Title: Confessions of a Mask
Author: Yukio Mishima
About the Book: Japan, Angst, Homosexuality, Perversions
My rating: 10/10.
I haven't read a Japanese book in awhile, but I picked this one up. I'm strangely glad I did. Mishima is a very strong author, uncompromising, thoughtful but without falling into the trap of over-thinking what he writes.
Kochan, the protagonist and narrator, is a strange, intellectual creature. He studies himself, turns himself on all sides, then shows the results to his audience, not asking for any reaction at all. He doesn't complain about his problems, nor is he proud about them. He seems to be alone, talking to himself from somewhere just outside of a society that he acts for in order to exist. Having the double misfortune of being both a homosexual and perverted - associating sex with violence and death - there's no chance of confessing to anyone but the silent reader.
This inner monologue, which is knife-sharp with honesty, explains how he came to be. As a child, he had strange reactions when seeing torn princes in fairy tales, Saint Sebastian pierced by arrows and other violent art. Then he switches his subject matter and remembers the women in his life - just two of them. The second of which he tried very much to be straight with, hoping that he would become so with the first kiss - and failing.
A very lonely book, very honest, suffering quietly and doing nothing to ask for help. It left me at the end with a feeling of emptiness, loneliness, of quiet resignation.
I loved it, even if I didn't expect to.
Odd.
You can find it here.
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