Spring Snow

The Sea of Fertility #1

by Yukio Mishima, Michael Gallagher (Translator)

Alternate cover edition of ISBN 9780099282990

Tokyo, 1912. The closed world of the ancient aristocracy is being breached for the first time by outsiders - rich provincial familes, 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.

Genres: Fiction, Japan, Japanese Literature, Classics, Historical Fiction, Literature, Novels

389 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1967

About the author

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, the Sea of Fertility tetralogy—which contains the novels Spring Snow (1969), Runaway Horses (1969), The Temple of Dawn (1970), and The Decay of the Angel (1971)—is considered one of the definitive works of twentieth-century Japanese fiction. In 1970, at the age of forty-five and the day after completing the last novel in the Fertility series, Mishima committed seppuku (ritual suicide)—a spectacular death that attracted worldwide attention.

Reviews

[Diana · Rating 5 out of 5]

Jedna z najkrajších kníh, ktoré som kedy čítala, od jedného z nazvláštnejších spisovateľov, o ktorom som si musela prečítať celú stránku na Wikipédii.

Príbeh jednej lásky, ktorý je však oveľa komplikovanejší, ako taká obyčajná lovestory. Na pozadí sa bije staré aristokratické Japonsko plné samurajských kódexov a ultranacionalizmu, ktorým autor žil, a moderné Japonsko obohatené o západnú kultúru a kapitalizmus. Mishima takisto načŕta budhistickú vieru a ideu reinkarnácie a celkovo dodáva dielu komplexnosť, ktorú som doposiaľ zažila iba pri čítaní Anny Kareninovej od Tolstého. Nečudo, že mi teda nielen svojou prekrásnou prózou, ale aj hĺbkou učaroval.

Keď som zistila, že ide o prvú knihu z tetralógie, ktorá predstavuje jeho veľdielo, po prečítaní som si objednala hneď zvyšné tri knihy a už teraz sa teším na máj, keď mi všetky dorazia. Mishima mi predstavil Japonsko, ktoré som doposiaľ nepoznala a otvoril mi oči k ďalšiemu historicko-kultúrnemu kontextu. Veľmi sa teším na ďalšie jeho diela a hlavne na ich analýzu, ktorá mi pomôže pochopiť komplikovaný diskurz okolo kontroverznej postavy.