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The Sailor Who Fell from Grace With the Sea

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In post-World War II Yokohama, Japan, a seaport town, the sailor Ryuji, has become disillusioned with his life at sea and finds himself craving what the land has to offer. Ultimately, he marries the widow, Fusako, the owner of a Western imports shop and mother of Noboru, an adolescent boy struggling to come to terms with his own sense of identity and place in the world. These three people, as well as the presence of the land and the sea, itself, form the central characters in Yukio Mishima's haunting masterpiece of tragedy, The Sailor Who Fell From Grace With the Sea.

As a true sailor, one whose ultimate quest is inexorably bound to the sea, Ryuji has become Noboru's hero. In Noboru's eyes, Ryuji can do no wrong--until one day Noboru sees Ryuji and Fusako making love. At that point, the young boy realizes his hero has fallen. Ryuji has lost his attachment to the sea, has failed at his quest and is becoming more and more a lover of life on land. When he finally falls under Fusako's spell and forsakes the sea entirely, Noboru, who, himself, has come to feel that only violence can grant him the power and control he seeks, realizes that Ryuji's only salvation lies in death.

The Sailor Who Fell From Grace With the Sea is a highly symbolic and multi-layered novel. While it is not necessary to have knowledge of Japanese culture or politics in order to enjoy the book, it does add yet another dimension of meaning to the story as well as deepen an understanding of Mishima, himself.

Noboru clearly represents "traditional" Japan. His values are those of an old, patriarchal Japan, and when the story opens, Ryuji symbolizes all the values Noboru holds most dear--stoicism, strength of spirit and the Samurai tradition.

Fusako, on the other hand, embodies the "new, Westernized" Japan, and as Ryuji comes, more and more, to embrace both Fusako's lifestyle and "new" Japan, his fall from grace continues, a state Noboru's honor cannot abide.

The book can thus be seen as a metaphor representing modern-day Japan; a Japan that many feel will only become truly great once more when she forcibly purges herself of all Western influence.

Like all of Mishima's works, this book is astounding in its juxtaposition of savage barbarism and lyrical beauty, with strong currents of eroticism throughout. Mishima wisely chooses to use third person multiple viewpoint, heightening our understanding of the three major characters, for we learn to see them not only as they see themselves, but also as others see them.

Although The Sailor Who Fell From Grace With the Sea is a short book, its impact is enormously powerful. Mishima was an amazing writer who was never afraid to venture into the darkest regions of the human soul. His work forces us to do the same, and, in my opinion, we are all better for having done it.

It is difficult to separate Mishima the man from Mishima the author. When reading books like "The Sailor who Fell from Grace with the Sea" (Japanese title is "Gogo no Eiko," or "Afternoon of Glory"), one cannot help but think of his suicide, his politics, his private army, etc... However, a masterpiece such as this deserves to be judged on its literary merits rather than the politics of its author.

"The Sailor who Fell from Grace with the Sea" is a stark book, running both cold and passionately hot as the children who attempt to be intellectually dispassionate, all the while feeling the fluxing emotions of adolescence. A young boy's hero, a Sailor full of bravado and the masculine glory of searching for the horizon and always leaving women behind, finds himself changing his ideals with inklings of romantic love and home and hearth and comfort. The young boy who idolizes him cannot forgive these trespasses. The Sailor must remain a pure hero, uncorrupted by sentimentality.

The purity of the mother is a running theme in Japanese fiction, and Mishima plays with societies ideas of mothers and sons. A mother is supposed to live for her son, and cannot be a woman to any other man. A husband is supposed to be distant and other. An unattainable ideal, but not an actual person.

Such knowledge of Japanese society helps inform this book, but it is not necessary. The emotions on display are raw and offer and uncompromising glimpse into the psyche of another culture but are also understandable by people of every culture. In fact, in an interesting note, "The Sailor who Fell from Grace with the Sea" is far more famous in the United States than it is in Japan, where it is counted as one of Mishima's lesser books. Perhaps it is a work more in tune with the American psyche than the Japanese.

Yukio Mishima's economically composed The Sailor Who Fell From Grace With The Sea (1965) is a short, grim novel that gracefully weaves together a number of complex themes and achieves its purpose without hitting a single false or awkward note. Mishima excels at depicting the constant state of tension that results from the disparity between the demands of man's social role and the truth of his inner reality; all of the book's characters struggle with at least these two conflicting elements of their psyches.

Ryuji, the sailor of the novel's title, additionally lives part of his life in a very specific dream world of his own careful devising. In this fantasy, or is Ryuji perceiving a genuine layer of a deeper reality? Ryuji believes himself to be an archetypal hero fatally set aside from the rest of mankind but destined for some unimaginable, transcendent future glory. This private mythology and self - idealization provides Ryuji with a kind of charismatic halo which others find mysterious and very attractive, but difficult to specifically identify or even acknowledge. In contrast, Noboru, the young son of Ryuji's widowed fiancé Fusako, is snared between his docile, school - boy persona and his calculating, brutal, and sociopathic real self. When Ryuji and Noboru meet, the boy perceives the well - muscled sailor as a sterling example of steely, unfettered manhood, while Ryuji sees in Noboru and his mother an opportunity to make his peace with life and a chance to exchange his elitist, perhaps neurotic claims to a higher destiny for something warm and tangible. As they step tentatively towards one another with these ill - defined but inexorable expectations floating between them, each unwittingly places himself on a collision course with calamitous personal disaster.

Like Muriel Spark's The Prime Of Miss Jean Brodie (1961), The Sailor Who Fell From Grace With The Sea masterfully addresses themes of fascism, education, hero worship, betrayal, the enigma of sexual conduct, the inconvenient demands of society, and the painful results that can arise when the mentoring process is miscarried or goes terribly wrong. However, Mishima's cosmos is a much harsher place than the relatively ethical and homey world of the Marsha Blaine School For Girls. Mishima portrays formal Japanese society as one in which the polite, absolutely unassailable dictates of social roles and other artifices provide a fertile breeding ground for crippling human isolation, nihilism, deviance, and just - under - the - skin pathology.

Like Erskine Caldwell's Journeyman, The Sailor Who Fell From Grace With The Sea also features an important character addictively viewing what he or she believes to be a higher reality through a small hole in a wall. Here, the vision revealed is the primal scene of creation from chaos: Oedipal themes color all of the novel's pages. The book can also be interpreted as a rough parable of Japanese history during the middle decades of the twentieth century.

Though The Sailor Who Fell From Grace With The Sea manages to maintain its nuanced, balanced, and quietly poetic tone throughout, a protracted but ultimately ungratuitous scene of animal cruelty may repulse some readers.

Mishima's "The Sailor Who Fell from Grace with the Sea" is a beautifully written, picturesque short novel about idealism and the conflict between compassion and dispassion. The main character is Noboru, a bright, fatherless 13-year-old boy who hangs out with a few of his schoolmates in a sort of gang. The "chief" of the gang, who thinks far beyond the level of a typical 13-year-old, is the gang's philosophical guide and leader. The chief believes that life is merely a result of the chaos of existence; that society is useless; that fathers, as procreators of society, are condescending and deceitful; and that school is a simulation of the society of adults and therefore is useless as well. He instructs Noboru to perform a morbid rite of passage, the purpose of which seems to be to demonstrate that there is nothing mystical about life; living beings are made up of nothing more than earthly materials and mechanical components, so destroying a living being is no different than breaking a machine.

A sailor at sea lives far away from the foolishness of land-based society, so it's no wonder that Noboru develops an admiration for Ryuji, the sailor who becomes romantically involved with Noboru's mother, Fusako. Noboru is so interested in the sea and ships -- symbols of rugged individualism and the rejection of society -- that his knowledge of the subject rivals Ryuji's. However, when Ryuji decides to give up the sailor's life to marry Fusako and become her business partner, Noboru is disillusioned and wonders if Ryuji is just like all the fathers that the chief berates. As Ryuji starts to metamorphose from Noboru's image of the tough sailor into a sentimental, lenient society dweller, Noboru angrily compiles a list of Ryuji's "infractions". When the chief of Noboru's gang reviews this list, he decides that Ryuji must suffer the consequences. The last chapter of the book is somewhat reminiscent of Edgar Allan Poe's "The Cask of Amontillado" in the way the gang leads Ryuji unsuspectingly to his doom.

When the chief tells Noboru that there are no heroes in the world, Noboru listens but wants to believe that there truly are; he wants to find a heroic ideal in the sailor his mother has just met. The novel illustrates this problem with idealism: We create imaginary heroes because when we try to identify real-life ones, we are inevitably disappointed by their human fallibility.

This is a review of Yukio Mishima's The Sailor Who Fell from Grace with the Sea. (The same translation by John Nathan is published by both Tuttle Publishing and Vintage Books.)

Mishima was a controversial twentieth-century Japanese novelist, famous both for his disturbing fiction as well as for his death by ritual suicide. These is no consensus about what his single best work is, but this novella a good place to start.

The main character is Noboru Kuroda, a thirteen-year-old boy who lives with his widowed mother, Fusako. Noboru discovers a hole in the wall behind a chest of drawers which allows him to peep into his mother's bedroom. He watches her undress, look at herself in the mirror, and even masturbate. Noboru is a bright, intense boy, and belongs to a group of five other boys, led by "the chief." The chief succinctly expresses the group's existential philosophy: "All six of us are geniuses. And the world, as you know, is empty" (161). The "geniuses" are looking for something that will fill this emptiness, "in much the same way that a crack along its face will fill a mirror" (57).

Noboru is fascinated with the sea and ships, so his mother arranges for a tour of a merchant vessel in the port. The First Mate is Ryuji Tsukazaki. Ryuji, too, has been looking for something meaningful in his life, and went to the sea to find it. Fusako invites Ryuji out to dinner, and then later discreetly brings him to her bedroom. But Noboru is watching again. At first, Noboru admires Ryuji. He seems heroic for his rejection of conventional society (symbolized by his turning toward the sea [12, 179]) and his quest for glory (represented by his constant journeys on the ocean). But Ryuji abandons the life of the sea to marry Fusako, and become another ordinary land-dweller. Noboru must do something desperate to avenge this betrayal. (And I cannot say more than that without spoiling the story for you.)

An engaging tale. But what is it really about? It strikes me as a very "male" novel. Although told in a stark and extreme form, the issues Noboru and Ryuji wrestle with are issues all men face. Young men wish to do something "glorious" with their lives. They struggle at it for a few years, knowing that they are not making much progress, but believing that their time will come. But then come the responsibilities of a wife and child. At that point, like Ryuji, other men often decide, "[i]t was time to abandon the dream he had cherished too long. Time to realize that no specially tailored glory was waiting for him" (110).

Sons, like Noboru, begin by idolizing their fathers. But then they realize that their fathers are really just ordinary men, men who have compromised their ideals, and given up their dreams. Some sons come to despise their fathers for it, vowing never to become what their fathers have.

The Freudian themes in the story are obvious, of course. The "chief" explains that fathers are "filthy, lecherous flies broadcasting to the whole world that they've screwed with our mothers" (138). Although Noboru expresses no direct sexual desire for his mother, he is clearly fascinated by her sexuality. His own father is dead, and Ryuji becomes, at first, the perfect "fantasy father." Noboru brags to his friends that Ryuji is "different. He's really going to do something." When pressed for details of what, he replies, "I can't say exactly, but it'll be something...terrific" (50, ellipsis in original). But Ryuji betrays the fantasy. He turns out to be more ordinary in his views and even style of life than Noboru hoped. And worst of all he stays to become Noboru's actual father. Fathers, in the Oedipal fantasy, must be either perfect and absent or dead.

Is there a lesson to be drawn from all this? Yes, but the lesson depends on one's general philosophical perspective. A Nietzschean existentialist would draw the conclusion that the "chief" and the other boys are right. There is something sad, almost pathetic, in the conventionality that Ryuji succumbs to. In deciding how to treat his new "son," Ryuji comforts himself with the observation, "[m]ost books and magazines would agree" (171) with what he is doing. On the other hand, a Confucian would trace the emptiness of the boys' lives to the lack of parental affection and guidance. One of the boys says of his father, "[h]e slaps me across the face. Sometimes he even punches" (138). The world seems empty to those denied the love of others, a Confucian would say.

The Sailor Who Fell from Grace with the Sea is a story so extreme that it becomes almost mythical. But like any myth it reflects things deep in ourselves and in human existence that we cannot see in an ordinary story.

This is a short book, both horrifying and thought-provoking. It draws upon the same "glory versus comfort" themes which are scattered on almost every page of Ernest Hemingway, but turns to them darkly, like the hounding demons in Thomas Mann's Death in Venice.

The author was indeed an extreme right-wing royalist and traditionalist---he did indeed lament Japan's lack of a paternalistic vision of glory after WWII, maintaining his own private army of 100 samurai-like warriors, and culminating in a "suicide of glory" to protest his view of the weakening post-war Empire of Japan---but far from detracting from this book, or making it some sort of "apologia", this insight informs you and haunts you even further as you read this book.

You see quite clearly his struggle between the married comfort of the Western world and the glorified struggle of his conception of "true Japan", but this does not make the book one-dimensional, simplistic or over-written by any means. On the contrary, it is notable how well he paints a picture which allows the reader to enter the debate for themself.

It is a haunting book, and even when one does not agree with its outcome---indeed, ESPECIALLY when one does not agree with its outcome!---it causes the reader to reflect and perhaps even agonize over its conclusions long after it has been read.

It provoked the same lingering emotions in me as the famous Hemingway short stories "The Short Happy Life of Francis Macomber" and "The Capital of the World", and as stated above, the Thomas Mann book, Death in Venice. For its ability to stay in my mind long after the pages are closed, I give it my highest rating.

Shame on the other reviewers who toss this book aside without making the obvious connection to Hemingway and his own hard-headed (and perhaps silly) concentration on glory, but one that literary history recognizes and indeed celebrates. Hemingway was also, like Mishima, a victim of his own suicidal and glory-obsessed mind; and the knowledge of this fact increases the power of his fiction as much as the knowledge of Mishima's life does his. What's good for Hemingway must also be good for Mishima.

I have read a few other Mishima books, and I find this the most thought-provoking and effective I have read. I dislike the translator's use of silly old-fahioned expressions like "Sonny" and "right you are"---as well as the use of obsolete words like "bedizening" & "calcimined"---and frankly, Mishima's prose is not as beautiful as it is in other works like Spring Snow, but the writing is not poor by any means, and in the final analysis, its ultimate effect is much greater than that other work.

Mishima's "The Sailor Who Fell from Grace with the Sea" is a beautifully written, picturesque short novel about idealism and the conflict between compassion and dispassion. The main character is Noboru, a bright, fatherless 13-year-old boy who hangs out with a few of his schoolmates in a gang. The "chief" of the gang, who thinks far beyond the level of a typical 13-year-old, is the gang's philosophical guide and leader. The chief believes that life is merely a result of the chaos of existence; that society is useless; that fathers, as procreators of society, are condescending and deceitful; and that school is a simulation of the society of adults and therefore is useless as well. He instructs Noboru to perform a morbid rite of passage, the purpose of which seems to be to demonstrate that there is nothing mystical about life; living beings are made up of nothing more than earthly materials and mechanical components, so destroying a living being is no different than breaking a machine.
A sailor at sea lives far away from the foolishness of land-based society, so it's no wonder that Noboru develops an admiration for Ryuji, the sailor who becomes romantically involved with Noboru's mother, Fusako. Noboru is so interested in the sea and ships -- symbols of rugged individualism and the rejection of society -- that his knowledge of the subject rivals Ryuji's. However, when Ryuji decides to give up the sailor's life to marry Fusako and become her business partner, Noboru is disillusioned and wonders if Ryuji is just like all the fathers that the chief berates. As Ryuji starts to metamorphose from Noboru's image of the tough sailor into a sentimental, lenient society dweller, Noboru angrily compiles a list of Ryuji's "infractions". When the chief of Noboru's gang reviews this list, he decides that Ryuji must suffer the consequences. In the last chapter of the book the gang lead Ryuji unsuspectingly to his doom.
When the chief tells Noboru that there are no heroes in the world, Noboru listens but wants to believe that there truly are; he wants to find a heroic ideal in the sailor his mother has just met. The novel illustrates this problem with idealism: We create imaginary heroes because when we try to identify real-life ones, we are inevitably disappointed by their human fallibility.
Mishima's novel is extremely descriptive and somewhat disturbing. Noboru watches his mother dress and undress in her room from a hole in the wall that separates his room from hers. He sits in his dresser drawer watching her lye on her bed naked and when she gets up to gaze at herself in the mirror Noboru gets upset because he can no longer see her. He also watches his mother and her boyfriend in bed together.
The boy has to dissect a cat as a ritual for the gang he is in. Mishima clearly describes the process Noboru has to go through and everything that happened to the poor cat.

An epic novel. But one must forget about the boys as protagonists, they are merely the vehicle Mishima Yukio uses to explore a question more profound than adolescent rebellion. The protagonist is the Sailor - who by the title has fallen from the grace of the sea. Not unlike in western thought, of one who through the pusuit of his own free will, has fallen from the grace of God. Japan as a nation does not believe in "God" as the West. Founded on Shintoism, the belief of god in the delicate balance of nature, and later converted substancially to Buddhism, Japan, although an island nation surrounded by seas, was not a seafaring nation prior to western contact. But in a relatively short period of time grew into a dominant maritime power. It is possibly through this desire to retain its own will, that Japan remained one of the few nations "discovered" by the seafaring nation's of europe that was not held in conquest, or even in a much simpler form referred to as "discovered" in the western sense of the word. The sea is the provider and protector of Japan, and revered as such in art and myth. It is almost as if two worlds coincide, the sea and the land, which when kept in balance allow Japan its very self to exist. When a Man wrought from the sea, bred for the sea, born to become of it, begins to consider a life apart of it, it this very balance which is put to the test. And for what - the love of a Woman? Primarily yes, but not entirely, and for not just any woman, but a very special one. Her beauty and sophistication aside, she has an occupation unique for this tale. She is a merchant, a land based merchant who does handsomely in the sale of premium western articles to the elite of Japanese society, articles brought to her upon the sea itself. And it is the very influx of these articles which changed Japanese society for all time. Although she herself has born a child called to the sea, her fear of lost love and the hapless pursuit of the lonely life of a sailor's wife, has prompted her to entice the man from his protectorate realm and groom him for inclusion in her trade, rather than give herself as sacrifice to the cause of the sea. But sacrifice must be made for the delicate balance is threatend, and the Sailor is now guilty for his willingness to take part, forsaking not only the sea but for placing Japan even further into the throw of Westernization. Hence, he is tried and found guilty through the vehicle of the boys, who are used to their own unwittingness by a force greater than even they perceive themselves to be. The Sailor has all along pondered his fate as he attempts to make his final decision, but once his new course is set, his true purpose which he unendingly attempts to grasp is brought to the forefront. And what follows is more of a treatise on human sacrifice than the murderous act of teenage boys. Beautifully written in a descriptive prose complimenting many of our own great American masters of this century. And seemingly, a foreboding to the fate of the author himself.

Yukio Mishima's 'The Sailor Who Fell From Grace With The Sea' is a short novel but, due to its tight plot, brevity is not an issue. Published in 1963, seven years before he committed ritual suicide, the novel explores motivation and the factors that can cause someone to abandon their passions and resume their life embracing the dreams of another.

Noboru Kuroda, a thirteen year old on the cusp of an adult world, is part of a savage gang whose members, despite their exemplary grades at school, have rebelled against the adult world they deem hypocritical. Under the tutelage of Noboru's friend, also thirteen, they condition themselves against sentimental feelings - a goal they call `objectivity' - by killing stray cats.

Ryuji Tsukazaki, a merchant seaman, has been granted two days' shore leave and has spent the time romancing Noboru's widowed mother, Fusako. Noboru likes the sailor at first, his commitment to the sea and all the manly stories he has to tell. But, as Ryuji falls for Fusako, Noboru feels betrayed by the man's burgeoning romanticism and, with the help of his gang, feels that action should be taken against the man who has replaced his father.

The first thing I noticed while reading this novel was that the characters are rich with life and history. Noboru, at thirteen, has strong feelings for his mother that manifest through voyeuristic sessions at night when, peeking into her room through a spy-hole, he watches her undress, entertain, and sleep. Ryuji, the sailor, knows he has some purpose at sea and continues his life off the land in the hope that one day he will learn his place in life. And Fusako, five years widowed, displays certain strength as she runs her own business, mixes with a richer class of citizen, while trying to raise he son as best she can.

The way the characters develop from this introduction is fast yet believable - the book, in fact, is split into two sections, 'Summer' and 'Winter', to show that enough time has passed to be plausible. Noboru's respect for Ryuji wanes as he becomes the worst thing, based on his gang's beliefs, a man can be in this world: a father. Ryuji's abandonment of his life's passion is, of course, the main thread of the novel and it is a tragic decision he makes to give up the destiny waiting for him at sea in order to embrace the world of Fusako and the new direction she has planned for him.

The best thing about this novel is the language. The translator, John Nathan, has done a wonderful job and not a page passes without hitting you with a warm wash of sea-spray. Metaphors and similes are drenched with watery goodness as they add to the novel's appeal. The prose is warm during the 'Summer' section but as the book turns to 'Winter' the turns of phrase become icier and tend to sting more. The dialogue is nice and realistic and doesn't smart of stereotypical Japanese honour; the way the characters interact completely plausible.

I hadn't heard of Mishima until I picked up this novel and, given that he had three Nobel nominations in his lifetime, I will certainly look out for more of his work. His concise prose, realistic characters, and the way his voice carries the sea makes him a rare find. If books were shells, I would hope to hear Mishima in every one.

I enjoyed this book, but I could not help but disagree with some of the ideas Mishima presents about the main concepts in this novel. Glory, for example. Ryuji dreams that his special destiny is out there on the high seas. Noboru sees this as manly and idolizes Ryuji, to the scorn of his gang leader. Ryuji ends up leaving the sea for family life with Noboru's mother, causing him to fall "from grace with the sea." But is it really manly to continue to sail out over the horizon in search for "glory" that is almost certain not to be there? It seems like loneliness and stubbornness in the face of futility are what Noboru (Mishima?) considers virtuous. As stoic as that may seem to be, it seems somewhat absurd in this day and age. However, Mishima, with his Zen samurai background, probably would consider these as virtues, not anachronisms.

The relationship between Ryuji and Noboru's mother was awkward and unnatural, which may have been Mishima's point- that a sailor like Ryuji could never fit into a domestic society- but was unconvincing nevertheless. The parts of this book written from Ryuji's point of view, as opposed to Noboru's, portrayed him as somewhat shallow (his liking for popular music sticks out in my mind) even before he becomes involved with Noboru's mother. Perhaps Mishima characterizes him this way on purpose: perhaps Mishima, like the chief, feels that there is no such thing as a hero in this world.

The hypocracy of Noboru and his gang was obvious too, and interesting. They believed in supreme intellect, but were convinced that their genitals were made for copulating with stars in the Milky Way. They believed that they could gain power over existance- a futile effort, given their mortality. They kill Ryuji for failing to continue his quest for glory, yet these boys seem to have no desire to start their own quest.

While I found myself disagreeing often with the views Mishima took, or at least that I interpreted him as taking, I thought this was a fine book, one I would highly recommend. Mishima challenges the reader to think about ideas such as glory, objectivity, and existance long after he or she finishes the novel. Mishima's tale was chilling, but whether you agree with his viewpoints or not, a very satisfying read. The vantage point of the story rotates between Noboru, his mother, and Ryuji- make sure you note the fact that the three main characters often view the same events quite differently, and make false assumptions about what the others are thinking. Interpreting Mishima's work in just one way would be a mistake in my opinion. It would be interesting to know exactly what Mishima was thinking as he wrote this book.