Confessions of a Mask [Paperback]

Yukio Mishima (Author), Meredith Weatherby (Translator)

Book Description

Publication Date: January 17, 1958

One of the classics of modern Japanese fiction.

Confessions of a Mask is the story of an adolescent who must learn to live with the painful fact that he is unlike other young men. Mishima's protagonist discovers that he is becoming a homosexual in polite, post-war Japan. To survive, he must live behind a mask of propriety.

Christopher Isherwood comments—"One might say, 'Here is a Japanese Gide,'....But no, Mishima is himself—a very Japanese Mishima; lucid in the midst of emotional confusion, funny in the midst of despair, quite without pomposity, sentimentality or self-pity. His book, like no other, has made me understand a little of how it feels to be Japanese. I think it is greatly superior, as art and as a human document to his deservedly praised novel, The Sound of Waves."

Editorial Reviews

Review

Mishima's Mask continues to speak to the terrors that come when sexualities are pressed underground. (Emily Drabinski - Out Magazine )

About the Author

Yukio Mishima (1925-1970) was many people. The best known in Japan of the writers to emerge there after World War II, he was by far the most published abroad. Mishima completed his first novel the year he entered the University of Tokyo. More followed (some twenty-three, the last completed the day of his death in November, 1970), along with more than forty play, over ninety short stories, several poetry and travel volumes and hundreds of essays. Influenced by European literature, in which he was exceptionally well read, he was an interpreter to his own people of Japan's ancient virtues, to which he urged a return. He had sung on the stage, starred in and directed movies and was a noted practitioner of Japan's traditional martial arts. He seemed at the height of his career and vitality at the age of forty-five, when after a demonstration in the public interest he committed suicide by ceremonial seppuku.

Product Details

• Paperback: 254 pages
• Publisher: New Directions; 2nd Printing edition (January 17, 1958)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 081120118X
• ISBN-13: 978-0811201186
• Product Dimensions: 8 x 5.2 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 13.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (28 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #41,219 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #9 in Books > Literature & Fiction > History & Criticism > Asian

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

34 of 36 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Good starting point into the world of Mishima, February 8, 2004

By 

Charles E. Stevens - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Confessions of a Mask (Paperback)

Reading other reviews of Confessions of a Mask, I see that many readers are looking at it from a perspective of "gay literature" and seem disappointed that Mishima is not really a supporter of the cause. But from my perspective, as someone interested in Mishima as a giant in Japanese literature, Confessions of a Mask is a great introduction into the literary world of Mishima Yukio.

Without giving away too much, the main forces that propel the protagonist in this semi-autobiographical work, are a secret lust for masculine beauty and an attempt at heterosexual "normalcy" attempted mainly through a painfully flawed try at loving a sister of his friend. Other reviewers have commented that the second half of the story flags a bit, but for me, the frustration and concealed emotion that is tangible in the conversations between the protagonist and Sonoko is both convincing and intriguing.

However, I would agree that the first half of the book is probably more interesting. Mishima's work is less about homosexuality (with the emphasis on sex) and more about an almost reverent approach toward masculine virtue and beauty. These ideas and the struggle within the protagonist start to flag as the war draws to an end and he becomes involved with Sonoko.

I have yet to read many of Mishima's works, but the two main things that appeal to me are his staunch commitment to an ideal or perfection of some sort, and also the amazing penmanship that his stories exhibit. As with most Japanese literature, this sort of subtle detail is lost in translation, so I encourage all who have the ability and time to read the originals!

Although I have a feeling this book will be hard-pressed to please everyone, as it is a bit too extreme for the mainstream reader but perhaps not strong enough for the alternative audience, for me at least it seems like a great insight into the mind and the works of Mishima. No study of modern Japanese literature would be complete without a look at Mishima, and although Confessions of a Mask may not be his greatest work, it is unquestionably an excellent starting point.

7 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Oppression and being gay, November 21, 1998

By A Customer

This review is from: Confessions of a Mask (Paperback)

This book operates on several levels, as an existential novel, portrait of war-time Japan, and as a coming of age story. I will leave it to others to comment on the other aspects of the book. As a gay story, the author confronts his present and future as a homosexual in a society that hardly recognized the existence of such persons. It is a tragic, but surprisingly not depressing, story written in direct, occasionally dark, prose.

As a gay man, I have given this book to several of my straight friends to help them understand the complex feelings gays, especially those coming out, have about their identity and place in society.

6 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars the gay coming of age novel, December 9, 2001

By 

anthony (Kyoto, Japan) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Confessions of a Mask (Paperback)

Here in Japan, a lot in life is kept behind closed sliding doors and emotions rarely surface in public. Private and public are clearly delineated. The narrator courageously allows us into his complex private world of tangled emotions. Complicated sexual desire, an artistic sensibility, wit and intelligence create a picture of a precocious teenager that will remind you of Salinger's and Joyce's jaded teens. The narrator is intensely introspective, sympathetic, and has an active imagination fixated on death, sex, and workingclass muscular male bodies. Gay and straight readers alike will find this novel engaging and full of meaning about growing up behind a mask.