The Sailor Who Fell from Grace with the Sea

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

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. Tho

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.

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.