Part Two: Winter

[Betty]

WINTER

... Yukio Mishima's sort-of wintry title Spring Snow.

Quote from "The Sailor...":

"The mirror was not quite closed; the upper edges of the glass glinted through the cracks like splinters of ice."

[lanalang]

I finished it last night. I'm a bit upset...:)
I'm curious to know your opinion.

[Betty]

Will post a reply, lanalang!

[Betty]

Ryuji misinterprets or brushes aside the clues which could alert him to the disaster to come on land, e.g., at a misnamed 'dry dock' on a desolate hilltop far from the shore; he is baffled by distortions of meaning--words not referring to their real objects and places--and is accepting of boys' actions. At sea, he would accurately, "intuitively" interpret signs and survive. He is inexperienced on land and is optimistic about his forthcoming marriage, his status as a Father, and his learning English and retail management. His sense of a moral obligation is to bond with Noboru and N's friends. He notices several disquieting signs about the boys and the long trip but does his best to share curious youthful schemes. And his own recollected stories put him into a dreamlike trance and his eyeing the sea and boats in the offing makes him realize how much he misses parts of being a sailor and notions of having a special glorious destiny. There's a connection between Ryuji, desolated postwar Japan, and the red sun of the Japanese flag.

[Motheaten]

This is a very dark story. Noboru is very enclosed in his own world with his gang and too young to understand that reality is subjective. I think Noboru and gang are supposed to represent a new generation who has the potential to redeem post-war Japan's dignity, a very idealistic thinking by the author. Ryuji's family perished during the war, leaving him to make his own way in the world; there's a ray of hope for him but he did not eventually achieve his ideal. Well, I pity the mother at the end, all she wanted was a simple happiness.

[Betty]

I wonder whether we are supposed to view the boys' actions with moral indignation or with the attitude of a viewer before a work of art? I think it is a work of art, and what the boys do is an allegory about evil. Would moral guidance and effective home sway the boys from performing macabre deaths? Maybe so.

The chief's father comes across the page as a helpful (make your purpose) but absent character with whom the chief doesn't identify. Some other of the boys' fathers are present at home but violent or drunken. There's no nearly perfect parent until Ryuji comes on the scene, imo. His intention is to be involved with Noboru and Noboru's activities and friends. (He sees doing so as the rightful thing to do). On the climactic day, the boys gradually warm up to his stories, but Ryugi is ironically joining Noboru and the group in a way he never expects.

I think that Mishima hints at the possibilities that some passersby or bus driver might notice the maritime Ryugi with the several boys during the long trip and that the boys will get caught but will not be brought to justice.

[Motheaten]

Perhaps Ryuji's decision to be anchored, permanently, on land with Fusako made Noboru see Ryuji as mediocre, especially through Ryuji's dialogue with Noboru and his attempt at friendliness. Noboru was disgusted with Ryuji's mediocrity and notes down all of Ryuji's offences. I think you're right in seeing this as a work of art, and Ryuji's death symbolises a redemption for the old Japan whose glory is now fading. Fusako, then, may represent the modern (Westernised) Japan with her western-style house and business. The descriptions of her house and business must have been hints about westernisation.

[Betty]

Motheaten, Excellent ideas about this novel's symbolism between traditional Japan and modernized, westernized Japan.

Ryuji's own stories, entrancing himself into a reverie, make the old Japan and Ryuji days at sea a dream of the past.

[Motheaten]

I'm reading Mishima: A Biography and now have more understanding of where Mishima was coming from in his books. I used the word mediocre in message 7 because that's what Mishima must have thought of Ryuji from Noboru's pov. This I gathered from the bio; Mishima's supposed critic of people beneath him.
Hm.. not sure if you get my meaning, anyway I think it's a good idea to read the bio before reading too many of his books.

[Betty]

I'll add a couple of biographies about Mishima to TWL's bookshelf, if they are not yet in place.

[Motheaten]

The detailed description of the dissection of a cat was in fact personally experienced by Mishima. I read, in the bio, that Mishima and a writer friend killed and vivisected a cat in order to write that description :O

[Betty]

Mishima would have dissected the cat beyond the age of which the story's boys do. (They grow up faster after the war.) On one hand, they are growing up without sufficient guidance from family and school, the intellectually bright chief's being one of most dastardly villains in literature. On the other hand, too much oversight or misguidance, like Fusako's nightly locking Noboru's door and a parent's drunkenness, stultify the boys' lives and disable communication. Fusako recognizes the chief's possibly dangerous influence; while she can comment and provide a family life, her authority is less than is required. The chief is a successful leader, is imaginative and methodical, but he is unrealistic about human beings, especially about fathers. Really, the chief's own father's response to his comment about "purpose" is on the mark; Ryugi's behavior too is on the mark. The chief is intrinsically unsympathetic to life forms and to conventions, carrying the plot through with the boys.