Review
Four-part epic novel by Mishima Yukio, published in Japanese in 1965-70 as Hojo no umi and widely regarded as his most lasting achievement. The four novels, Haru no yuki (Spring Snow), Homma (Runaway Horses), Akatsuki no tera (The Temple of Dawn), and Tennin gosui (The Decay of the Angel), are set in Japan from about 1912 to the 1960s. Each of them depicts a different reincarnation of the same being: as a young aristocrat in 1912, as a political fanatic in the 1930s, as a Thai princess before and after World War II, and as an evil young orphan in the 1960s. Taken together the novels are a clear indication of Mishima's increasing obsession with blood, death, and suicide, his interest in self-destructive personalities, and his rejection of the sterility of modern life. -- The Merriam-Webster Encyclopedia of Literature
