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756 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1951
532 people are currently reading
14126 people want to read
About the author
Yukio Mishima
462?books8,742?followersYukio Mishima (三島 由紀夫) was born in Tokyo in 1925. He graduated from Tokyo Imperial University’s School of Jurisprudence in 1947. His first published book, The Forest in Full Bloom, appeared in 1944 and he established himself as a major author with Confessions of a Mask (1949). From then until his death he continued to publish novels, short stories, and plays each year. His crowning achievement, the Sea of Fertility tetralogy—which contains the novels Spring Snow (1969), Runaway Horses (1969), The Temple of Dawn (1970), and The Decay of the Angel (1971)—is considered one of the definitive works of twentieth-century Japanese fiction. In 1970, at the age of forty-five and the day after completing the last novel in the Fertility series, Mishima committed seppuku (ritual suicide)—a spectacular death that attracted worldwide attention.
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August 3, 2019I admire Mishima. It’s too bad though that he ever heard of philosophy. It makes for his worst writing. And the moment he frees himself of it, the prose awakens and moves, often sinuously as in the early pages here. He might have subtitled this one The Big Book if Misogyny. In its heartless cruelty it reminds me of Choderlos de Laclos’s . Mishima’s second novel, it was originally published in two parts in Japan, in 1951 and 1953, when he was 25 and 27. In it an ugly old man, a Japanese writer of some standing, who’s taken to falling in love with very young women, finds a way to exact a horrible revenge. As in the Laclos’s novel, this is undertaken through a number of elaborately feigned love affairs. A beautiful young man, who is both gay and the boyfriend of the old writer’s current dalliance, Yasuko, is actively ensnared in a plan to jilt her. There are budget struggles in the home of the young man’s ailing mother. Shunsuké promises to make these money problems go away if the young man, Yuichi, will work with him to actively break the hearts of Yasuko, and many other women to whom he has in the past fruitlessly pledged his troth. Shunsuké is every bit as viscous and malign as the Marquise de Merteuil in the Laclos novel, but at least she possessed the virtue of devising amusing escapades. Shunsuké’s by contrast are absolutely humorless. It’s this fundamental sobriety alloyed with anger that, it can be argued, is at the core of many of Mishima’s novels. Here it takes on the petty injustices of both the gay world of the day, with its superficial thralldom to beauty, and the institutionalized tedium of straight marriage, which in Japan at this time was still often an arranged affair. In my view, Mishima doesn’t like what he sees in either camp.
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October 12, 2023I think it’s easier to structure my review by themes rather than by plot.
Misogyny: A famous old male author, Shunsuke, hates women. He’s been married and divorced three times (all ‘disastrous’) and has had ten other affairs (all ‘clumsy’). He’s always kept a diary, written in French in case any of his women find it. In the diary he details his opinions of how stupid, fickle and irrational women are.
Revenge: The author in the story would love to get back at all of these women. He finds his weapon one day at a beach resort. He meets a beautiful young man named Yuichi whom he compares to the Greek statue of David. He senses that the young man still exploring his sexuality is gay, and he's right. He realizes Yuichi needs ‘cover’ so he basically pays him to marry the young woman Yuichi is going out with. Then he introduces Yuichi to various women who are his ex’s, even setting up lunch and dinner dates with them for him. Shunsuke is right, none of the women can resist him.
Gay life in Japan in the early 1950s: As the story unfolds it becomes a primer of what gay life was like in Japan at that time. Gay men hung out in certain bars and met in certain parks at night. Wealthy older men financially supported younger men. They held parties at rented suburban houses where some men were in drag and bedrooms were available. Young men occasionally fell in love with each other but it couldn’t be an exclusive relationship because they needed financial support from older men – their ‘patrons.’ (The consensus is that the author of this book, Mishima, was gay, although his wife always denied it.)
Living beauty vs. ugly death and evil. Shunsuke, who considers himself ugly, is so fascinated by Yuichi’s beauty and his doings that you wonder if Shunsuke isn't in love with Yuichi himself – everyone else is. Shunsuke thinks of Yuichi as “a spiritual puppet of himself.” It’s hard to believe that Shunsuke could be so evil and it’s equally hard to believe Yuichi would be such an active participant in the plot for revenge. But it gets worse.
We learn a bit about the process of writing from the fictitious author although the only literary writing Shunsuke does in his old age is the editing of a set of his collected works. (24 volumes!) He no longer values his own written work, telling us that it was all about people going through life with serene resignation and without jealousy or hatred. Such a sharp contrast to his true feelings!
There is good writing. Here’s a passage about the first time Yuichi goes to the park where gay men meet at night:
“This company - this choosing, craving, pursuing, joyfully seeking, sighing, dreaming, loitering company - this company with sentiments wedded by the narcotic of custom - this company whose desire had been changed to something ugly by an incurable esthetic disease exchange fixedly sad stares as its members roved under the dim light of the street lamps. In the night many, many, wide-open, thirsty glances met and melted into each other. At the bend of the path, hand in hand, shoulder against shoulder, eyes over shoulders, while the night breeze softly wrestled the branches; now coming, now going again, the appraising looks sharply cast crossed in the same place.....These men do not have to sleep together. From the day we were born we have slept together. In hatred, in jealousy, in scorn, coming together for a short moment of love just to keep warm.”
I’ve read a lot of books by the author, Mishima – this is my eighth - including all four of his tetralogy, The Sea of Fertility. I have to say: this is a pretty bizarre premise for a story. And yet, and I don’t know why, I think this book has Mishima’s best writing. I thought that several times as I was reading it.
Mishima was a prolific author, writing more than a book a year for the 30 years of his writing career from 1941 until his suicide in 1971. Forbidden Colors was written about ten years in; it was published in two installments in 1951 and 1953.
Top photo: modern Tokyo’s small bar scene from sassyhongkong.com
The author from bbc.com
[Revised 7/2/23, edits 10/12/23]
Misogyny: A famous old male author, Shunsuke, hates women. He’s been married and divorced three times (all ‘disastrous’) and has had ten other affairs (all ‘clumsy’). He’s always kept a diary, written in French in case any of his women find it. In the diary he details his opinions of how stupid, fickle and irrational women are.
Revenge: The author in the story would love to get back at all of these women. He finds his weapon one day at a beach resort. He meets a beautiful young man named Yuichi whom he compares to the Greek statue of David. He senses that the young man still exploring his sexuality is gay, and he's right. He realizes Yuichi needs ‘cover’ so he basically pays him to marry the young woman Yuichi is going out with. Then he introduces Yuichi to various women who are his ex’s, even setting up lunch and dinner dates with them for him. Shunsuke is right, none of the women can resist him.
Gay life in Japan in the early 1950s: As the story unfolds it becomes a primer of what gay life was like in Japan at that time. Gay men hung out in certain bars and met in certain parks at night. Wealthy older men financially supported younger men. They held parties at rented suburban houses where some men were in drag and bedrooms were available. Young men occasionally fell in love with each other but it couldn’t be an exclusive relationship because they needed financial support from older men – their ‘patrons.’ (The consensus is that the author of this book, Mishima, was gay, although his wife always denied it.)
Living beauty vs. ugly death and evil. Shunsuke, who considers himself ugly, is so fascinated by Yuichi’s beauty and his doings that you wonder if Shunsuke isn't in love with Yuichi himself – everyone else is. Shunsuke thinks of Yuichi as “a spiritual puppet of himself.” It’s hard to believe that Shunsuke could be so evil and it’s equally hard to believe Yuichi would be such an active participant in the plot for revenge. But it gets worse.
We learn a bit about the process of writing from the fictitious author although the only literary writing Shunsuke does in his old age is the editing of a set of his collected works. (24 volumes!) He no longer values his own written work, telling us that it was all about people going through life with serene resignation and without jealousy or hatred. Such a sharp contrast to his true feelings!
There is good writing. Here’s a passage about the first time Yuichi goes to the park where gay men meet at night:
“This company - this choosing, craving, pursuing, joyfully seeking, sighing, dreaming, loitering company - this company with sentiments wedded by the narcotic of custom - this company whose desire had been changed to something ugly by an incurable esthetic disease exchange fixedly sad stares as its members roved under the dim light of the street lamps. In the night many, many, wide-open, thirsty glances met and melted into each other. At the bend of the path, hand in hand, shoulder against shoulder, eyes over shoulders, while the night breeze softly wrestled the branches; now coming, now going again, the appraising looks sharply cast crossed in the same place.....These men do not have to sleep together. From the day we were born we have slept together. In hatred, in jealousy, in scorn, coming together for a short moment of love just to keep warm.”
I’ve read a lot of books by the author, Mishima – this is my eighth - including all four of his tetralogy, The Sea of Fertility. I have to say: this is a pretty bizarre premise for a story. And yet, and I don’t know why, I think this book has Mishima’s best writing. I thought that several times as I was reading it.
Mishima was a prolific author, writing more than a book a year for the 30 years of his writing career from 1941 until his suicide in 1971. Forbidden Colors was written about ten years in; it was published in two installments in 1951 and 1953.
Top photo: modern Tokyo’s small bar scene from sassyhongkong.com
The author from bbc.com
[Revised 7/2/23, edits 10/12/23]
September 30, 2011
It's such a pity that Forbidden Colours will always be foreshadowed by Mishima's other works that had closer ties to his eventual death, because if he talked about suicide and actually did it it must mean that that work is suddenly more DEEP&EDGY, right guys?
I love Mishima's ability to depict internal thought-processing and reasoning across a wide array of characters in quite unique positions for a reader like myself. His views on Japan's shift to a more materialist and individualistic culture for reasons like the attempt to appear beautiful actually come at the cost of the loss actual beauty make a compelling case.
Mishima was a bad-ass. He belonged to a certain group at a certain time and was not afraid to say things how they were. Japan is still considerably repressive towards homosexuality, especially in men and I found that the behaviours and beliefs of many homosexuals could genuinely end up despising women as a result which was evident throughout the novel.
This is not a quick read, Mishima took his time to ensure that all the characters throughout the story were crafted beautifully which allowed him to create some considerably memorable scenes that he managed to pull off without appearing far-fetched.
There is so much you can pick up in the novel. If you think this is going to be some homo erotic fiction, it is not.
Despite the subject matter and foreign nature of the work which may repulse or encourage some to not read it (homosexuality, misogyny etc.), I cannot emphasise the importance of at least giving it a try. An author like no other, writing a story like no other in a time like no other. Don't read him because he is the 'Japanese Hemingway', read him for what he was and what he has given us all, this certainly was not reminiscent of anything I had read by Hemingway, which shows that Mishima was so far from being a one trick pony.
I love Mishima's ability to depict internal thought-processing and reasoning across a wide array of characters in quite unique positions for a reader like myself. His views on Japan's shift to a more materialist and individualistic culture for reasons like the attempt to appear beautiful actually come at the cost of the loss actual beauty make a compelling case.
Mishima was a bad-ass. He belonged to a certain group at a certain time and was not afraid to say things how they were. Japan is still considerably repressive towards homosexuality, especially in men and I found that the behaviours and beliefs of many homosexuals could genuinely end up despising women as a result which was evident throughout the novel.
This is not a quick read, Mishima took his time to ensure that all the characters throughout the story were crafted beautifully which allowed him to create some considerably memorable scenes that he managed to pull off without appearing far-fetched.
There is so much you can pick up in the novel. If you think this is going to be some homo erotic fiction, it is not.
Despite the subject matter and foreign nature of the work which may repulse or encourage some to not read it (homosexuality, misogyny etc.), I cannot emphasise the importance of at least giving it a try. An author like no other, writing a story like no other in a time like no other. Don't read him because he is the 'Japanese Hemingway', read him for what he was and what he has given us all, this certainly was not reminiscent of anything I had read by Hemingway, which shows that Mishima was so far from being a one trick pony.
May 9, 2020
???? ????? ????? ???????? ??? ???? ?? ????? ???? ???? ? ????? ????? ??????? ??????? ????????? ???????? ??????? ????? ?????? ?? ????? ?????? ???????? ??? ??? ??? ????? ???? ??? ????? ????? ????? ???????? ?????? ?????? ????? ??.
?????? ???? ??????? ???? ??????? ??? ????? ?? ????? ?????? ???? ??? ????? ???????? ??????? ?????? ?????? ???????? ???.
? ??? ????? ?? ????? ????? ????????? ?????? ?????? ??? ????? ??? ??? ??? ????? ?????? ???? ??????? ???????? ?? ????? ????.
?????? ?????????? ????? ?????? ???? ?? ???????? ???????? ?????????? ?? ?????? ?? ?????? ???????? ????????? ???? ??? ?? ?? ???? ?????? ??? ???????? ??? ???? ??? ???? ?????? ?????.
??? ??????? ???? ???? ???? ????? ????? ??????? ????? ???? ?? ??? ???????? ????????? ??????? ???? ???? ??? ???? ?????? ????? ???????? ?? ????? ??????? ???? ????.
?????? ???? ??????? ???? ??????? ??? ????? ?? ????? ?????? ???? ??? ????? ???????? ??????? ?????? ?????? ???????? ???.
? ??? ????? ?? ????? ????? ????????? ?????? ?????? ??? ????? ??? ??? ??? ????? ?????? ???? ??????? ???????? ?? ????? ????.
?????? ?????????? ????? ?????? ???? ?? ???????? ???????? ?????????? ?? ?????? ?? ?????? ???????? ????????? ???? ??? ?? ?? ???? ?????? ??? ???????? ??? ???? ??? ???? ?????? ?????.
??? ??????? ???? ???? ???? ????? ????? ??????? ????? ???? ?? ??? ???????? ????????? ??????? ???? ???? ??? ???? ?????? ????? ???????? ?? ????? ??????? ???? ????.
March 23, 2025
Roman complex plasat ?ntr-o Japonie postbelic? ce exploreaz? teme ca frumuse?e-ur??enie, viat?-moarte, tinere?e-b?tr?ne?e, trup-spirit ?i ne arat? constr?ngerile societ??ii prin intermediul vie?ii unui t?n?r homosexual, Yuichi, cu un trup pefect, un ideal de frumuse?e amintind de statuile grece?ti ?i a unui b?tr?n scriitor misogin, Shunsuke, dezam?git de propria via??.
Acesta din urm? folosindu-se de frumuse?ea t?n?rului Yuichi caut? s? se r?zbune pe femei, ca t?n?ra Kyoko ?i doamna Kaburagi, pentru a le seduce ?i a le manipula. ?l ini?iaz? pe t?n?r ?n arta tr?d?rii emo?ionale, incuraj?ndu-l s? fac? o c?s?torie f?r? dragoste ?n timp ce va avea rela?ii at?t cu b?rba?i c?t ?i cu femei de v?rste ?i din medii sociale diferite.
Putem face unele paralele cu alte mari c?r?i ale literaturii universale ca "Moartea la Vene?ia" de Th.Mann, rela?ia dintre Shunsuke ?i Yuichi f?c?nd aluzie la r?zbunarea domni?oarei Havisham folosindu-se de Estella ?n "Marile Speran?e" de Ch.Dickens.
Roman psihologic, plin de idei folosofice ce examineaz? conflictele interioare ale personajelor ?i puterea distructiva a emo?iilor reprimate.
Acesta din urm? folosindu-se de frumuse?ea t?n?rului Yuichi caut? s? se r?zbune pe femei, ca t?n?ra Kyoko ?i doamna Kaburagi, pentru a le seduce ?i a le manipula. ?l ini?iaz? pe t?n?r ?n arta tr?d?rii emo?ionale, incuraj?ndu-l s? fac? o c?s?torie f?r? dragoste ?n timp ce va avea rela?ii at?t cu b?rba?i c?t ?i cu femei de v?rste ?i din medii sociale diferite.
Putem face unele paralele cu alte mari c?r?i ale literaturii universale ca "Moartea la Vene?ia" de Th.Mann, rela?ia dintre Shunsuke ?i Yuichi f?c?nd aluzie la r?zbunarea domni?oarei Havisham folosindu-se de Estella ?n "Marile Speran?e" de Ch.Dickens.
Roman psihologic, plin de idei folosofice ce examineaz? conflictele interioare ale personajelor ?i puterea distructiva a emo?iilor reprimate.
November 14, 2021
I wish that Mishima wrote more books like this one. He destroyed another of his manuscripts, and probably felt it was career-destroying to write too close to his heart. His first book "Confessions of a Mask" was successful and semi-autobiograhical; despite that, or perhaps because of that, Mishima chose to hide as much as he revealed. The "Mask" continued throughout his life, but not the "Confessions."
Forbidden Colors may be considered a masterpiece, a melange of characters pretending, but feels convoluted and forced rather than ultimately honest and revelatory. So why 5 stars? Because it is Mishima and it is all we have — unless a supposed destroyed manuscript surfaces, now that researchers have access to his papers. Also, it provides a glimpse of Tokyo's post-War gay bars, a milieu that Mishima knew quite well.
Forbidden Colors may be considered a masterpiece, a melange of characters pretending, but feels convoluted and forced rather than ultimately honest and revelatory. So why 5 stars? Because it is Mishima and it is all we have — unless a supposed destroyed manuscript surfaces, now that researchers have access to his papers. Also, it provides a glimpse of Tokyo's post-War gay bars, a milieu that Mishima knew quite well.
July 6, 2023
Superbly powerful book that resided for years on bookshelf. Shunsuke aims to get payback on womankind for his 3 failed marriages. Using a beautiful gay man - Yuichi - to enter a loveless marriage and have affairs with others at his direction. Whilst Yuichi has even more affairs ...with men.
The story is well told. I finished the book quickly as could not put down. I have amassed more of the authors works to devour.
The story is well told. I finished the book quickly as could not put down. I have amassed more of the authors works to devour.
February 21, 2025
Mi-e greu ?nc?, de?i a trecut mai bine de o s?pt?m?n? de c?nd am terminat romanul, s? ?mi a?ez, m?car c?t de c?t, g?ndurile, dar m? voi str?dui, c?ci avem de a face cu o carte care merit?, ?n acela?i timp, g?l?gie, strig?te la portavoce, c?t ?i silen?iozitate.
Un roman despre frumuse?e. Homosexualitatea este doar o tem? de suprafa??. Nici nu cred, de fapt, c? Yuichi ar fi homosexual, cel pu?in nu doar asta. Este mult mai mult de at?t, s? zicem c? ar fi mai degrab? ?ntr-o sfer? a bisexualit??ii, undeva la o margine sau, poate, ?n afara spectrului, dar este un om care pur ?i simplu exist?. Sau, cel pu?in, va fi c?ndva un om, c?ci ?n romanul ?sta este un proiect (de r?zbunare, al lui Shunsuke), iar mai ales, c?t am reu?it eu cu mintea mea limitat? s? judec, un obiect. Pentru c? merg?nd mai departe de toate temele prezente (a esteticului, crea?iei (care ??i ?nvinge creatorul), social? <<?nclina?ia homoerotic? ?ntr-o Japonie postbelic?, plin? ?i de alte probleme>>, dragostei, bildungs ?.a.), Yuichi este folosit de absolut toat? lumea. De pild?, Shunsuke, de la care pleac? ?ntreaga poveste, crede c? ?l va putea modela pe Yuichi ?n a?a fel ?nc?t s?-i satisfac? toate frustr?rile: vrea s? combine frumuse?ea lui interioar? cu frumuse?ea carnal? a t?n?rului. Vrea s?-i impun? un set de principii, v?z?nd c? este amoral. ?l transform?, con?tient fiind, ?ntr-o arm?. Bine?n?eles, Yuichi accept?, e un personaj lipsit de voin?? ?n cea mai mare parte a c?r?ii, nu cunoa?te miezul oamenilor, ?i dezbrac? pe to?i, femei ?i b?rba?i deopotriv?, ?ns? vede numai trupurile, nicic?nd nu reu?e?te s? se ad?nceasc? mai mult. Mai mult, apare la un moment dat o oglind?: Yuichi e un personaj, mai ales, plictisit. De aceea, romantismul la el nu ?ine, zboar? ,,din floare ?n floare", nu se ata?eaz? de nimeni ?n afar? de sine, dezvolt? complexul lui Narcis, motiv pentru care el ?i atunci c?nd face dragoste cu cineva, de fapt face cu el ?nsu?i, cu imaginea pe care o vede ?n ochii celuilalt. Shunsuke ?l ?nva?? s? urasc? lumea, s? vad? numai negrul din ea ?i ?i reu?e?te, Yuichi aproape c? devine un automatism.
Este greu s? scapi din mrejele altuia, s? te debarasezi de influen?a lui ?i s? nu mai r?t?ce?ti, s?-?i s?de?ti propriile r?d?cini. Yuichi este chinuit. Via?a cosmopolit? la care ajunge s? aib? acces nu ?l ?nc?lze?te cu nimic. Nu asta c?uta. Ci, mai degrab?, o pace, caut? s? recl?deasc? fisura de din?untrul lui, fie ?i c? nu ?n?elege care e ?i nu o cunoa?te (de?i mi-ar fi greu s? afirm c? este neap?rat at?t de preocupat de asta, pentru c? nu caut? mereu o rezolvare, c?t un fel de a se obi?nui). Iar asta ar trebui s? c?ut?m cu to?ii. S? nu ne mai l?s?m s? fim programa?i de al?ii. Sau, cel pu?in, s? rezist?m.
Un roman despre frumuse?e. Homosexualitatea este doar o tem? de suprafa??. Nici nu cred, de fapt, c? Yuichi ar fi homosexual, cel pu?in nu doar asta. Este mult mai mult de at?t, s? zicem c? ar fi mai degrab? ?ntr-o sfer? a bisexualit??ii, undeva la o margine sau, poate, ?n afara spectrului, dar este un om care pur ?i simplu exist?. Sau, cel pu?in, va fi c?ndva un om, c?ci ?n romanul ?sta este un proiect (de r?zbunare, al lui Shunsuke), iar mai ales, c?t am reu?it eu cu mintea mea limitat? s? judec, un obiect. Pentru c? merg?nd mai departe de toate temele prezente (a esteticului, crea?iei (care ??i ?nvinge creatorul), social? <<?nclina?ia homoerotic? ?ntr-o Japonie postbelic?, plin? ?i de alte probleme>>, dragostei, bildungs ?.a.), Yuichi este folosit de absolut toat? lumea. De pild?, Shunsuke, de la care pleac? ?ntreaga poveste, crede c? ?l va putea modela pe Yuichi ?n a?a fel ?nc?t s?-i satisfac? toate frustr?rile: vrea s? combine frumuse?ea lui interioar? cu frumuse?ea carnal? a t?n?rului. Vrea s?-i impun? un set de principii, v?z?nd c? este amoral. ?l transform?, con?tient fiind, ?ntr-o arm?. Bine?n?eles, Yuichi accept?, e un personaj lipsit de voin?? ?n cea mai mare parte a c?r?ii, nu cunoa?te miezul oamenilor, ?i dezbrac? pe to?i, femei ?i b?rba?i deopotriv?, ?ns? vede numai trupurile, nicic?nd nu reu?e?te s? se ad?nceasc? mai mult. Mai mult, apare la un moment dat o oglind?: Yuichi e un personaj, mai ales, plictisit. De aceea, romantismul la el nu ?ine, zboar? ,,din floare ?n floare", nu se ata?eaz? de nimeni ?n afar? de sine, dezvolt? complexul lui Narcis, motiv pentru care el ?i atunci c?nd face dragoste cu cineva, de fapt face cu el ?nsu?i, cu imaginea pe care o vede ?n ochii celuilalt. Shunsuke ?l ?nva?? s? urasc? lumea, s? vad? numai negrul din ea ?i ?i reu?e?te, Yuichi aproape c? devine un automatism.
Este greu s? scapi din mrejele altuia, s? te debarasezi de influen?a lui ?i s? nu mai r?t?ce?ti, s?-?i s?de?ti propriile r?d?cini. Yuichi este chinuit. Via?a cosmopolit? la care ajunge s? aib? acces nu ?l ?nc?lze?te cu nimic. Nu asta c?uta. Ci, mai degrab?, o pace, caut? s? recl?deasc? fisura de din?untrul lui, fie ?i c? nu ?n?elege care e ?i nu o cunoa?te (de?i mi-ar fi greu s? afirm c? este neap?rat at?t de preocupat de asta, pentru c? nu caut? mereu o rezolvare, c?t un fel de a se obi?nui). Iar asta ar trebui s? c?ut?m cu to?ii. S? nu ne mai l?s?m s? fim programa?i de al?ii. Sau, cel pu?in, s? rezist?m.
October 24, 2008
For those who don't know, Yukio Mishima is one of Japan's most-revered writers of the 20th century. He committed suicide in 1970 that tragic and noble ritualistic way they have over there, and he was probably gay, though he was definitely married (to a woman). This novel is, above all, a harsh critique of marriage. Like Thomas Mann, the story begins with an aged, single, famous writer (Shunsuké) at the beach, gazing upon the impossibly beautiful body of a young male (Yuichi, much older than Mann's Tadzio). Shunsuké has been hurt, emotionally, and like embittered by two previous women he was with, and so he takes Yuichi under his proverbial wing as a kind of experiment.
Yuichi is to marry a young woman, but confesses that he can't ever love a woman. He feels nothing for the sex as a whole. Shunsuké tells him that women should be treated as stupid animals, easily manipulated, and tells him to go through with it for the sake of power and position. Then, throughout the rest of the novel, Shunsuké basically uses Yuichi's good looks to get him to seduce and emotionally destroy the very women who emotionally destroyed him.
It's, clearly, a pretty angry book. At one point Yuichi is walking with one of his many lovers throughout the book, and overhears a passing woman say something like "Ugh, gays!" He blows up to his companion:
"'Them! Them!' Yuichi ground his teeth. 'They who pay three hundred and fifty yen for a lunch hour together in a hotel bed, and have their great love affair in the sight of heaven. They who, if all goes well, build their rat's-nest love nests. They who, sleepy-eyed, diligently multiply. They who go out on Sundays with all their children to clearance sales at the department stores. They who scheme out one or two stingy infidelities in their lifetimes. They who always show off their healthy homes, their healthy morality, their common sense, their self-satisfaction.'
Victory, however, is always on the side of the commonplace. Yuichi knew that all the scorn he could muster could not combat their natural scorn" (238).
So an angry book, but a pretty wise one. This is the most articulate version I've read of the idea that a gay man's anger or hatred toward the heterosexual order is always limited by the fact that he came from such an order, whereas a hetero can do everything possible to keep homosexuality out of his life all together, making his hatred for it real, powerful, and thorough.
The copy on the back of my copy of the book is not so wise, however. It interprets Yuichi's situation as being "[d]rawn to homosexuality after a loveless marriage," as though gay sex were some logical form of therapy (which for some married men maybe it is...). Mishima somewhat addresses this pre-"gay rights" homosexual dilletantism late in the book, once Yuichi starts sleeping with Kawada, who is some important financial worker:
"The homosexual of promise, whoever he is, is one who recognizes that certain manliness within himself, and loves it, and holds fast to it, and the masculine virtue that Kawada recognized in himself was his ever-ready nineteenth-century predilection for diligence. A strange trap for one to be in! As in that long-ago warlike time, loving a woman was an effeminate act; to Kawada any emotion that ran counter to his own masculine virtue seemed effeminate. To samurai and homosexual the ugliest vice is femininity. Even though their reasons for it differ, the samurai and the homosexual do not see manliness as instinctive but rather as something gained only from moral effort. The ruin Kawada felt was moral ruin. The reason that he was an adherent of the Conservative party lay in its policy of protecting the things that should have been his enemies: the established order and the family system based on heterosexual love" (380).
Paging Larry Craig. Mishima's narrator loves to butt in a lot like this with a grand, sometimes-smirking knowingness about his characters, but it always felt more companionable than intrusive. All-in-all a pretty good novel, though I imagine his better-known books—those without, perhaps, so strong a need to delineate their author's desired position somewhere between the code of the samurai and that of the homosexual—are better reads.
Oh and there's this incredible sentence: "Drunker than if he had drunk saké, he was drunk on intoxication" (222).
Yes!
Yuichi is to marry a young woman, but confesses that he can't ever love a woman. He feels nothing for the sex as a whole. Shunsuké tells him that women should be treated as stupid animals, easily manipulated, and tells him to go through with it for the sake of power and position. Then, throughout the rest of the novel, Shunsuké basically uses Yuichi's good looks to get him to seduce and emotionally destroy the very women who emotionally destroyed him.
It's, clearly, a pretty angry book. At one point Yuichi is walking with one of his many lovers throughout the book, and overhears a passing woman say something like "Ugh, gays!" He blows up to his companion:
"'Them! Them!' Yuichi ground his teeth. 'They who pay three hundred and fifty yen for a lunch hour together in a hotel bed, and have their great love affair in the sight of heaven. They who, if all goes well, build their rat's-nest love nests. They who, sleepy-eyed, diligently multiply. They who go out on Sundays with all their children to clearance sales at the department stores. They who scheme out one or two stingy infidelities in their lifetimes. They who always show off their healthy homes, their healthy morality, their common sense, their self-satisfaction.'
Victory, however, is always on the side of the commonplace. Yuichi knew that all the scorn he could muster could not combat their natural scorn" (238).
So an angry book, but a pretty wise one. This is the most articulate version I've read of the idea that a gay man's anger or hatred toward the heterosexual order is always limited by the fact that he came from such an order, whereas a hetero can do everything possible to keep homosexuality out of his life all together, making his hatred for it real, powerful, and thorough.
The copy on the back of my copy of the book is not so wise, however. It interprets Yuichi's situation as being "[d]rawn to homosexuality after a loveless marriage," as though gay sex were some logical form of therapy (which for some married men maybe it is...). Mishima somewhat addresses this pre-"gay rights" homosexual dilletantism late in the book, once Yuichi starts sleeping with Kawada, who is some important financial worker:
"The homosexual of promise, whoever he is, is one who recognizes that certain manliness within himself, and loves it, and holds fast to it, and the masculine virtue that Kawada recognized in himself was his ever-ready nineteenth-century predilection for diligence. A strange trap for one to be in! As in that long-ago warlike time, loving a woman was an effeminate act; to Kawada any emotion that ran counter to his own masculine virtue seemed effeminate. To samurai and homosexual the ugliest vice is femininity. Even though their reasons for it differ, the samurai and the homosexual do not see manliness as instinctive but rather as something gained only from moral effort. The ruin Kawada felt was moral ruin. The reason that he was an adherent of the Conservative party lay in its policy of protecting the things that should have been his enemies: the established order and the family system based on heterosexual love" (380).
Paging Larry Craig. Mishima's narrator loves to butt in a lot like this with a grand, sometimes-smirking knowingness about his characters, but it always felt more companionable than intrusive. All-in-all a pretty good novel, though I imagine his better-known books—those without, perhaps, so strong a need to delineate their author's desired position somewhere between the code of the samurai and that of the homosexual—are better reads.
Oh and there's this incredible sentence: "Drunker than if he had drunk saké, he was drunk on intoxication" (222).
Yes!
January 31, 2013
as with all other books by Mishima i have read, the writing style, twisting of sentences, use of extravagant imagery and downright beauty of the whole book is what makes this read so phenomenally amazing. Forbidden Colours is veiled with prose so insanely beautiful, it's often easy to over-look the horrifically cruel and emotionally gutting plot. I believe that to be the point, and exactly why i put it as one of my favourite all-time reads. There is not one redeeming feature in any of the characters, all are mistreated or mistreat others, and if a positive feature does arise, Mishima skillfully uses this feature to slowly destroy another character, or the character him/herself. Everyone in it unravels by their own hand, leading towards a culmination of broken hearts, much like an emotional train wreck. The book starts as it means to go on, with a rather grotesque display of womanizing, which is passed on and on and on (in various guises) through other characters, each time ramping up the knock-on effects, and thus the book continually stirs the pot of human greed, weakness, destruction and fake-love into such vile-looking substance, it's a miracle that Mishima manages to keep the beauty and grace of his writing centre-stage. with the characters and plot looking like a rotting joint of meat, Mishima garnishes it with flowers of such transfixing intoxication, it reads like a lavish banquet.
July 4, 2022
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??? ??????? ???? ??? ?????? ??? ????? ?????? ?? ????? ???????? ????? ??? ??????? ??????? ??????? ??? ????? ?? ???? ?????? ??? ???? ??????? ???? ????? ??????. ??? ??????? ?????? ???? ?? ????? ?????? ??? ?? ???? ??? ???. ????? ????? ??? ????????? ??? ????? ?????? ???? ?????? ???? ???? ???????? ????????? ??????? ??????? ??????? ????? ???????? ??????? ??????? ????? ??????.
June 16, 2019
An early Mishima novel that shows him at his most paradoxical. The style is mannered at times, realist at others. It is highly referential to a specific post-war Japanese culture, half-way between defeat and economic miracle, and yet looks back to European decadent and classical literature.
There are two barriers to understanding here. First, we wonder whether the translator (Alfred Marks) has always been able to communicate the subtle behaviourial codes of an upper class that hovers between traditionalism and business.
Second, Mishima's partly satirical posturing on art and beauty through the cynical, bored and rather unpleasant novelist Shinsuke, will result in some small moments of dreariness. Few of us in the twenty-first century can get truly excited by debates on lost aesthetics.
But these are relatively minor concerns because Mishima brilliantly portrays the homosexual underworld of post-war Tokyo in a culture that disapproves of it but more as a social weakness than as a moral failing. It is 'unnatural' but not 'evil'.
The mood is thus of turn of the century Europe rather than offering us the visceral horror of the 'deviant' to be found in the then-contemporary West and still to be found amongst many religious troglodytes in the Americas and Africa.
A sub-culture is here denied entry into the wider culture on equal terms but it is allowed its dark space. In that space, homosexuals seem to live a vacant and sad but tolerated life, albeit with more than a hint of desperation.
Mishima (when he is not posturing as the superior Japanese traditionalist able to be more modern than the moderns) writes as brilliantly here as elsewhere. He also has the ability to dissect formal heterosexual relationships as he does homosexual within a culture of shame rather than guilt.
The character of Yuichi (Yuchan to his homosexual associates), often taken to be Mishima himself, remains a cypher throughout - a cool and self-regarding person with a limited emotional range.
What is more interesting is the way he impacts on others, giving us the paradox of the cool 'Mishima' being able to define quite precisely the emotional responses of a range of figures: his wife, his mother, a high-born female, a shallow female and all grades of male lover.
As a non-procreative male, the extent of Mishima's imaginative genius can be found not only in his portayal of women but in his unsentimental portrayal of a new-born baby while giving a good account of the way that Yuichi (as a man) can 'love' both wife and baby as a father.
The book is about the complexity, lack of fixedness, of love. Yuichi is detached but no psychopath. He can feel but his position as the object of projected desires means that he is often not allowed to by circumstances. If he 'weakens', he may be denied access to his true nature for ever.
This is the fascination of the book - to see how a pure beauty without apparent moral content creates a range of desires and 'wants' in others within a society that is layered with codes on what is acceptable or is not acceptable, wholly unlike our own in the West.
It is no accident that the sophisticated novelist with a broad education brings cruelties and small evils into the world of Yuichi, whereas Yuichi merely acts, like an animal, according to his rather limited range of needs.
Shunsuke's desire for a vicious revenge on women shows a person who has ceased to function as a human being and has no place on the planet as a vindictive, dessicated old man who has lost his creative spark.
His agent (Yuichi) is so detached that it becomes clear that the novelist is only half directing events. The women he wants to humiliate are all humiliated through Yuichi but they retain their power and dignity and Shunsuke is left with nothing.
Yuichi blithely sails through the events of the novel, somehow always landing on his feet like a cat, never feeling the pain he inflicts. The book is an essay both in the injustice of life and on the Nietzschean position of a general object of desire in the world.
As a result, although the actual sexual content is limited, the book gives off an aura of eroticism even when the reader (like myself) is very dominantly heterosexual.
What Mishima does, which is remarkable, is suggest to the male heterosexual reader what parts of himself as a male would re-emerge intact within a homosexual male - in other words, what it is about being a male that exists as essential whether one is gay or not.
To make a heterosexual male empathetic to the world of the homosexual would be no mean feat today - in the early 1950s, it would have been startling.
But the book is not so much about homosexuality as about desire itself and the way that desire has a life that is far more significant than any actual meaning to be placed in the desired object - because, in the end, Yuichi is always simply an object who finds it reasonable to be an object.
There are few occasions when Yuichi/Yuchan expresses genuine unhappiness so long as he is following his true nature. His cruelty is casual, the flow of the river through the easiest channel. Shunsuke is malicious as are others but Yuchan is as disinterested in malice as in kindness.
This a-morality (not immorality) is perhaps what will 'shock' most readers - especially in one particularly nasty incident where a somewhat shallow bimbo who had hurt the novelist is seduced by the two conspirators' trickery into being, in effect, raped by the novelist in the dark.
The women are treated like objects in a very different sense but there is a sense that the novelist has seduced Yuichi into treating women as things through being directed into the realisation that everyone treats him as a thing (even if he does not care overly).
And, disturbingly, we have none of the hysterical self-traumatizing of Western women but only a determined dignity where the impression is left that these women have come to terms with their position with far more dignity than the ultimate loser in the game - the manipulative novelist.
The book brings us, the Westerner (from a culture with a serious problem in managing desire), into a medium (Japanese traditional culture) that is alienating to the degree that desire is clearly given form and that this form is then articulated in almost ritualistic ways.
By the end of the book, we are left wondering whether it would be better or worse to give desire its outlet through rigid codes and appropriate forms than (as our culture did at that time) deny it any role in formal society at all.
Homosexuality was illegal in the UK at the time the book appeared but, being Japanese, nothing is illegal here, merely shameful.
Any English homosexual reading the translation at the time must have had mixed feelings about its message - an acceptance and management of shame through combinations of secrecy, hypocrisy and denial but the 'vice' being permitted nevertheless. He might have lived with that.
October 26, 2010
Yuichi! Yuichi! Yuichi!
It’s all a bit silly because he is so much. Everyone falls in love with him, and the reader is pretty much the only person who doesn't get to bang him. Mishima loves Yuichi too much for anything really bad to happen to him, but there's the threat that weird Shunsuke will win. Will a Dorian Gray style "having fun and breaking hearts makes you ugly" kick in? Will he end up killing himself? Will he turn into an aged, make-upped queen? Shunsuke tries to push Yuichi too far, but Mishima keeps him beautiful and keeps us in love with him. Really unpleasant episode with dizzy socialite...but cut to Yuichi being charming with baby daughter. Like an Asian version of that Athena poster, but less cheesy.
"He saw the golden hair of the man’s chest protruding from a gap in his shirt and felt as if he were being embraced by a great hornet."
On childbirth: "Yasuko's lower body moved like the mouth of a person vomiting."
"To samurai and homosexual the ugliest vice is femininity."
"After Yuichi left, however, this middle-aged nobleman would be struck by mindless passion. He would pace the narrow room dressed only in his robe. Finally he would fall down on the rug and roll about. In a small voice he would call out Yuichi’s name hundreds of times."
It’s all a bit silly because he is so much. Everyone falls in love with him, and the reader is pretty much the only person who doesn't get to bang him. Mishima loves Yuichi too much for anything really bad to happen to him, but there's the threat that weird Shunsuke will win. Will a Dorian Gray style "having fun and breaking hearts makes you ugly" kick in? Will he end up killing himself? Will he turn into an aged, make-upped queen? Shunsuke tries to push Yuichi too far, but Mishima keeps him beautiful and keeps us in love with him. Really unpleasant episode with dizzy socialite...but cut to Yuichi being charming with baby daughter. Like an Asian version of that Athena poster, but less cheesy.
"He saw the golden hair of the man’s chest protruding from a gap in his shirt and felt as if he were being embraced by a great hornet."
On childbirth: "Yasuko's lower body moved like the mouth of a person vomiting."
"To samurai and homosexual the ugliest vice is femininity."
"After Yuichi left, however, this middle-aged nobleman would be struck by mindless passion. He would pace the narrow room dressed only in his robe. Finally he would fall down on the rug and roll about. In a small voice he would call out Yuichi’s name hundreds of times."
December 25, 2024
Mishima lived his s&m, militaristic, uber-masculine/gay fantasies. In his 20s he bared his feelings in this troubling, often astonishing novel where desire is an evil spirit to get drunk on. Life, as he
sees it, is a deceptive "show" in false face, headlining naked
players in a series of tableaux depicting Beauty, Sex, Death. And the show, which spotlights lovelessness in Loveland, must always go on.
sees it, is a deceptive "show" in false face, headlining naked
players in a series of tableaux depicting Beauty, Sex, Death. And the show, which spotlights lovelessness in Loveland, must always go on.
Read
May 1, 2024Dark, atmospheric, moody and tense.
May 28, 2015
If you've never read Mishima before, don't start with this book. Begin with his first book, CONFESSIONS OF A MASK, then read THE TEMPLE OF THE GOLDEN PAVILION, which is another great early book. Then read the four classic novels he wrote just before he died, SPRING SNOW, RUNAWAY HORSES, THE TEMPLE OF DAWN, and DECAY OF THE ANGEL.
FORBIDDEN COLORS is from the "sagging middle" of Mishima's career. What's missing is the idealism and passion of his last great novels. This is a more mundane world, not because the main character is gay, but because he's not especially heroic or even very intelligent. He has no vision for himself, he's more a passive receptacle of other people's fantasies. There's lots of bitter, brilliant insight into the every day lives of homosexuals, but not as much drama, color, and spectacle as in the last great novels, when Mishima was consciously creating a series of timeless masterpieces that would capture all of the Japanese character, not just the concerns of one small group.
FORBIDDEN COLORS is from the "sagging middle" of Mishima's career. What's missing is the idealism and passion of his last great novels. This is a more mundane world, not because the main character is gay, but because he's not especially heroic or even very intelligent. He has no vision for himself, he's more a passive receptacle of other people's fantasies. There's lots of bitter, brilliant insight into the every day lives of homosexuals, but not as much drama, color, and spectacle as in the last great novels, when Mishima was consciously creating a series of timeless masterpieces that would capture all of the Japanese character, not just the concerns of one small group.
July 24, 2020
Mi primer libro de este gran autor, una historia tan retorcida como la vida misma de muchas personas. Es impresionante que a pesar de transcurrir en los 50's no está alejada de la realidad actual. Misoginia, prostitución masculina, la soberbia y discriminación son temas que se plantean muy bien. El único pero que le pongo, un poco de incongruencia en el personaje de Yuichi.
Una lectura muy recomendable.
Una lectura muy recomendable.
June 1, 2013
One of Yukio Mishima's best novels!
January 24, 2021
Mishima's writing is so good and then boom 20 pages of misogyny
April 28, 2021
On 25 November 1970, writer Yukio Mishima barricaded himself in the commander’s office of a Japanese military base in Tokyo. After he and his supporters immobilized the commander, Mishima went out to the balcony to address the soldiers. This speech was a summary of many ideas Mishima had spent years sponsoring. Westernization is killing the “Japanese soul”. The Japanese army, which ought to be the nation’s backbone, is now reduced to the modestly titled Japan Self-Defense Forces. Post-war Japan is in a slumber from which it can only be awaken by an Army whose duty is to defend to Emperor and safeguard Japanese identity. To prove his commitment to the restoration of Japanese self-determination and freedom from Western shackles, Mishima announces he is going to kill himself.
The soldiers laughed him off his balcony. He went back inside and said, “I don’t think they heard me”. Abetted by his comrades, he then committed seppuku, a ritual suicide historically associated with samurais and codes of honour. By all accounts, it is a gruesome way to die: the victim disembowels himself, and only after is his head cut off by a third-party so as to spare them needless pain. It seems Mishima took longer to die than necessary, as the friend who was supposed to decapitate him was unable to do it. Although he’d been planning this half-hearted coup for months, it is hard to see how anyone, including Mishima, could have believed in its success. Following the precepts he had spent his life writing about, Mishima was invested in the idea of a death that would signify something through its performance. Seppuku was ideal for him. It concentrated all that he held dear: tradition, drama, symbolism; it was real yet performative.
A particularly striking aspect of Mishima is his beauty. A medical blunder prevented him from being conscripted into the Japanese army (a good thing too, as the unit he was supposed to join was decimated in the Philippines), and one gets the feeling that his obsession for exercise was a result of this rejection. Undoubtedly, he did much to cultivate his physique: he practiced Kendo, Karate, Battōjutsu, and was very invested in weight lifting.
Beauty and death are constant presences in Mishima. Forbidden Colours is about this duality. An aged, ugly writer uses a beautiful young man to punish all the women who rejected and wronged him. The young man, incapable of loving women and enamoured of his own beauty, becomes a moral monstrosity whose sins are lessened because he is beautiful. Beauty is a redeeming force for Mishima, not because the harm is less felt, but because harm itself becomes meaningless. What is selfishness when compared to the sublime? All the characters are sacrificed at the altar of Yuichi’s face and body, and in the end they almost thank him for it.
It is tempting to link this story – the amorality promoted by beauty – to Mishima’s own conception of identity and History. I am sure Mishima himself would disagree. He would say that morality and beauty are indistinguishable from each other. Death immortalizes beauty by preventing the beautiful from growing old, becoming so the third element of this somewhat unholy triad. However, apart from the considerations about the “eye of the beholder”, aesthetics is a construction which becomes theatricality when applied to human bodies. Forbbiden Colours is the story of a young man who decides to play the role beauty condemned him to. Like Mishima’s cinematic death, beauty is perhaps little more than yet another performance.
On James Dean’s premature death, Mishima wrote that “his tragic death was in fact a consummate victory.” Mishima didn’t die young – but he died beautiful. Perhaps, for him, that was enough.
The soldiers laughed him off his balcony. He went back inside and said, “I don’t think they heard me”. Abetted by his comrades, he then committed seppuku, a ritual suicide historically associated with samurais and codes of honour. By all accounts, it is a gruesome way to die: the victim disembowels himself, and only after is his head cut off by a third-party so as to spare them needless pain. It seems Mishima took longer to die than necessary, as the friend who was supposed to decapitate him was unable to do it. Although he’d been planning this half-hearted coup for months, it is hard to see how anyone, including Mishima, could have believed in its success. Following the precepts he had spent his life writing about, Mishima was invested in the idea of a death that would signify something through its performance. Seppuku was ideal for him. It concentrated all that he held dear: tradition, drama, symbolism; it was real yet performative.
A particularly striking aspect of Mishima is his beauty. A medical blunder prevented him from being conscripted into the Japanese army (a good thing too, as the unit he was supposed to join was decimated in the Philippines), and one gets the feeling that his obsession for exercise was a result of this rejection. Undoubtedly, he did much to cultivate his physique: he practiced Kendo, Karate, Battōjutsu, and was very invested in weight lifting.
Beauty and death are constant presences in Mishima. Forbidden Colours is about this duality. An aged, ugly writer uses a beautiful young man to punish all the women who rejected and wronged him. The young man, incapable of loving women and enamoured of his own beauty, becomes a moral monstrosity whose sins are lessened because he is beautiful. Beauty is a redeeming force for Mishima, not because the harm is less felt, but because harm itself becomes meaningless. What is selfishness when compared to the sublime? All the characters are sacrificed at the altar of Yuichi’s face and body, and in the end they almost thank him for it.
It is tempting to link this story – the amorality promoted by beauty – to Mishima’s own conception of identity and History. I am sure Mishima himself would disagree. He would say that morality and beauty are indistinguishable from each other. Death immortalizes beauty by preventing the beautiful from growing old, becoming so the third element of this somewhat unholy triad. However, apart from the considerations about the “eye of the beholder”, aesthetics is a construction which becomes theatricality when applied to human bodies. Forbbiden Colours is the story of a young man who decides to play the role beauty condemned him to. Like Mishima’s cinematic death, beauty is perhaps little more than yet another performance.
On James Dean’s premature death, Mishima wrote that “his tragic death was in fact a consummate victory.” Mishima didn’t die young – but he died beautiful. Perhaps, for him, that was enough.
January 8, 2024
Esta novela es todo un laberinto de celos, egoísmos, odios y bajas pasiones. El lado más oscuro del alma humana: su lado más mezquino y calculador.
Japón, segunda mitad del siglo XX. Un Japón ocupado, un Tokyo lleno de norteamericanos en busca de aventuras; el Tokyo homosexual underground, donde la homosexualidad se lleva en anonimato y donde el protagonista la lleva de una manera vergonzante pero desenfrenada, de una promiscuidad pavorosa. Yuishi, el protagonista es un narciso irremediable.
La homosexualidad de Yuishi es vista y entendida bajo la visión y moralidad de Occidente, como algo vergonzoso que se debe ocultar, la homosexualidad entendida como una depravación y una desviación. Esa doble moral que puede justificar una infidelidad heterosexual pero no una infidelidad homosexual.
?Qué hay detrás de esa misoginia del viejo escritor? Pensemos... quizás una homosexualidad no aceptada, reprimida duramente. Una fuerza que avergonzaba y que siempre calló a favor de las apariencias sociales.
La fuerza, la violencia, la gracia con que escribe Mishima acá queda demostrada.
No hay diferencia entre la espada y la pluma empu?ada.
Japón, segunda mitad del siglo XX. Un Japón ocupado, un Tokyo lleno de norteamericanos en busca de aventuras; el Tokyo homosexual underground, donde la homosexualidad se lleva en anonimato y donde el protagonista la lleva de una manera vergonzante pero desenfrenada, de una promiscuidad pavorosa. Yuishi, el protagonista es un narciso irremediable.
La homosexualidad de Yuishi es vista y entendida bajo la visión y moralidad de Occidente, como algo vergonzoso que se debe ocultar, la homosexualidad entendida como una depravación y una desviación. Esa doble moral que puede justificar una infidelidad heterosexual pero no una infidelidad homosexual.
?Qué hay detrás de esa misoginia del viejo escritor? Pensemos... quizás una homosexualidad no aceptada, reprimida duramente. Una fuerza que avergonzaba y que siempre calló a favor de las apariencias sociales.
La fuerza, la violencia, la gracia con que escribe Mishima acá queda demostrada.
No hay diferencia entre la espada y la pluma empu?ada.
February 27, 2021
Un capolavoro: è il primo romando di uno scrittore giapponese che mi avvince perchè non si ritorce su se stesso ma ha un sviluppo narattivo nella trama e nella pscicologia dei personaggi.
L'ambientazione risulta estremamente moderna e attuale: il palco della "scene" omosessuale di Tokyo è lo stesso dei giorni nostri, così pure località di villeggiatura, le coste, gli onsen, i parchi.
I temi si intrecciano insieme alle storie dei protagonisti: la misoginia, l'innocenza (che, in un modo tipicamente giapponese, non significa assenza di colpa ma assenza di rimorso), l'omosessualità, le aspettative sociali, l'arte e il suo processo creativo, l'amore o la passione o l'assenza di entrambi, il suicidio. Trama e ordito di vicende e soggetti sono impreziositi da strass di rara ironia.
L'ambientazione risulta estremamente moderna e attuale: il palco della "scene" omosessuale di Tokyo è lo stesso dei giorni nostri, così pure località di villeggiatura, le coste, gli onsen, i parchi.
I temi si intrecciano insieme alle storie dei protagonisti: la misoginia, l'innocenza (che, in un modo tipicamente giapponese, non significa assenza di colpa ma assenza di rimorso), l'omosessualità, le aspettative sociali, l'arte e il suo processo creativo, l'amore o la passione o l'assenza di entrambi, il suicidio. Trama e ordito di vicende e soggetti sono impreziositi da strass di rara ironia.
July 1, 2017
Highly poetic language and more intricate thoughts per paragraph than bpm on any given night at Berghain - Mishima knows how to challenge his readers. The whole personnel of "Forbidden Colours" is floating between the classic poles that make up the world of ideas measured by Mishima: Youth and old age, beauty and ugliness, tradition and modernity, body and mind, homosexuality and heterosexuality (and of course there's suicide, too). In this novel, the two protagonists, Yuichi and Shunsuké, are both highly mysogynistic, and Shunsuké aims to execute his revenge on women with the help of Yuichi (who is actually gay).
Interestingly, the book shows no happy relationship, heterosexual or homosexual, that is bound by love. The female characters reflect the role of women in Japanese society shortly after WW II, their upbringing and possible ways of coping with their restrictions. They mainly react and endure instead of becoming factors who shape the story and by that their own destiny. Homosexuals are shown as stigmatised and in this book, Mishima quite openly attacks the hypocrisy of his contemporaries on this issue.
Nevertheless, this is not a book that agitates or openly advocates certain positions regarding social justice (this is Mishima, folks). Rather, the text remains ambiguous and abstract by reflecting and discussing the author's obsession with the power that lies within youth and beauty and the sovereignty he ascribed to "death through action" (meaning suicide). Power relations between men women as well as men and men are played out through the course of action, always developing and shifting, changing shapes but never profoundly changing their character.
I read very slowly, trying not to miss any point the characters are making in their rather philosophical considerations - nevertheless, I am sure there is a lot more than you can grasp by reading the book once. I like that Mishima is an author that I certainly do not always agree with, but he is always interesting, intelligent, and challenging - in short, he pushes and unsettles me, and that's what I appreciate so much about him.
Interestingly, the book shows no happy relationship, heterosexual or homosexual, that is bound by love. The female characters reflect the role of women in Japanese society shortly after WW II, their upbringing and possible ways of coping with their restrictions. They mainly react and endure instead of becoming factors who shape the story and by that their own destiny. Homosexuals are shown as stigmatised and in this book, Mishima quite openly attacks the hypocrisy of his contemporaries on this issue.
Nevertheless, this is not a book that agitates or openly advocates certain positions regarding social justice (this is Mishima, folks). Rather, the text remains ambiguous and abstract by reflecting and discussing the author's obsession with the power that lies within youth and beauty and the sovereignty he ascribed to "death through action" (meaning suicide). Power relations between men women as well as men and men are played out through the course of action, always developing and shifting, changing shapes but never profoundly changing their character.
I read very slowly, trying not to miss any point the characters are making in their rather philosophical considerations - nevertheless, I am sure there is a lot more than you can grasp by reading the book once. I like that Mishima is an author that I certainly do not always agree with, but he is always interesting, intelligent, and challenging - in short, he pushes and unsettles me, and that's what I appreciate so much about him.
April 14, 2016
If a greater misogynist than Shunsuké exists in literature then I don't want to meet him. This book really challenged me. On the one hand, the vile opinions spewed by Shunsuké made it very hard to read, but on the other hand the plot was pretty propulsive and erotically charged. I don't know if I can say I "liked" the book, but I did enjoy reading it and found it to be mostly immersive (though I could've done without the paragraphs upon paragraphs of uninterrupted philosophizing dialogue — I get it, you're making a point about ART!). I also found the third person omniscient narrative choice too easy and prone to info dumps. Overall, the book had shades of Gatsby and Giovanni's Room, though both those books are better. Read this one if you like Mishima and/or the idea of double lives in response to societal strictures (just maybe skip all the misogynistic scenes).
If you liked this, make sure to follow me on 欧宝娱乐 for more reviews!
If you liked this, make sure to follow me on 欧宝娱乐 for more reviews!
April 5, 2019
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??? ???? ???? ?? ?? ???? ?? ??? ?? ??? ??????? ??????? ??????? ?? ???? ?????? ????? ?????? ???? ?????? ??????? ??? ???? ?? ?? ??? ????? ??? ???? ?? ????? ????? ?????? ???? ??? ?? ?? ????? ??? ?????? ???? ????? ?? ????? ??? ????? ????????? ??????? ????? ???? ?? ????? ??? ??? ?????? ?????? ????? ??????? ?? ???????? ??????? ???? ?????? ??????? ?????? ???? ??????? ????? ????? ???? ?? ???? ????????? ??? ?? ?????? ??????? ?? ????? ???? ????? ???? ???? ??????? ??? ???? ??? ???? ??? ?????? ??? ????.
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??? ???? ???? ?? ?? ???? ?? ??? ?? ??? ??????? ??????? ??????? ?? ???? ?????? ????? ?????? ???? ?????? ??????? ??? ???? ?? ?? ??? ????? ??? ???? ?? ????? ????? ?????? ???? ??? ?? ?? ????? ??? ?????? ???? ????? ?? ????? ??? ????? ????????? ??????? ????? ???? ?? ????? ??? ??? ?????? ?????? ????? ??????? ?? ???????? ??????? ???? ?????? ??????? ?????? ???? ??????? ????? ????? ???? ?? ???? ????????? ??? ?? ?????? ??????? ?? ????? ???? ????? ???? ???? ??????? ??? ???? ??? ???? ??? ?????? ??? ????.
????? ?????? ?????? ???????? ????????? ?????????? ???????? ??????? ???? ????????
October 6, 2020
Un relato sencillo, con una narración atrapante y un mensaje enfermizo.
Un misógino conoce a un cínico y de ese encuentro surge el proyecto de crear una obra de arte que trascienda el campo de la materialidad para alcanzar el "espiritu". El tema de la "espiritualidad" se toca constantemente sin dejar bien en claro al lector que se quiere decir con esa palabra. Tal vez, un japonés de 1950 tenía una idea muy especifica de que significa; si alguien nos dice que "la belleza perfecta se encuentra en el ridículo", a simple oído nos parece una frase increíble, pero después de analizarla nos damos cuenta que no significa absolutamente nada.
En boca de uno de los personajes hay un constante despotricamiento en contra de "la mujer" con el que no estoy de acuerdo y que hizo la lectura, por momentos, bastante densa.
Aún así, no podía dejar de querer saber que iba a pasar después.
Un misógino conoce a un cínico y de ese encuentro surge el proyecto de crear una obra de arte que trascienda el campo de la materialidad para alcanzar el "espiritu". El tema de la "espiritualidad" se toca constantemente sin dejar bien en claro al lector que se quiere decir con esa palabra. Tal vez, un japonés de 1950 tenía una idea muy especifica de que significa; si alguien nos dice que "la belleza perfecta se encuentra en el ridículo", a simple oído nos parece una frase increíble, pero después de analizarla nos damos cuenta que no significa absolutamente nada.
En boca de uno de los personajes hay un constante despotricamiento en contra de "la mujer" con el que no estoy de acuerdo y que hizo la lectura, por momentos, bastante densa.
Aún así, no podía dejar de querer saber que iba a pasar después.
October 13, 2018
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??? ?????? ??????? ???? ???? ??? ????? ???? ?? ??? ?? ???? ?? ?????? ???? ??????? ? ????? ????????? ???? ????? ??? ??????? ?????? ???? ????? ?? ????? ?? ?? ????? ?????? ? ????? ????? ??? ?????? ?? ????? ????? ?????!
???? ?????? ?????? ?????? ?? ??? ?????? ???? ??? ?????? ??? ??????? ??? ??? ???? ????????? ???????.
????? ????? ???? ?????? ????? ???????? ????????? ??? ??? ??????? ??????? ?? ????? ? ???????? ???? ?? ???? ???? ?? ???? ?? ???????? ??? ?? ??????? ???? ?? ??? ???? ? ????? ???? ??? ??????? ?? ??????? ????? ???? ?????!
??????? ????? ?? ????? ?????? ?????? ?????? ?? ??????? ????????? ????? ?????? ???? ?? ???? ????? ???????? ??? ???????? ???? ??? ?? ??????? ????? ?? ??? ??????? ?????? ?????????? ?? ????????? ?????? ???? ????? ?????.
??? ?????? ??????? ???? ???? ??? ????? ???? ?? ??? ?? ???? ?? ?????? ???? ??????? ? ????? ????????? ???? ????? ??? ??????? ?????? ???? ????? ?? ????? ?? ?? ????? ?????? ? ????? ????? ??? ?????? ?? ????? ????? ?????!
???? ?????? ?????? ?????? ?? ??? ?????? ???? ??? ?????? ??? ??????? ??? ??? ???? ????????? ???????.
????? ????? ???? ?????? ????? ???????? ????????? ??? ??? ??????? ??????? ?? ????? ? ???????? ???? ?? ???? ???? ?? ???? ?? ???????? ??? ?? ??????? ???? ?? ??? ???? ? ????? ???? ??? ??????? ?? ??????? ????? ???? ?????!
April 30, 2020
Nos movemos por el ambiente homosexual de Japón en los a?os 50, en un momento en el que el mundo occidental va impregnando cada vez más la cultura oriental. La trama gira en torno a Yuichi, cuya belleza y falta de moral y ética va marcando el devenir de los que le rodean. De esta forma nos encontramos con personajes interesantes que nos dibujan la sociedad japonesa de la época, pero que a su vez contienen cierta complejidad psicológica que va evolucionando a lo largo de la novela. A todo esto se suman reflexiones, a veces excesivas, sobre la belleza, la vejez, la sensualidad, la juventud, el desenga?o ante la vida, en donde en ocasiones la misoginia llega a ser extrema, sobre todo en boca de uno de los principales personajes.
June 22, 2019
Desde hace ya unas décadas, el panorama japonés se ha abierto a la literatura occidental gracias a autores como Kenzaburo ?e, Kazuo Ishiguro, Yasunari Kawabata, K?b? Abe o, especialmente, el archireconocido Haruki Murakami. Todos estos autores han colaborado de un modo u otro a mostrar las características principales de la literatura japonesa en occidente: la exploración del yo, el mundo interior, las costumbres y tradiciones locales, el erotismo velado y, ante todo, una intimidad absoluta por parte de sus personajes e ideas.
Sin duda alguna, la literatura japonesa tiene algo que la diferencia de otros países. Si bien no es sencillo delimitar la esencia de la literatura de un país, es innegable que las obras portuguesas respiran revolución (tanto en contenido como en continente), las catalanas posan todo el foco de la trama en sus personajes y, como es el caso, las japonesas despiden sensibilidad por todos sus poros.
Es aquí donde entra Yukio Mishima y su El color prohibido. Sería muy fácil hablar de su biografía como prefiguración de su obra, pero esa consideración no tiene cabida en esta rese?a. El color prohibido cuenta una historia simple; de hecho, la historia es más sencilla que el funcionamiento de un chupete: un sexagenario misógino/misántropo frustrado con la vida (Shunsuké Hinoki) conoce a un joven homosexual (Yuichi Minami) en el que proyectará sus ideas para traer el infortunio a las mujeres a las que enga?e su peón.
La historia es un modelo brillante para la sensibilidad japonesa y Mishima es consciente de ello. Por esa misma razón, El color prohibido no es tanto la historia de un hombre que quiere destruir las vidas de todas las mujeres posibles como la de un homosexual en una época de prohibición total en Japón. No es de extra?ar, pues, que Mishima ofrezca párrafos al respecto tan bellos como este:
Y es que Mishima es un absoluto maestro de la escritura. Su prosa es hermosa, incandescente, siempre repleta de imágenes, símbolos y metáforas, recursos líricos que poetizan la prosa y otras formas de enriquecer la sensibilidad del lector a través de la poderosa imaginación. No hay una sola de las páginas que componen esta novela que pueda considerarse "vagamente escrita" o "literariamente pobre". Todos y cada uno de sus párrafos son brillantes, puros y bellos; cuando no, caen en las notas de tristeza y amargura que uno esperaría de la literarización del mundo interior de un hombre emocionalmente confuso como es Yuichi.
Pero no solo de prosa se nutre la obra: Mishima introduce toda una serie de personajes tan espectaculares como su forma de describirlos. El misógino Shunsuké, el joven irreverente Yuichi, el infame matrimonio Kaburagi, la caprichosa Kyoko... Todos ellos son personajes reales, en ocasiones bondadosos, en ocasiones deleznables. Cada uno tiene su propia forma de ver el mundo y muchas veces caen en una deliciosa inmoralidad: "En general, los hombres atraen a las mujeres con el texto" (se?ora Kaburagi), "La verdad es que no hay ningún motivo para que uno se precipite sobre un muchacho al que le puede manipular tan fácilmente con el dinero" (Pope), "Muy bien. Haré a esta mujer desdichada de veras" (Yuichi) y similares. Resulta curioso cómo tan solo Yasuko y (en menor medida) Kyoko se salvan en este maremágnum de odio y traiciones continuas.
Mención aparte merecen Yuichi y Shunsuké. El primero, foco principal de la narración y protagonista casi absoluto de la obra, es uno de los mejores personajes de El color prohibido. Es fascinante contemplar en primera fila su mundo interior en que se debate entre el dolor del amor prohibido, la pasión desenfrenada de sus aventuras amorosas en el plano homosexual, su constante análisis detenido de las situaciones (muchas veces con un aire juvenil e inmaduro) y sus pensamientos sobre otros personajes de la obra. Su arco de personaje es un hermoso tapiz que une hilos de sus experiencias y sus reflexiones personales con las influencias que el resto del reparto suponen en su vida. Por ello, el Yuichi del inicio de la novela acaba siendo un mero reminiscente para el maduro hombre que aparece al final de esta.
Sobre Shunsuké, lo cierto es que su brillantez parte de una base personal. Este sexagenario escritor es probablemente uno de mis personajes favoritos de cualquier novela. Los personajes misóginos y, especialmente, misántropos, son una de mis debilidades en cualquier obra de ficción. Adoro conocer el mundo interior de estos personajes, comprender el porqué de su odio y ver cómo lo gestionan. Mishima logra esto a la perfección: cuando Shunsuké aparece en escena, es mejor olvidarse del resto de personajes. Ya no es solo que sus reflexiones sean poderosísimos discursos sobre el arte, la homosexualidad y la vanidad humana...
... sino que también es capaz de realizar otros profundamente misóginos que en ocasiones rozan la misantropía:
Si pudiera, habría centrado toda la rese?a tan solo en el interesantísimo personaje de Shunsuké, pero me temo que no soy capaz de llegar siquiera a comprenderlo por su forma de actuar tan contraria a todo lo establecido. Llega a convertirse en un personaje tan complejo (a pesar de que apenas aparece en una sexta parte de la novela) que me veo incapaz de rese?arlo, tal y como sucedería con un ser humano real. Desde sus formas de interpretar la vida hasta sus palabras finales, pasando por las reflexiones sobre el arte, el espíritu y la literatura, unido todo a su progresiva evolución amatoria, hace de Shunsuké uno de mis personajes favoritos de la historia de la literatura.
El color prohibido es mucho más que tan solo una historia sobre un homosexual en una época de prohibición: es una historia de personajes destruidos por sus propios valores o aferrados a la inmoralidad y Mishima no trata de evitar mostrarlos en todo su esplendor. La historia quizá tenga sus altibajos (que los tiene; muchas veces se alarga sin sentido aparente) y puede que una quinta parte del libro se me haya hecho densa, pesada e innecesaria, pero esto no quita las muchas, muchísimas virtudes de la obra de Mishima. Es mi primer acercamiento real a la sensibilidad japonesa literaria (porque, asumámoslo, el Norwegian Wood de Murakami no le hace ni sombra a Mishima) y no podría estar más contento con ella: ojalá descubra en esta literatura esa obra de sensibilidad japonesa que tanto anhelo encontrar y amar.
Sin duda alguna, la literatura japonesa tiene algo que la diferencia de otros países. Si bien no es sencillo delimitar la esencia de la literatura de un país, es innegable que las obras portuguesas respiran revolución (tanto en contenido como en continente), las catalanas posan todo el foco de la trama en sus personajes y, como es el caso, las japonesas despiden sensibilidad por todos sus poros.
Es aquí donde entra Yukio Mishima y su El color prohibido. Sería muy fácil hablar de su biografía como prefiguración de su obra, pero esa consideración no tiene cabida en esta rese?a. El color prohibido cuenta una historia simple; de hecho, la historia es más sencilla que el funcionamiento de un chupete: un sexagenario misógino/misántropo frustrado con la vida (Shunsuké Hinoki) conoce a un joven homosexual (Yuichi Minami) en el que proyectará sus ideas para traer el infortunio a las mujeres a las que enga?e su peón.
La historia es un modelo brillante para la sensibilidad japonesa y Mishima es consciente de ello. Por esa misma razón, El color prohibido no es tanto la historia de un hombre que quiere destruir las vidas de todas las mujeres posibles como la de un homosexual en una época de prohibición total en Japón. No es de extra?ar, pues, que Mishima ofrezca párrafos al respecto tan bellos como este:
El cuerpo de un hombre es como el brillo de una llanura luminosa de la que se tiene una perfecta perspectiva. A diferencia del cuerpo femenino, no ofrece el asombro de descubrir un peque?o manantial en cada paseo, como tampoco una mina, donde, al adentrarse uno, percibe cristalizaciones. Todo es exterior, la encarnación de la pura belleza visible. Uno pone todo su amor, todo su deseo en la primera curiosidad ardiente, y luego el amor invade el espíritu o se desliza alegremente sobre otro cuerpo.
Y es que Mishima es un absoluto maestro de la escritura. Su prosa es hermosa, incandescente, siempre repleta de imágenes, símbolos y metáforas, recursos líricos que poetizan la prosa y otras formas de enriquecer la sensibilidad del lector a través de la poderosa imaginación. No hay una sola de las páginas que componen esta novela que pueda considerarse "vagamente escrita" o "literariamente pobre". Todos y cada uno de sus párrafos son brillantes, puros y bellos; cuando no, caen en las notas de tristeza y amargura que uno esperaría de la literarización del mundo interior de un hombre emocionalmente confuso como es Yuichi.
Pero no solo de prosa se nutre la obra: Mishima introduce toda una serie de personajes tan espectaculares como su forma de describirlos. El misógino Shunsuké, el joven irreverente Yuichi, el infame matrimonio Kaburagi, la caprichosa Kyoko... Todos ellos son personajes reales, en ocasiones bondadosos, en ocasiones deleznables. Cada uno tiene su propia forma de ver el mundo y muchas veces caen en una deliciosa inmoralidad: "En general, los hombres atraen a las mujeres con el texto" (se?ora Kaburagi), "La verdad es que no hay ningún motivo para que uno se precipite sobre un muchacho al que le puede manipular tan fácilmente con el dinero" (Pope), "Muy bien. Haré a esta mujer desdichada de veras" (Yuichi) y similares. Resulta curioso cómo tan solo Yasuko y (en menor medida) Kyoko se salvan en este maremágnum de odio y traiciones continuas.
Mención aparte merecen Yuichi y Shunsuké. El primero, foco principal de la narración y protagonista casi absoluto de la obra, es uno de los mejores personajes de El color prohibido. Es fascinante contemplar en primera fila su mundo interior en que se debate entre el dolor del amor prohibido, la pasión desenfrenada de sus aventuras amorosas en el plano homosexual, su constante análisis detenido de las situaciones (muchas veces con un aire juvenil e inmaduro) y sus pensamientos sobre otros personajes de la obra. Su arco de personaje es un hermoso tapiz que une hilos de sus experiencias y sus reflexiones personales con las influencias que el resto del reparto suponen en su vida. Por ello, el Yuichi del inicio de la novela acaba siendo un mero reminiscente para el maduro hombre que aparece al final de esta.
Sobre Shunsuké, lo cierto es que su brillantez parte de una base personal. Este sexagenario escritor es probablemente uno de mis personajes favoritos de cualquier novela. Los personajes misóginos y, especialmente, misántropos, son una de mis debilidades en cualquier obra de ficción. Adoro conocer el mundo interior de estos personajes, comprender el porqué de su odio y ver cómo lo gestionan. Mishima logra esto a la perfección: cuando Shunsuké aparece en escena, es mejor olvidarse del resto de personajes. Ya no es solo que sus reflexiones sean poderosísimos discursos sobre el arte, la homosexualidad y la vanidad humana...
No he elegido un objeto sobre el que pueda plantear preguntas y dar respuestas. Pero interrogar es mi destino. Estás aquí, tú, la hermosa naturaleza. Estoy aquí, yo, el espíritu feo. Este es el esquema eterno. No hay álgebra capaz de intercambiar los términos. Dicho esto, hoy no tengo ninguna intención de despreciar a propósito mi espíritu. El espíritu también contiene elementos valiosos.
... sino que también es capaz de realizar otros profundamente misóginos que en ocasiones rozan la misantropía:
La atracción sexual de la mujer, su instinto de coquetería, todas sus capacidades de seducción son otras tantas pruebas de su inutilidad. Lo que es útil no tienen necesidad de seducir. ?Qué desplifarro es que el hombre deba sentirse atraído por la mujer! ?Qué baldón para la espiritualidad masculina!
Si pudiera, habría centrado toda la rese?a tan solo en el interesantísimo personaje de Shunsuké, pero me temo que no soy capaz de llegar siquiera a comprenderlo por su forma de actuar tan contraria a todo lo establecido. Llega a convertirse en un personaje tan complejo (a pesar de que apenas aparece en una sexta parte de la novela) que me veo incapaz de rese?arlo, tal y como sucedería con un ser humano real. Desde sus formas de interpretar la vida hasta sus palabras finales, pasando por las reflexiones sobre el arte, el espíritu y la literatura, unido todo a su progresiva evolución amatoria, hace de Shunsuké uno de mis personajes favoritos de la historia de la literatura.
El color prohibido es mucho más que tan solo una historia sobre un homosexual en una época de prohibición: es una historia de personajes destruidos por sus propios valores o aferrados a la inmoralidad y Mishima no trata de evitar mostrarlos en todo su esplendor. La historia quizá tenga sus altibajos (que los tiene; muchas veces se alarga sin sentido aparente) y puede que una quinta parte del libro se me haya hecho densa, pesada e innecesaria, pero esto no quita las muchas, muchísimas virtudes de la obra de Mishima. Es mi primer acercamiento real a la sensibilidad japonesa literaria (porque, asumámoslo, el Norwegian Wood de Murakami no le hace ni sombra a Mishima) y no podría estar más contento con ella: ojalá descubra en esta literatura esa obra de sensibilidad japonesa que tanto anhelo encontrar y amar.
April 26, 2025
When Yukio Mishima wrote Forbidden Colors, he was only twenty-six years old — a fact that feels both astounding and strangely inevitable. You can almost imagine him, lying awake at night, letting philosophical thoughts about beauty, decay, and desire swirl together, until they condensed into the richly colored, yet somehow restrained, lotus pond that this novel became.
The story itself is relatively simple, but Mishima’s real artistry lies in the textures of thought and emotion he paints around it. His contemplation of beauty — its power, its cruelty, its transient nature — feels like oil poured carefully into a small pool, vibrant and mesmerizing, never entirely mixing with the darker waters underneath.
The story itself is relatively simple, but Mishima’s real artistry lies in the textures of thought and emotion he paints around it. His contemplation of beauty — its power, its cruelty, its transient nature — feels like oil poured carefully into a small pool, vibrant and mesmerizing, never entirely mixing with the darker waters underneath.
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