Death in Midsummer & Other Stories [Paperback]

Yukio Mishima (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: January 17, 1966

Recognized throughout the world for his brilliance as a novelist and playwright, Yukio Mishima is also noted as a master of the short story in his native Japan. Here nine of his finest stories, selected by Mishima himself, represent his extraordinary ability to depict a wide variety of human beings in moments of significance. Often his characters are modern Japanese who turn out to be not so liberated from the past as they had thought.

Editorial Reviews

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: 181 pages
• Publisher: New Directions (January 17, 1966)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0811201171
• ISBN-13: 978-0811201179
• Product Dimensions: 7.9 x 5.2 x 0.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 6.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (13 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #158,944 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #41 in Books > Literature & Fiction > World Literature > Japanese

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

17 of 17 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Very impressive, December 13, 2002

By A Customer

This review is from: Death in Midsummer & Other Stories (Paperback)

A friend recommended Mishima to me, and this was the book I picked up. First, to respond to a reviewer below, this book (at least my copy) has no introduction, no preface, no afterward, and has numerous translators. The stories were selected by Mishima himself, and the book was published in New York. Reading any "leftist" intentions on the part of the publishers of this book, then, is certainly very strange, unless it was gleaned from the three paragraph synopsis on the back.

That having been said, I was immensley impressed by this book. After the first three stories ("Death in Midsummer", "Three Million Yen", and "Thermos Bottle") I was ready to admit the genius of the author. The title story is abridged, and the translation on all three is awkward -- I don't know a bit of Japanese, but the English itself lacked lucidity and had some confused grammar. Nevertheless, there's a remarkable detail to the deliniation of character, a mesmorizing lyrical style, and a powerful look into the psychology of man when confronted with tragic and absurd circumstances. The stories, also, are brilliantly subtle satires of middle class values. The author clearly intends to show the decline in the Japanese character as a result of Westernization and modernization. At some points it hints at leftist values -- a dislike of the bourgeois, a sympathy for the poor, etc. But Mishima's strange and anachronistic political beliefs show us that his work is best read as insight into the identity crisis facing modern Japan, and not as leftist, or even entirely rightist. (I read, while glancing through a biography of the author, a statement he made after speaking to a group of leftist students. He said something to the effect of "We shared a friendship and an understanding, embracing through a barbed fence...")

As much as I appreciated the first three stories, however, I found the rest of the book to be much better, revealing an incredible diversity of style and theme. "The Priest and His Love" is a beautiful Buddhist fable exploring the paradox and power of beauty and sensuality. The style of writing reminded me a lot of Pär Lagerkvist. "Patriotism" caught me completely off-guard, and undoubtedly represents the greatest work in the book. Its the story of an officer who commits seppuku (ritual suicide) and his wife, who follows. With great fluidity and poetic grace, Mishima describes their final night together, then, in a frustratingly objective prose, describes the morbid end of the two. Violence and sensuality are tied in with finality, duty and beauty. Mishima was an aesthete, but of the rarest kind -- much in the spirit of Poe, perhaps. The story had an enormous impact of me.

"Dojoji," auspiciously set after "Patriotism," is one of Mishima's Noh plays, and shifts entirely to the languid, allegorical style that characterizes the Noh (contrasted by the turbulent, grotesque realism of the previous story). The play is about the auction of a giant wardrobe that has a gruesome past. Mishima's attempt to reinvigorate the tired Noh theatre was a noble effort, and (in my opinion) a successful one. The spiritual quality of the theatre proves a profound vehicle to the pessimism and spiritual despondency that characterizes modern literature and thought. After reading this play, I went out immediately and found a copy of "Five No Plays by Mishima" which I very much look forward to reading. The next story, "Onnagata," deliberately takes us to the other side of Japanese theatre, the kabuki. Its a homoerotic tale of obsession and infatuation, and a love triangle between three men (or rather, two men and an onnagata -- a man who plays, or rather lives, as a woman in kabuki theatre). One man seeks the elusive love of a famed onnagata by joining the kabuki theatre. The onnagata, for Mishima, is "the illicit child born of a marriage between dream and reality." As infatuation drives him further and further into the world of the kabuki, it has the strange effect of driving him further and further away from the onnagata's love, who, in the end, falls in love with a pretentious young guest director who knows nothing of the kabuki.

"The Pearl" completely surprised me. Of all things, its a social comedy, the type I had suspected, from reading the other stories, that the author was incapable of. To my delight, I was proved wrong. Again poking tremendous fun at the middle class, the story is about five middle aged women, and a lost pearl and a silly mischevious act that explodes into a tale of deciet, head games, and irony.

After reading this, I am a confirmed Mishima fan. It has also excited me into exploring contemporary Japanese literature. Very highly recommended!

10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A great collection, September 23, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Death in Midsummer & Other Stories (Paperback)

I stumbled onto Mishima accidentally but he's fantastic. All these stories are written simply but beautifully, with not a single excess word, and deal with everything from patriotism, homosexuality, suicide, death, love, materialism, and dreams. Top stories? Definitely "Death in Midsummer" and "Seven Bridges", but most importantly, "Patriotism", a completely disturbing, beautiful and unforgettable work.

7 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars mishima at his best, March 1, 1999

By 

vic spicer - See all my reviews

This review is from: Death in Midsummer & Other Stories (Paperback)

this personally selected collection of short stories shows mishima at his best. from a surreal no play to gentle stories of mourning and loss, this is all great stuff which translated beautifully. my only reservation would be the story "patriotism", which details the ritual suicide of a young couple- ick. compelling, but not for the weak stomached.