I have read Dazai, Soseki, Murakami (Haruki and Ryu), Murata... and yet Mishima seems to be a few leagues above these other authors, both in the depth of his characters and the prose of his writing (although I am a fan of Dazai's stories).But it seems lame the idea that the best Japanese author was a psycho who died in an embarrassing failed coup. Surely there's another author to take the mantle?Are there any other /lit/ japanese authors or books I am missing?
Kawabata?
Akutagawa
Eiji Yoshikawa
>>25621200Having read a lot of japanese lit I agree with you on Mishima, but>embarrassing failed coupDid you really read Mishima without realizing the coup was performance art rather than a genuine attempt to topple the government?Back on topic seconding Kawabata, also Kobo Abe
>>25621200You feel this way because Mishima is so steeped in Western culture that his works translate well to the West - or at least better than other. Maybe what makes other authors great is untranslatable. I felt that this must be the case when reading Kawabata. Also he was psychologically intense enough to kill himself in a bizarre act of performance art and that intensity is in the literature
>>25621411But in the end he’s probably just a lot better. The other names you listed look weak. Mishima was just special
>>25621323>Did you really read Mishima without realizing the coup was performance art rather than a genuine attempt to topple the governmentThe first work I read of Mishima was Confessions of a Mask, where I definitely got the impression of his obsession with death drive performance art, it was so blatant that it panted the idea of his coup. But it's been a few years since I read that and I've been recently devling into his other works where the characters have many philosophical discussions about revolutionary/political ideas being overlooked in their present time, but then those same ideas transcending time and becoming more relevant in later societal consciousnesses. I suppose I read over these passages (discussions between the protagonists in Spring Snow) and saw it as the context for his coup, but I forgot the psychosexual death drive so strongly described in Confessions of a Mask. Additionally, I started reading the first chapters of "The Life and Death of Yukio Mishima", and the whole coup reads like a cringe comedy, like a Peep Show type episode. It's so funny, the soldiers couldn't even hear him due to the helicopters that came overhead, it is like nothing went to plan. The generals in the barracks tried storming the room Mishima was holding hostage, but they considered it so bizarre they didn't bring any weapons, and Mishima was slashing at them with his saber and yelling madly.
Other than Tanizaki and Oe, Japanese fiction writers seem to be pretty mid. Their poets and philosophers, though, they are often top tier.
Kawabata's short stories are real fucken goodMishima deserves the hype he's getting these days
>>25621323>Kobo AbeI want to read The Woman in the Dunes. The movie is cool
I'd recommend the older classics like Genji, Heike, etc. >>25621259How does one get Taiko unabridged in English? This pisses me off so much.
>>25621248this
>>25621236very funny
>>25621200>who died in an embarrassing failed coupfiltered
>>25621411>Maybe what makes other authors great is untranslatable.then they are forever trapped in gureeetonesu
>>25621701>How does one get Taiko unabridged in English?FWIW, Musashi didn't even get an unabridged English release until this year.
>>25624949oh yeah I've read this, it's good that a complete version exists but the abridgd translation is stronger (such is life!) but I take out the parts not in the abridged and read it from this.
>>25621200Tanizaki.
>>25621200Ive only read The Frolic of the Beasts by him and it was some edgy bullshit about murder and cuckoldry that sucked so bad i kinda just shelved him as one of those post-existentialist writers that thinks literature means having unlikable people act irrational towards each other to make some kind of point and i've ignored him as a serious writer ever since. Are his major works any better?
>>25621200love Kobo Abe, Oe is also great, the sound of the mountain by Kawabata is a classicdon't care much for Mishima
>>25621416you dont read so how would you know
>>25621323>Did you really read Mishima without realizing the coup was performance art rather than a genuine attempt to topple the governmentNo it wasn't.
>>25626476That is without a doubt, the worst possible first Mishima read. I have read every single one of his novels in translation and that is the only one I would not recommend to anyone, its like reading some random short story by Kafka or Tolstoy and deciding theres no reason to check out their other work.Runaway Horses is Mishima at his best but you should read Spring Snow first to fully appreciate it. Confessions of a Mask is a very unique and interesting, while The Sound of Waves is his only "normal" one.Sailor and The Temple of the Golden Pavilion are other common starting points, although I dont share the enthusiasm many have for the latter.
Huh? Mishima's characters are usually either some faggot who self-destructively seeks beauty or if female some hysterical harpy. If not for his prose he'd be considered a writer of edgy soap operas.
I enjoyed Woman in the Dunes, Parasite Eve, and Haruki Murakami's older work. I wish I knew of more books from Japan that have those kinds of strangeness and themes of alienation.(I never read Mishima because I try to avoid books written by homosexual authors)
Japanese literature is generally loathesome and bad, at least the stuff that gets translated to english. It's rather astonishing how awful all the japanese writers westerners know about are.
>>25628782This. His writing voice is good but he is absolutely not some master storyteller or character weaver.
>>25629267I've found that a lot of excellent non-fiction writers buy into the idea that the Novel is the apex of literature and thus assume writing a novel will be their magnum opus, only for them to write a story with excellent ideas told through thin archetypes. Every story has a point but not every point needs a story.
>>25627766Strange that he handed in a huge suicide note to his publisher right before the deed then.
>>25630867I think a hopeful and naive part (intentionally cultivated) of him certainly expected it to work, of course this part was mostly the feeling and not very much a reason, and any amount of him that was reason (most of him) knew it wouldn't work.
>>25627766>>25631101>notoriously suicide obssessed author>left suicide note>planned his suicide in detail, including insisting his comrades should not follow him in death>didnt bring a megaphone to make sure the base could actually hear his speech>notified the press so that they would be there to take his photo in his uniform (the main reason he went onto the balcony to speak)And in case you werent aware, he wrote a book called Runaway Horses about the details that would have to go into a successful coup such as military contacts, multiple divisions, taking control of several buildings at once, sabotaging enemy facilities etc. Yet he didnt do any of this before his own attempt. The book is also about the fact that even back then, long before Japan had become exposed to western culture and the world market to the extent they were in 1970, an armed revolution was incredibly unlikely to succeed.Considering this, it is beyond unreasonable to assume showing up to a military base with four students and holding a speech would end in the overthrow of the governement.His organization, Tatenokai, was also more of a drill exercise club than a paramilitary organization and had little to no weapons training in addition to the fact that they showed up with a ridiculously small group, not even attempting to bring their full ranks into it.I could go on but I dont think theres any reason to. The next time you feel like disagreeing with established events because you have no idea what youre talking about you should consider reading about the subject instead of making stupid posts.
>>25621200Jiro Osaragi, Shusaku Endo, Ayako Miura, Kenzaburo Oe, Soseki Natsume, Ogai Mori, Kafu Nagai, Edogawa Ranpo.>mishimaThe cousins are on him.
>>25630867>>25631101>>25631369Decay of the Angel tells you exactly why he did what he did: it was so catestrophically over for both him and Japan, but to kill yourself without having a concrete reason is just as dishonorable as giving in. It's better to rebel and then die in the dishonor of failing in your rebellion than to die without rebelling at all,
>>25621443>It's so funny, the soldiers couldn't even hear him due to the helicopters that came overhead, it is like nothing went to plan.Apparently all the actual soldiers were absent on exercises and he was just addressing a bunch of logistics and chair people
>>25631381What collection is that in the picrel
>>25631387Im not sure if its possible to give a definitive reading on Decay the way you can with the three former entries, sure the direction of japanese society and the very negative view on growing old is there but beyond that its a little less clear. Especially the last chapter reads to me partly as a man who has made up his mind to die and is already in that state of mind where the world of the living seems like something separate from oneself, not exactly in the sense that a suicidal person feels like an outsider, more in the sense that a person who for all intents and purposes does not consider himself to be alive anymore.The pathos of the cause was certainly there and its not exactly a random choice of setting, but in the end I think all of that was secondary. To put it like this: I think it was far more important for him to die in a military uniform with a second who adored him than any political concern. He didnt want to change society, he wanted to in a way that felt glorious to him personally (like in Runaway Horses). His final work of art was not Decay, it was the legacy of a suicide that would become a legendary event that would be remembered and known to people who would never have heard of him otherwise (this also has the secondary effect of preserving the legacy of his authorship).
