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Yukio Mishima

John Bester

Sun and Steel Hardcover – January 1, 1970

by Yukio Mishima (Author)

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Text: English, Japanese (translation)

Print length

104 pages
Language

English
Publisher

Kodansha USA Inc
Publication date

January 1, 1970
ISBN-10

0870111175
ISBN-13

978-0870111174
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Product details

Publisher ‏ : ‎ Kodansha USA Inc; 1st edition (January 1, 1970)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Hardcover ‏ : ‎ 104 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0870111175
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0870111174
Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 1 pounds

Best Sellers Rank: #3,742,790 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #48,298 in Contemporary Literature & Fiction
- #141,278 in Literary Fiction (Books)
- #327,652 in Biographies

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408 ratings

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Yukio Mishima
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Yukio Mishima (三島由紀夫 Mishima Yukio?) is the pen name of Kimitake Hiraoka (平岡公威 Hiraoka Kimitake?, January 14, 1925 – November 25, 1970), a Japanese author, poet, playwright, actor, and film director. Mishima is considered one of the most important Japanese authors of the 20th century. He was considered for the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1968 but the award went to his fellow countryman Yasunari Kawabata. His works include the novels Confessions of a Mask and The Temple of the Golden Pavilion, and the autobiographical essay Sun and Steel. His avant-garde work displayed a blending of modern and traditional aesthetics that broke cultural boundaries, with a focus on sexuality, death, and political change. Mishima was active as a nationalist and founded his own right-wing militia. He is remembered for his ritual suicide by seppuku after a failed coup d'état attempt, known as the "Mishima Incident".
The Mishima Prize was established in 1988 to honor his life and works.
Bio from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. Photo by Shirou Aoyama (http://www.bungakukan.or.jp/) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.
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John Bester
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Customer reviews

5 star		78%
4 star		11%
3 star		7%
2 star		2%
1 star		1%

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Ferald D.

Bad publication, good book

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on July 30, 2022

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For the $26~30 price tag, I was hesitant to purchase this book. However, I desperately wanted to read this book as Mishima’s ideas and style of writing has brought an interest to me recently; and so I caved in. As other reviewers mentioned, there are spelling, grammar, and punctuation mistakes. The cover picture has worse quality in-person. Nowhere in the book shows the name of the translator. For books translated into English, knowing who the translator is is as important as knowing who the author is.

If you’re willing to spend around $27 for a mediocre version of an amazing book from one of the most renowned authors of Japan, go for it.

4 people found this helpful

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Scott Meredith

Props to Mishima, a philosopher who walked his talk

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on September 20, 2005

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This book is a literary type that was once common in Japan, the self-obsessive partial memoir. But Mishima's style, tone, and content are absolutely unique.

He writes about the relation between world and word, body and mind or spirit. But to me, the most interesting aspect of this book, and Mishima's whole outlook is something that's often overlooked. It is this, he could not stand ugliness. He shrank from (his own perception of) ugliness as we would from a rabid rat. So then, how did he define beauty and ugliness? You may call it shallow but no matter, this book makes no apologies: beauty or ugliness lie in physical appearance, body and face.

To most of us there are many kinds of beauty, and maybe that multi-perception keeps us going - we see or imagine the beauty of inner virtue, selfless giving, artistic projection, humility or humor and so on. A wide expansive definition.

But there's room on your bookshelf for somebody who takes an uncompromising view: beauty is the beauty of your body and your appearance. While it can be crafted and guided by external method (who knows what Mishima would have thought of the cosmetic surgery craze now sweeping China), ultimately physical beauty to him is the only important projection of the soul.

The insanely monomaniacal American football coach Vince Lombardi once said "Winning isn't everything - it's the only thing". This book, despite all its meandering and subtle threads, is really saying just that, about beauty - it's the only thing. And Mishima, at mid-life, was losing all illusions about attaining or retaining any personal beauty.

Of course what sheds the interesting backlight on this book for most readers is Mishima's dramatic seppuku at Ichigaya Japan self-defense force headquarters. (Reminds me of the wit who stated, when informed of Sylvia Plath's suicide, "Good career move".) People read this book to try to unravel the mystery of it.

But in light of what I've said above, about beauty and Mishima's uniquely narrow definition of it, this book leaves no mystery to his action. Just as Oscar Wilde's Dorian Gray slashed the ugliness accumulated on his horribly aging portrait, Mishima, lacking a magic painting, did just the same to his own body - sentenced it to death for the crimes of aging and ugliness.

It is entirely summed up by the following single line from 'Sun and Steel':

"I had already lost the morning face that belongs to youth alone."

59 people found this helpful

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Amazon Customer

Raising Llamas

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on May 11, 2022

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Okay. That was a pretty nice troll to replace the entire book with how to raise llamas. Still, I want my $30 back.

14 people found this helpful

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Brandon Howard

Translation

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on October 28, 2021

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The writing style feels somewhat unnatural but I think it’s due to the piece being translated from Japanese and some words not having direct equivalents in English. Great book nonetheless.

One person found this helpful

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JHL

Where was the editor?

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on February 17, 2022

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Mishima is fascinating, and if you want a window into his path to his bizarre last stand and suicide this is certainly part of that picture. Five stars for content. But multiple misspellings and even a missing word kept distracting me from the text. There's no excuse. There are still English majors out there who could check a short manuscript quickly for not much money :-)

One person found this helpful

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Alexander Dragomir

Fundamental to understanding Mishimas' through process.

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on March 9, 2021

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As the title stated I think this is good insight into how mishima sees the world. It gives further context to his other works. It is a truely great read and I think many young men could benefit from the world view mishima embraces through his self discovery illustrated in this short piece. Maybe not to its extreme conclusion (mishima committed seppuku), but the importance of "sun and steel" in the maturity of masculinity in a young mans life.

12 people found this helpful

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sirav

High level

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on June 24, 2021

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Mishima writes with such intensity and complexity I find it difficult to fully comprehend even a single page. It's awesome.

2 people found this helpful

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Adam Tommila

Very insightful.

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on January 28, 2022

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Very esoteric read but a good one.

One person found this helpful

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Faustbook

Sun and Steel is back.

Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on March 30, 2021

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Sun and Steel is finally back in publication by the fantastic Rogue Scholar Press. The cover is great and the content is inspiring. I've purchased both a hard and soft cover. One for annotating and studying, the other for collection.

5 people found this helpful

Steven Freeman

Written in October 1968

Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on May 22, 2021

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I have been a Mishima fan for over 40 years and new translations are still being released. This particular book is a re issue of one of Mishimas famous writings toward the end of his life. This is a book that you cannot rush and you can enjoy it if you take your time and then you can appreciate his true nature and uniqueness of his complex visions.

One person found this helpful

Emiliom

Poor edition of a great classic book

Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on March 13, 2022

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Poor printing edition of Sun and Steel not worth the money. I was expecting a much nicer edition of this great book

Saoirse Allicia Phoenix

Price extortionate for the page count!

Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on March 6, 2022

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Lovely book but very thin for the hefty price tag. Felt very ripped off.

Ein Kunde

Zur Neuausgabe

Reviewed in Germany 🇩🇪 on May 21, 2021

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Für alle, die gerne genauer wissen möchten, ob sich die Anschaffung lohnt: Diese Neuausgabe ist zwar teuer, qualitativ aber auch wirklich gut (wobei ich mich auf die gebundene Ausgabe beziehe). Sie ist innen identisch mit der alten, nur noch für viel Geld antiquarisch zu findenden von 1970; das heißt, obwohl es sich um ein book on demand handelt, ist das Schriftbild nicht dilettantisch und billig, sondern eben professionell. Die Bindung und die gesamte Aufmachung sind ebenfalls von hoher Qualität. Wer also dieses Buch schon lange in einer ordentlichen analogen Ausgabe gesucht hat, kann hier ruhig zugreifen.

3 people found this helpful

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Sun and Steel Hardcover – January 1, 1970

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