontaneous that it becomes laughable.
The childishness of the two young men is evident and a misunderstanding one day takes on disproportionate proportions, amplified in time by Kiyoaki's pride.
Mishima, with his customary skill, transforms in a few short chapters an idyllic relationship with great potential, which was so well felt to the reader, into a passionate drama fanned over the weeks by the weight of the conveniences specific to this environment. aristocratic. Friends, let Yukio Mishima take you by the hand to discover the magnificence of the Matsugae estate!
In the fall, you will see the majestic maple trees of fragrance color. Perhaps you prefer to wait until spring and take a short boat ride on the lake to the islet in the center of the property, while "the first buds grow vertically so that the entire garden seems to stand on the tiptoe"?
You will have the pleasure of admiring "the blossoming of cherry trees that intersperse between the pine trees in the long rows of trees on either side of the avenue that leads to the gate for almost a kilometer."
Each of the fifty-and-so chapters is a poetic diamond finely crafted by a writer at the top of his art. Gathered together, they form a novelistic work whose beauty like no other has upset and satisfied the old reader that I am.
If my library had a small place in the shape of a tabernacle I would certainly store "Spring Snow", not without having previously decorated it with the eight stars of the barrier of Orion, this famous constellation whose central asterism slumped under a radiant moon.

Also, I recommend all of you to read the English Version. This edition is full of translation mistakes. ...more

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Feb 23, 2015 [P] rated it it was amazing

Shelves: bitchin

Has there ever been a stranger novelist than Yukio Mishima? On the one hand, he was a body-building Nationalist, who advocated bushido, the samurai code; he also, as many know, committed seppuku, which is a ritual form of suicide involving disembowelling and beheading. You don’t, it is fair to say, get that kind of thing with Julian Barnes and Karl Ove Knausgaard.

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On the other hand, Mishima was undeniably a cultured man, who spoke English and dressed in the English fashion; he was a bisexual who ...more

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Apr 24, 2018 Gabrielle rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: classics, read-in-2018, own-a-copy, reviewed, historical, asia

4 and a half stars.

When I read a translated book, I'm always very conscious that what I'm reading is not necessarily what the author meant to write: I'm reading a book that's very much like what the author wrote but not really the same. I have no idea what Mishima's book is like in the original Japanese, but if this translation is anything like it, the beauty of the prose in Japanese must be devastating.

The story of Kioyaki and Satoko is, in and of itself, not remarkable: forbidden loves, 4 and a half stars.

When I read a translated book, I'm always very conscious that what I'm reading is not necessarily what the author meant to write: I'm reading a book that's very much like what the author wrote but not really the same. I have no idea what Mishima's book is like in the original Japanese, but if this translation is anything like it, the beauty of the prose in Japanese must be devastating.

The story of Kioyaki and Satoko is, in and of itself, not remarkable: forbidden loves, especially in highly hierarchical and ritualized society, such as Imperial Japan on the cusp of modernization is nothing new, nor are bildungsroman about the often painful transition between boy and man. But the prose! The delicate, poetic and incredibly evocative prose turns this story into a dream-like journey in 1912 Japan, a world fascinated with the West but still holding on to deeply rooted traditions.

It has to be read slowly, to really let oneself bask into the elegant melancholy of Mishima's writing. It is dense at times, but so sensual and crisp that you forget how silly Kioyaki and Satoko are. They are both so beautiful and so spoiled, selfish and conceited that you wish someone would give them a good slap or two until they snapped out of ruining each others' lives. But Mishima writes them in a way that makes it impossible not to want to know what happens to them. It comes as no surprise that there is tragedy at the end of the path they follow. But what an interesting path!

And as gorgeous as the writing is, it reminded me of a really pleasant but too liberally applied perfume: it could get a bit overwhelming, and then I'd have to read the passage again to make sure I knew what was going on.

I will be looking for the rest of the "Sea of Fertility" tetralogy, which follows Kioyaki's friend Honda. The deep friendship between the two young men leads Honda to believe he meets successive reincarnations of Kioyaki and tries to save him from his karma. If the other three books are as good as "Spring Snow", they are more than worth the time! ...more

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Apr 27, 2015 Tristan rated it it was amazing

Shelves: indispensable

“Oddly enough, living only for one’s emotions, like a flag obedient to the breeze, demands a way of life that makes one balk at the natural course of events, for this implies being altogether subservient to nature. The life of the emotions detests all constraints, whatever their origin, and thus, ironically enough, is apt eventually to fetter its own instinctive sense of freedom.”

- Yukio Mishima, Spring Snow

After finishing this supreme piece of fiction (the first of the tetralogy The Sea of “Oddly enough, living only for one’s emotions, like a flag obedient to the breeze, demands a way of life that makes one balk at the natural course of events, for this implies being altogether subservient to nature. The life of the emotions detests all constraints, whatever their origin, and thus, ironically enough, is apt eventually to fetter its own instinctive sense of freedom.”

- Yukio Mishima, Spring Snow

After finishing this supreme piece of fiction (the first of the tetralogy The Sea of Fertility ), I had the irresistible urge to revisit Gore Vidal's 1971 essay The Death of Mishima published about 8 months after the Japanese author had performed seppuku following a failed coup d'état attempt. It was this essay which prompted me to seek out the work of Mishima. A certain passage greatly struck me, and succinctly explained just what it is about Mishima's sensibility that manages to evoke such a strong reaction in me :

"Yet Mishima wanted a life of the flesh, of action, divorced from words. Some interpreted this to mean that he dreamed of becoming a sort of warlord, restoring to Japan its ancient military virtues. But I think Mishima was after something much simpler: the exhaustion of the flesh in physical exercise, in bouts of love, in such adventures as becoming a private soldier for a few weeks in his middle age or breaking the sound barrier with a military jet. Certainly Mishima did not have a political mind. He was a Romantic Artist in a very fin de siècle French way. But instead of deranging the senses through drugs, Mishima tried to lose his conscious mind (his art) through the use and worship of his own flesh and that of others. Finally, rather than face the slow bitter dissolution of the incarnate self, he chose to die."

It is this desperate longing for a renewed sense of -and respect for- masculinity in all its facets that makes Mishima such an intriguing cultural figure. After Japan's humiliating defeat in WW II the country was forced to metaphorically castrate itself, and over the last couple of decades the Western powers in a lesser degree have as well, but in that case it came about through a series of sociocultural shifts.

Spring Snow of course has a lot more themes on offer. In that respect it is quite a dense read, but one that is greatly aided by Mishima's richly lyrical, sensuous prose. Michael Gallagher must be commended for this brilliant translation, for I felt deprived of none of its intricacies. I was constantly taken aback by Mishima's flawless portrayals of distinctive, unforgettable characters and their emotional states. While quite a traditional writer, he is incredibly meticulous, like a Japanese Nabokov.

Part historical document, part philosophical/spiritual meditation, part love story (in fact two love stories, if you count Kyoaki and Honda's incredibly moving friendship), it is difficult not to find something to derive pleasure from in Spring Snow. In this regard I consider it a nigh perfect springboard for further exploration of Japanese culture during this era. It is simply fascinating, and almost challenges its foreign reader to delve deeper.

If I'd have to hazard a guess, I predict me finishing the entire tetralogy will enhance this first, immensely gratifying tasting even more. How fortunate a discovery, this. Pure joy.
...more

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Mar 30, 2014 Ahmad Sharabiani rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: historical, romance, fiction, japan, asia, literature, 20th-century

春の雪 [Haru no Yuki] = Spring Snow (The Sea of Fertility, Book 1), Yukio Mishima
Spring Snow (春の雪 Haru no Yuki) is a novel by Yukio Mishima, the first in his Sea of Fertility tetralogy. It was published serially in Shinchō from 1965 to 1967, and then in book form in 1969. The novel is set in the early years of the Taishō period with the reign of the Emperor Taishō, and is about the relationship between Kiyoaki Matsugae, the son of a rising nouveau-riche family, and Satoko Ayakura, the daughter of ...more

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Feb 21, 2008 Ryan rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Once you start reading Mishima, and becoming absorbed with his characters, you are caught in a web that resembles the web he reveals his own characters are enmeshed in. His characters are so tragic, yet so ordinary; so privileged, yet so doomed; so foolish, yet so much more introspective than you. Spring Snow was one of the best books I have ever read. Mishima is like a surgeon; the tip of his needle or scalpel so fine, so pointed, that he can isolate the most fleeting, awkward, and yet noble ...more

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Mar 30, 2015 Bettie rated it liked it

Shelves: published-1965, spring-2015, historical-fiction, tragedy, japan, japan-tokyo

Description: Tokyo, 1912. The closed world of the ancient aristocracy is being breached for the first time by outsiders - rich provincial families, a new and powerful political and social elite.

Kiyoaki has been raised among the elegant Ayakura family - members of the waning aristocracy - but he is not one of them. Coming of age, he is caught up in the tensions between old and new, and his feelings for the exquisite, spirited Satoko, observed from the sidelines by his devoted friend Honda. When Satoko is engaged to a royal prince, Kiyoaki realises the magnitude of his passion.

The first book in The Sea of Fertility tetralogy. Translated from the Japanese by Michael Gallagher.

Opening: WHEN CONVERSATION at school turned to the Russo-Japanese War, Kiyoaki Matsugae asked his closest friend, Shigekuni Honda, how much he could remember about it.

I have no yearning to read anything other than this first book to get a sense of the author and his politics, and just why he felt that to go back to the mediaeval way of the Samurai was ::a::good::thing::

The particular reason to read this now is that it is Spring - and snow is falling.

As we move through the story there are divinations of things to come from the Dream Diaries, and a black dog at the top of a waterfall, an occurence which is said to augur badly. Yes, many carrots of things to come further down the line.

Yukio Mishima started weight training in 1955. His rigorous weekly regimes continued until his death. Mishima also become an avid and skillful practitioner of kendo. Despite his earlier flight from military service, Yukio Mishima would be known for his political support for a re-militarized Japan. Yukio Mishima became a part of the Ground Self Defense Force and went through the training process in 1967. In 1968, Yukio Mishim uses his reputation and his martial training to found the Tatenokai or the Shield Society. This paramilitary organization swore their loyalty to the abstract notion of the Voices of the Heroic Dead. Mishima supported Japanese Nationalism but was greatly angered by Emperor Hirohito’s renunciation of imperial divinity.

In 1958, Yukio Mishima married Yoko Sugiyama. The following year, Yoko gave birth to a daughter named Noriko and four years later Yoko gave birth to a son named Ichiro. Yukio Mishima frequented gay bars. But many people (including Mishima’s widow) have tried to obfuscate the fact of his homosexual activities. This obfuscation has failed to prevent many of Mishima’s male lovers from coming forward. Yukio Mishima’s children have joined in the effort to prevent Mishima’s full sexuality from becoming apparent by suing people who acknowledge these relationships.
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May 08, 2016 Joel Palma rated it it was amazing

Shelves: favorites, japanese

Hands down, my favorite Japanese novel to date!!!

I can only but sigh finishing reading this masterpiece by Yukio Mishima. I am much overwhelmed by this beautifully poignant book that will surely tugs the heart of any reader.

So gorgeously written that demands to be read slow (not because one is intimidated to do so but it is such a beauty to relish every word written, I call it the "Mishima magic") and, indeed, Proustian in its rendition- as universal and constant as the waves of the sea, the Hands down, my favorite Japanese novel to date!!!

I can only but sigh finishing reading this masterpiece by Yukio Mishima. I am much overwhelmed by this beautifully poignant book that will surely tugs the heart of any reader.

So gorgeously written that demands to be read slow (not because one is intimidated to do so but it is such a beauty to relish every word written, I call it the "Mishima magic") and, indeed, Proustian in its rendition- as universal and constant as the waves of the sea, the introspection of the protagonist have much gone deep, lyrical, profound. Some of the chapters are as allusive, meditative and poetic like a kōan.

I particularly love the dialogues from Prince Pattanadid about everything sacred has the substance of dreams and memories, and so we experience the miracle of what is separated from us by time or distance suddenly being made tangible. For once the dreams and memories are beyond our grasp, the object is sanctified, once touched, we easily desecrates it. How strange man is! His touch defiles and yet he contains the source of miracles!

The book has the intimacy of Akutagawa's "Rashōmon" yet at an epic proportion. The subtleties only the Japanese can write is suffused within the pages of this book.

The characters of Kiyoake and Satoko will live with me forever...Such youthful vivacity, love and promise... The book is also philosophical and ironically comic at some of the most critical parts of the story which greatly balanced the book to veer away from being melodramatic, such as Honda's musings and Tadeshina, who reminds me of Mrs. Rupa Mehra, one of the most enduring characters in the literary world from Vikram Seth's "A Suitable Boy".

Just as one may think that this book is only a youthful, budding love story, no... Mishima, the master storyteller, weaves a tough and timeless basketwork- with complex twistings and braids made of wood, it holds the basket in form, as a whole. Seemingly simple, this book serves as the torii gate that will open the epic "Runaway Horses", the second book in the series "The Sea of Fertility" with such vast, sheer work of genius!

The most beautiful, melancholic and touching love story I've ever read and devoured with such heartache and will remain so for a very long time. ...more

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Jul 26, 2017 Meike rated it it was amazing

Shelves: japan, 2017-read

A love story that reflects the struggles within Japanese culture brought about by the westernization at the beginning of the 20th century – Mishima, you’re a genius. On the surface, the content of the book could be summed up like this: The young Kiyoaki, born into a family that has recently come to accumulate considerable wealth, grew up with Satoko, the daughter of an old aristocratic family struggling with monetary problems. It is only when Satoko gets engaged to an Imperial prince that A love story that reflects the struggles within Japanese culture brought about by the westernization at the beginning of the 20th century – Mishima, you’re a genius. On the surface, the content of the book could be summed up like this: The young Kiyoaki, born into a family that has recently come to accumulate considerable wealth, grew up with Satoko, the daughter of an old aristocratic family struggling with monetary problems. It is only when Satoko gets engaged to an Imperial prince that Kiyoaki realizes that he truly loves her, and they begin a secret love affair that ends tragically.

Of course, that is only the top layer of this intricate poetic work. The author biography at the beginning of the book states that after completing his tetralogy “The Sea of Fertility” (of which “Spring Snow” is the first part) in 1970, Mishima committed ritual suicide. Whoever wrote this is guilty of misleading readers by omission: Before Mishima ritually cut open his stomach and let himself be beheaded by a friend, he tried to stage a coup d’état because he wanted to restore the power of the Emperor. This poet was also a martial artist and bodybuilder who had his own private army, and he wanted to protect traditional Japanese values against westernization. Accordingly, this is not a harmless love story, but a meditation on the differences between Eastern and Western thought, law, culture, and religion.

Kiyoaki’s ancestors used to be samurai, but there is not much warrior spirit left: His parents indulge in Western movies, fashion, and style, and Kiyoaki declares that he will never spill blood. At the same time, the family is still attached to Japanese cultural traditions: They entertain guests with Geishas, they are very proud of their contacts to the Imperial family and, if conflict arises, they mention how this would have been resolved in “the old times”. This tension between East and West is also reflected in the relationship between Kiyoaki and Satoko. Kiyoaki admires her whenever she behaves like a demure, traditional woman, he is intrigued by her physical beauty, her colorful kimonos, her face and neck under her white make-up. But whenever Satoko acts confidently and speaks her mind, Kiyoaki feels insulted and gets angry. When Kiyoaki finally begins a relationship with Satoko after her engagement, he knowingly breaks the rules of Japanese society - well, any society, actually, but here the situation is worsened by the fact that the Emperor sanctioned the marriage to an Imperial prince. Nevertheless, Kiyoaki tells his friend Honda that he would be willing to comply with the rules when forced to face consequences for his transgression, including death. Just as Japanese society as a whole, Kiyoaki and Satoko are torn between the old and the new.

Beyond exploring the impact of westernization by looking at individual and family relationships, Mishima also discusses the change within societal institutions that shape Japan as a whole, namely law and religion. Kiyoaki’s friend Honda is the son of a judge and aims to become one, too. He is fascinated by the differing principles of law that might be applied in different societies, and through his eyes, Mishima displays philosophical tensions such as the imperative of Western law that is based on man’s power of reason and Hindu/Buddhist cosmic law with its doctrine of the transmigration of souls. This becomes crucial as the “Sea of Fertility” tetralogy depicts Kiyoaki being reincarnated in every installment, while Honda grows old and witnesses Kiyoaki’s reincarnations. Adding to that, one could mention that the then-valid Meiji Constitution was based on Prusso-German law and by that was heavily influenced by the West.

And they are more fields in which the theme of the book is played out: Siamese princes who come to Japan and experience culture shock, loyal servants in moral distress, and a reactionary student wrapped up in his own ideas. So although “Spring Snow” might not be as obviously political as “Confessions of a Mask” or “Sun and Steel”, it still is a very typical Mishima book, as it ponders the question what direction Japan should take, and how the decline of tradition and the rise of westernization should be handled. Beautiful prose, fascinating ideas, and must probably be read many times in order to understand the text’s whole genius. ...more

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Jan 12, 2018 Ailsa rated it really liked it

Shelves: japanese-literature, xmas-2017

"Just as a stream returns to its normal course after a flood, Kiyoaki's predilection for suffering began to reassert itself."

"At that moment she held an irresistible attraction for him... it was the lure of the forbidden, the utterly unattainable, the proscribed. He wanted her in this way and no other."

Set in Japan in 1912, after the Russo-Japanese War Spring Snow captures a society in flux in startlingly crisp prose.

"Beautiful, elegant, imposing, she was like a flower at its moment of ...more

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Sep 08, 2007 brian rated it it was amazing

the first in mishima's tetralogy and, so far, the best (i'm in the middle of the third). on its own, Spring Snow is easily one of the most tender love stories i've read -- but it cannot be considered on its own: as honda watches a friend reincarnated several times over the span of several novels, it all adds up to even more than the sum of its extraordinary parts. in the USA, this'd play out as gimmick; in japan (shinto, buddhism, etc.) it is the assumption. an exploration of history, the ...more

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Jan 24, 2013 Teresa rated it really liked it · review of another edition

The most important -- and used -- word in this book of historical fiction has to be 'elegant' (and its variations). And while the prose style itself is always elegant, the elegance of the ancient aristocracy is not always a good thing, as mostly it seems to be ineffective, even useless, for the situations the characters find themselves in. Those with 'new-money' have the power, but the novelist seems to like them even less than he does the aristocrats. (Even so, all the characters are ...more

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Aug 19, 2013 Alex rated it liked it

Shelves: reading-through-history, 2013, rth-lifetime, japan

This is a subtle, intelligent, sensitive, perceptive book. But it's also a little boring.

It has some spectacular moments! Tadeshina is a terrific character in the mold of the nurse from Romeo & Juliet, and her makeup is probably the best character in the book. And there's a scene involving Kiyoaki's nipple that's terrifically gay.

This may have been one of those cases where it was the wrong book at the wrong time. I wasn't prepared for something I had to immerse myself in at a Proustian ...more

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Jan 13, 2020 Håkon rated it really liked it

It's kinda sad tbh ngl

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Jan 18, 2017 Florencia rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: favorites, japanese, mishimaism

Even when we're with someone we love, we're foolish enough to think of her body and soul as being separate. To stand before the person we love is not the same as loving her true self, for we are only apt to regard her physical beauty as the indispensable mode of her existence. When time and space intervene, it is possible to be deceived by both, but on the other hand, it is equally possible to draw twice as close to her real self.

Delectable writing, disturbing characters; what a mixture.

* Review ...more

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Nov 15, 2011 Matthew rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: favorite-fiction

This book is, in my opinion, without a doubt, the greatest love story ever told. I don't care what you think about any of the classics, anything you've read before, be it Austen or Shakespeare or the Greeks. The poetic brilliance and tragic self-destruction of love in this book chills me. Even in translation, this piece was the bane of my existence for the length of time I spent reading it - a fair amount for it's length of 400 pages.

Mishima is one of the few authors I've read recently who This book is, in my opinion, without a doubt, the greatest love story ever told. I don't care what you think about any of the classics, anything you've read before, be it Austen or Shakespeare or the Greeks. The poetic brilliance and tragic self-destruction of love in this book chills me. Even in translation, this piece was the bane of my existence for the length of time I spent reading it - a fair amount for it's length of 400 pages.

Mishima is one of the few authors I've read recently who astounds me on a level I can barely comprehend. Even in translation, I can tell that Gallagher has spared no expense in making sure each word corresponds perfectly to the Japanese - I can just feel in the page that it was an immensely difficult process. Beauty rarely translates. Even more rarely does it transcend. This piece, certainly, does both.

As this is the first part of a tetralogy (The Sea of Fertility), it's clear to me that there's much more at work here. Although there are initial thoughts of "oh, this is just a love story" I could tell that certain groundwork is being laid for the remainder of the story, to be told in the next three installments. That said, the work is self-contained. There is no need to read on anymore than this story, but Mishima's prose certainly ebbs and flows more elegantly than any American author I have read. The binding agent is Honda, the protagonist of the first book's best friend and passionate follower, who struggles with life's questions as a logically sound and pleasantly plain individual in search of knowledge, companionship, and truth. As the Buddhist philosophy of "reincarnation" unfolds before him, he is forced to accept or reject it, and possibly transcend it altogether through the magnificent power of the Japanese spirit.

"I've known supreme happiness, and I'm not greedy enough to want what I have to go on forever. Every dream ends. Wouldn't it be foolish, knowing that nothing lasts forever, to insist that one has a right to do something that does?... But... if eternity existed, it would be this moment. And perhaps you, Mr. Honda, will come round to seeing it this way some day."

In this book the Yamato spirit flies proudly. But in addition, there's a very human, very grounded, and very evocative spirit capable of touching anyone, regardless of where you were born. Highly recommended. Don't think for a second you've read it all until you've read this book.
...more

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Jan 23, 2014 Steven rated it liked it

Shelves: literature, books-i-own, japanese

"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." (15)

I approached Mishima at perhaps an unusual angle, reading first his novel Confessions of a Mask, followed by a collection of his Nō Plays and then his stories. I now thought it was time to read Spring Snow, the first book in his The Sea of Fertility tetralogy (upon completion of which, on 25 November, 1970, Mishima ...more

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Mar 24, 2010 K.D. Absolutely rated it really liked it

Recommended to K.D. by: 501 Must Read Books; 1001 Books You Must Read Before You Die (20

Shelves: 501

A story of young tragic love. If you strip the plot to its barest, two young children grew up together. The girl was 2 years older. At 21, she showed affection to the boy but the boy was immature enough to brush it off. At that age and time in Japan, 21 was already old so her parents arranged her to be married to an Imperial prince. After she was betrothed, the boy changed his mind, chased the girl, got her pregnant. Again, during that time in Japan, it was a mortal sin to commit such act to the ...more

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Jun 17, 2017 Hengtee rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Spring Snow starts at a slow pace. The book takes its time introducing you to the gravity of its characters, and the careful relationships between each, and it's only after building this interweaving world of a precariously balanced harmony, that Mishima spins that world out of control with a simple love affair, and the ensuing chaos.

What I enjoyed most about Spring Snow was following how each character responds to their universe spinning wildly out of control - some by trying desperately to ...more

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Sep 04, 2012 Russell rated it it was amazing

Shelves: mishima, japanese, surfeit-2015

The blending of Buddhist philosophy, reincarnation theory, beautiful prose descriptors of the environment that surrounds these characters, as well as an engrossing storyline that effectively examines a changing Japanese society (Traditional vs Westernisation) really just hits my sweet spot. Loved it. Runaway Horses is in the mail. For now, back the Dying Grass..

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Dec 13, 2018 Jim rated it it was ok

Shelves: 20th-century, read-in-2018, author-asian, novels

Over the years, I've read and enjoyed many Japanese writers, but somehow managed to neglect Mishima. About a year ago I decided to rectify the situation and bought his Confessions of a Mask and the first two volumes of his Sea of Fertility tetralogy. So far, this has been a BIG mistake.

Confessions of a Mask was more boring - if you can imagine it - than Proust yammering on and on about Madame Swann in the tiresome tome, In The Shadow of Young Girls in Flower... a special torture for any ...more

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May 10, 2014 Jeremy rated it it was amazing

Shelves: japanese-literature

This is much more lush and descriptive than the other Mishima I've read. The dark, intense psychology that he usually examines is, in Spring Snow, much more rooted in lush, sensual descriptions of Matsuge and Honda's external world. An old war photograph, a cloth falling off of a table, the way light plays over the face of a waterfall, etc, Mishima is able to forge rich emotional states around such images and to make them react and magnify each other.

Almost every page in this book has some ...more

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Sep 04, 2018 Tonymess rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Pardon me whilst I recover from the last sentence in the book.

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About Yukio Mishima

Yukio Mishima

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Yukio Mishima (三島由紀夫) was born in Tokyo in 1925. He graduated from Tokyo Imperial University’s School of Jurisprudence in 1947. His first published book, The Forest in Full Bloom, appeared in 1944 and he established himself as a major author with Confessions of a Mask (1949). From then until his death he continued to publish novels, short stories, and plays each year. His crowning achievement, ...more

Other books in the series

The Sea of Fertility (4 books)

Books by Yukio Mishima

The Sailor Who Fell from Grace with the Sea

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Trivia About Spring Snow

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Quotes from Spring Snow

“Dreams, memories, the sacred--they are all alike in that they are beyond our grasp. Once we are even marginally separated from what we can touch, the object is sanctified; it acquires the beauty of the unattainable, the quality of the miraculous. Everything, really, has this quality of sacredness, but we can desecrate it at a touch. How strange man is! His touch defiles and yet he contains the source of miracles.” — 335 likes

“Time is what matters. As time goes by, you and I will be carried inexorably into the mainstream of our period, even though we’re unaware of what it is. And later, when they say that young men in the early Taisho era thought, dressed, talked, in such and such a way, they’ll be talking about you and me. We’ll all be lumped together…. In a few decades, people will see you and the people you despise as one and the same, a single entity.” — 71 likes

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