Customer Reviews

Spring Snow

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I've only read two Mishima books so far, am reading a third now, and intend to get through 'em all. Alas, I fear that none will be as good as the first one I read - Spring Snow. I really didn't think people could still write like this in the 20th century. I mean, star-crossed, tragic love was an old subject by the time Shakespeare got to it - what made Mishima think he could write something new about it hundreds of years later? But something did, and I'm glad it did. For while there is a [very interesting] historical context to Spring Snow (tell me, what other book paints such a visceral portrait of early 20th century Japan?), the focus is on the love story. And no one writes love stories like Yukio Mishima. Somehow, it manages to avoid the gaping pitfalls of sentimentalism and melodrama, creating instead a world of great beauty and fragility that I was loath to leave when the book drew to its close.

If you read a biography of Mishima, you will likely find mountains of speculation concerning his various eccentricities (and that word is putting is nicely, methinks). Some will accuse him of right-wingery, others will rant about his "nationalism," etc. etc. etc. But I think that none of that applies. He was in no way a political person, just a hopelessly deluded romantic who still believed that romantic ideals had any place in modern society. This he applied to politics as well as to everything else. Spring Snow, fortunately, contains no politics, concentrating instead on romantic ideals as applied to the personal. The result is something that, while being Japanese through and through, is accessible to anyone. This book is worth reading for the marvelously poetic descriptions alone. I shan't say that it will "change your life," since that's cliche and more often than not utterly wrong, but I daresay that you will have an indelible impression made upon your mind. At first, you may not notice it, but as time passes, you will find that you remember large parts of Spring Snow on countless occasions, and you will find yourself recalling parts of it as examples of great beauty and purity, and reflexively applying them to your own life. And then you will cheer Mishima as quite possibly the last romantic on Earth. That is exactly what happened to me.

Mishima has the ability to get underneath the skin of his readers. What seems like an innocent and harmless story of adolescence gradually becomes one of fundamental importance. In my view, this is the most brilliant of the three Mishima novels I have read. It is a masterpiece which leaves a bitter taste in the mouth. None of Mishima's characters seem happy and even the 'heroes' are ambiguous, despite the fact that many of them are perfect in physical terms. We have to judge the character for ourselves without help, rather like a film without background music. There is a strong homo-erotic undercurrent in Mishima's work, even though the central relationship in this novel is heterosexual. The focal character, Kiyoaki, seems to be massochistic and derives a form of pleasure from his own destruction.

I would strongly recommend anyone who is interested in the complexities of relationships and the specific cultural life of Japan to read this novel. Above all, it should be read for the intricacy and skill of its literature.

Spring Snow is a dramatic, moving work that helps codify Mishima's tetralogy, the Sea of Fertility, as perhaps the 20th century's greatest magnum opus. Mishima writes in a delicately impressionistic style, employing similes and metaphors of subtle, almost fragile beauty, that create a vivid and harmonic unity that simply inspire awe. Like Dante, he moves the reader's spirit as his characters spirits evolve. Like Dostoyevsky, he plunges relentlessly into the dark caprices of the mind. Like Milton, his word choice was so perfect that I put down the Sea of Fertility wishing that I had written it myself.

Spring Snow, the first installment of the cycle, stands very well on its own (though its ultimate meaning can only be appreciated as the tetralogy is continued). It takes place early in 20th century Japan, a time of transition in which Japan's decreased isolation leads to a Westernization that ultimately proves Spring Snow to be an elegy for the samurai tradition. It is also a wonderful and tragic love story -- far more convincing than Romeo and Juliet -- in which an impossible and doomed love threatens the young protagonists whose wealthy families adjust to the changing sociopolitical climate of Japan.

The other three books in the cycle are (in order):

'Runaway Horses,' 'The Temple of Dawn,' and 'The Decay of the Angel'

This, the first book of author Mishima's Sea of Fertility Tetralogy, is a very curious one to read or to attempt to review. Most of the other reviewers here focus on Mishima's life and even more notorious - or perhaps, marvellous, depending on how one views it - death and the author's social/political beliefs which are rather blatant in this book, or so it seemed to me; otherwise, they turn completely to the "love story" here. All point to what a great novelist Mishima is and what a profound novel he has penned here.

Sorry, I just don't see it. The problem is that there is no real "story". Indeed, a ponderous stasis hangs over the work and the protagonist's, Kiyoaki's, love life and all life in general. What the book IS then is a philosophical treatise presented as a sort of puppet show in which the characters, particularly Kiyoaki, come to represent certain viewpoints on life which end up being, mutatis mutandis, the same perspective. Kiyoaki's world is his dream world, which he regards, to the end of the book, as the most important part of his life to which everything in the physical realm pales in comparison. Consistent with this perspective, he keeps a dream diary rather than a diary, though as is maddeningly commonplace in novels of this sort (Laurence Durrell's Alexandria Quartet is the most absurd example of this contrived lacuna), we readers are never given a glance into it. Rather, what we are given in Chapter 6 of this novel/treatise is the primary thesis:

"For everything sacred has the substance of dreams and memories, and so we experience the memory of what is separated from us by time or distance suddenly being made tangible. Dreams, memories, the sacred - they are all alike in that they are all beyond our grasp. Once we are even marginally separated from what we can touch, the object is sanctified; it acquires the beauty of the unattainable, the quality of the miraculous. Everything, really, has this quality of sacredness, but we can desecrate it at a touch. How strange man is! His touch defiles and yet he contains the source of miracles."

This citation is on p.43 of my edition, and it comes as no surprise on p.267, after Kiyoaki's earthly adoration of Satoko has fallen apart, to hear Honda astutely diagnosing his friend's predicament:

"From the very beginning you've been bewitched by an IMPOSSIBILITY - something which is outside the scope of authority and money. You were drawn in because the whole thing was impossible. Am I wrong? And if it became possible for you now, would it have any value for you?"

And, it is also completely consistent and comes as no surprise that Kiyoaki's ultimate reflection on his love is:

"He was only concerned with when the two of them could meet without anxiety, as freely as they liked, regardless of anyone else. And he feared that by now it could only happen in some place beyond this world, and only when this world had been destroyed."

This is the logical conclusion of the Romantic Weltanschauung, as others have pointed out as regards Mishima and this book, one with which I deeply sympathise and which has led to some of the greatest English poetry (q.v. Shelley) and even novels (q.v. Wuthering Heights) ever written. But it doesn't lead to it here, simply because, as stated earlier, the book simply doesn't possess the architectonics of a novel, with engrossing characters, vivid descriptions which imprint themselves on the reader, lively language, the element of surprise or even haunting scenes.

Chapter after chapter even unto the tragic end leave one sighing to oneself, "Yes, this is all rather to be expected." It seems that many readers have convinced themselves that the one prerequisite for great literature is that it be languid and boring, as this novel is, whilst the opposite is the case: Great literature is writing which utterly transforms your world in the most exciting manner imaginable, as Proust, to whom Mishima is often - for some reason - compared, does.

Interesting philosophy. Boring novel.

"Spring Snow" is unquestionably one of the finest Japanese novels ever written, as well as being a masterpiece of world literature in its own right. It is an eloquent, moving story with a "tale as old as time," that of star-crossed lovers who's love transcends social roles and obligations.

In another culture, with another writer, this would be a romantic, if not happy, story. But this is Japan, and the writer is Mishima Yukio. In his hands, the lovers Kiyoaki and Satoko transcend literary stereotypes, and become agents of their own happiness and destruction. By the very nature of their relationship, raised together since childhood, playing a complicated cat-and-mouse game of love and sexual tension, their future is never in doubt.

It is impressive that a writer such as Mishima, known for his right-wing politics and his samurai dreams, could craft such a tender love story. While knowing the eventual conclusion, the reader savors and hopes for each stolen moment of happiness between Kiyoaki and Satoko, and knows that even their despair is something to be treasured because it is shared. Not that it is a clear path. Even knowing Japanese literature, and the road it usually takes, there are surprises on the way. Things do not turn out the way one would expect.

I was incredibly moved by "Spring Snow." It is a novel that affects the heart of the reader, and lingers long after the last page is turned.

I first read this book back when I was a College Freshman. Back then the book presented a very good picture of the aristocratic life of early 1900's Japan to me. I read it at it's face value, as a tragic love story. The story was so intense and quiet full of suspense that I went thru 7 sleepless nights in a row to finish this great book. Eight years later, I have a second reading of this book. Since I had grown more mature since my first reading, I am able to detect more of the underlying ideas in the book. Ideas such as patriotism VS self-interst, self-gratification VS self-restraint, are 2 such forces that drive the plot.

Perhaps I shouldn't review this book in light of the fact that I haven't read the whole tetralogy. However, after reading 'Spring Snow' I'm trying to plow through 'Runaway Horses' as quickly as I can so I can get to volumes III & IV to complete the whole cycle.

He pays wonderful attention to detail and subtlety without it becoming tedious or overbearing. I can't begin to count the hours of sleep I lost pouring through this book. I look forward to completing the cycle so I can go to bed at a decent hour again.

Mishima's writing is entrancing. Of all the supposed western "classics" that were forced on me in high school and college, this one surpasses them all. Mishima should be required reading, and I thank the wonderful college professor that introduced me to his work.

In "Spring Snow," Yukio Mishima has chosen the perfect title for his novel. The narrative is as gentle and as beautiful as wet snow on spring blossoms, and indeed there is a poignant scene where two lovers have a tryst in a rickshaw under such conditions. It was my first foray into the world of Mishima -- indeed, of Japanese literature -- and will not be my last.

The story of a young and handsome aristocrat, Kiyoaki Matsugae, and the beautiful and mysterious Ayakura Satoko, comes from the same time-honored tradition of as more familiar star-crossed lovers such as Romeo and Juliet, Pyramus and Thisbe, Tristan and Isolde, and Lancelot and Guinevere. Set just after the Russo-Japanese War in the early 20th century, the novel offers intriguing insights into a Japanese culture that is at once in flux and clinging to traditions.

If you love a writer whose strength is description of nature, Mishima is not to be missed. His words are as fit as any Nature Channel special on the wonders of Japan and he is equally adept at describing the contours of his young lovers' bodies. In addition to the sensual and sensuous wonders, the inner psychology of passion-plagued minds is a point of expertise for this writer. He deftly avoids sentimentalism while walking the thin line between hatred and love, between passion and pain.

Symbolism, description, psychology, and a gentle narrative pace. What's not to love? Readers looking for a fast-paced plot might not be overwhelmed, but those who love it when they stumble upon a "writer's writer" will be glad they tried Yukio Mishima. It is the first book of the tetralogy, "The Sea of Fertility."

I read this book after a friend's strong recommendation. Overall this book is beautifully written and absolutely captivating. The central plot on its own for this first book in the tetralogy is not something that we have never seen or heard before, but Mishima is unparalleled when it comes to his unique style in detailed character development. Though slow moving at first, by 1/2 way through the book, you are completely immensed in the world he so delicately paints. I find myself thumb a few section of the book over and over to truely get the multiple meanings Mishima is trying to convey. Aside from great character development, the book is FILLED with facts and descriptions of the different flavors of Buddhism, Japanese history during the 1920s and tons of other subjects (reincarnation etc), which makes the reading experience all that more complete. I am moving onto the 2nd book in the tetralogy, as for the ending of this book left many questions unanswered. I have a feeling Mishima was in a bit of rush towards the end, hence I am hoping to get a more complete picture of the author's thoughts after completing the whole tetralogy. This is not to say this book doesn't stand on its own, but I am sure when viewed as part of the tetralogy, it has more meaning than just a love tragedy. Spring Snow is definitely not for the faint of heart, but if you are a true fan of fine literature and Japanese culture, this book will be at the top of your list as well.

This work is mesmerizing - so much so that I read it instead of studying for the Bar exam. It is not a fast read by any stretch of the imagination but it is difficult to put down once you are drawn into the world Mishima draws. It took me two attempts to get past the first twenty pages but four years later it is the last book I read which had the potential to transform. I also confess that the novel is confusing and I don't believe that I understand the subtle dream world that Mishima writes of on a conscious or intellectual level. But the novel is haunting and presents a story of love (not, I believe, the one that is portrayed on the novel's surface) in such indescribable complexity and depth that the novel is felt in and remains in the heart of the reader who will walk away from the novel with a profound sadness. The novel is one of the few worth the effort of reading. And the title, a beautiful image, is a perfect recapitulation of the work.