Spring Snow

Rating:
Summary: Mobius strip
Review: This is the beginning of the posthumous work of Mishima. You will follow the lives of four people who got reincarnated in different time and in different place with Honda. His flowing and elegant style hits the highest and psychological descriptions, that even characters did not realized themselves so well, are so elaborated and sometimes scare us. It seems like weaving beautiful tapestry and you can feel the person of genius and bliss for enjoying the output of the genius. But you may lost at the end like this story and come back to this story again and again.

Rating:
Summary: A Modern Literary Masterpiece
Review: This is the first work of Yukio Mishima's works that I have read. His writing style is beautiful. By passionately describing every aspect of the area where the scene takes place, he makes it feel like you are there, standing beside the main characters.

The main characters in Spring Snow are Kiyoaki Matsugae and Satoko Ayakura. Kiyoaki is the son of new money type of family. His peasant-born grandfather led the Matsugae family to greatness, and now they are a lower part of the nobility. To make their son elegant and refined, the Marquis and the Marquise Matsugae send their son, Kiyoaki to study with the ancient, noble Ayakura. It is there that Kiyoaki and Satoko meet. When the novel takes place, the two have never had any feelings for each other. But, the news that Satoko is engaged to marry an Imperial Prince causes Kiyoaki to realize that what was in front of him all along, Satoko, was the love of his life. So, they embark upon an affair.

I read this novel for pleasure, not for insight, and as such did not pick up on the underlying messages Mishima was trying to impart to the reader. However, this book is still a worthwhile read even if one does not fully understand it. The writing was very easy to read, and very beautiful; leading me to believe that the translator did his job well. Highly recommended.

Rating:
Summary: A Modern Literary Masterpiece
Review: This is the first work of Yukio Mishima's works that I have read. His writing style is beautiful. By passionately describing every aspect of the area where the scene takes place, he makes it feel like you are there, standing beside the main characters.

The main characters in Spring Snow are Kiyoaki Matsugae and Satoko Ayakura. Kiyoaki is the son of new money type of family. His peasant-born grandfather led the Matsugae family to greatness, and now they are a lower part of the nobility. To make their son elegant and refined, the Marquis and the Marquise Matsugae send their son, Kiyoaki to study with the ancient, noble Ayakura. It is there that Kiyoaki and Satoko meet. When the novel takes place, the two have never had any feelings for each other. But, the news that Satoko is engaged to marry an Imperial Prince causes Kiyoaki to realize that what was in front of him all along, Satoko, was the love of his life. So, they embark upon an affair.

I read this novel for pleasure, not for insight, and as such did not pick up on the underlying messages Mishima was trying to impart to the reader. However, this book is still a worthwhile read even if one does not fully understand it. The writing was very easy to read, and very beautiful; leading me to believe that the translator did his job well. Highly recommended.

Rating:
Summary: a hypnotic trance of a novel
Review: This work is mesmerizing - so much so that I read it instead of studying for the Bar exam. It is not a fast read by any stretch of the imagination but it is difficult to put down once you are drawn into the world Mishima draws. It took me two attempts to get past the first twenty pages but four years later it is the last book I read which had the potential to transform. I also confess that the novel is confusing and I don't believe that I understand the subtle dream world that Mishima writes of on a conscious or intellectual level. But the novel is haunting and presents a story of love (not, I believe, the one that is portrayed on the novel's surface) in such indescribable complexity and depth that the novel is felt in and remains in the heart of the reader who will walk away from the novel with a profound sadness. The novel is one of the few worth the effort of reading. And the title, a beautiful image, is a perfect recapitulation of the work.

Rating:
Summary: Mishima's most perfect novel
Review: While the last three books of Mishima's Sea of Fertility cycle tend to get bogged down in somewhat convoluted philosophical arguments, which may hold interest for some (Temple of Dawn), or by uninspired writing (Runaway Horses), Spring Snow, the first, displays no such weakness. It is a novel of immensely beautiful imagery and lyricism and overall perfection. What's more, this translation truly does justice to the beauty of the original Japanese.

Rating:
Summary: Lovely imagery, moving characters, but a flawed novel
Review: Yukio Mishima's SPRING SNOW is the first novel of his tetralogy "The Sea of Fertility", an attempt to trace the decay of Japanese values in the hundred years or so after its opening to the West. I found it a decent read, though the book is certainly flawed.

On the surface the novel appears to a simple tragic love affair taking place in 1911. Kiyoaki, a son of a marquis and finishing high school, enters a complicated relationship with Satoko, the daughter of a count he boarded at during his early childhood. He cannot decide whether he truly loves or despises her until she is engaged to a royal prince, at which point series of events make their lives fall apart. Kiyoaki is supported all the while by Honda, his best friend and a law student who is discovering at this time Western philosophy. In the background the Meiji emperor has just died and his successor swept into power, and provincial nobles are attempting to legitimize themselves in Tokyo while the fortunes of the old center of power decline.

Mishima's style is quite alluring, but the finest aspect of the novel is its characters. Kiyoaki is fantastically portrayed, a deluded romantic who unwittingly serves the forces of history tearing apart Japanese nobility. There is always a conflict between despising him and pitying him. Satoko is more of a mystery, but this seems to be intentional, an expression of some unknowable female otherness. Honda is the intent observer, trying to make sense of the tragedy befalling his friend and his society.

The translation by Michael Gallagher is generally readable, though I occasionally wondered if bits were added to Mishima's text in order to explain aspects of Japanese culture to English readers.

I found the novel a bit disappointing because it does not seem to go far enough in condemning Japan's adoption of Western values and in praising the traditional culture centered around the emperor. I began the novel hoping to find a manifesto of Mishima's creed which brought him to lead his glorious coup of 1970 and which ultimately led him to commit ritual suicide when his plans for a greater Japan failed. However, I have not yet moved on to the subsequent novels in the "Sea of Fertility" cycle, so perhaps this theme is developed further afterwards.

I would generally recommend SPRING SNOW. While an imperfect novel, it does entertain and is does leave one with the desire to move on to other works by Mishima.

Rating:
Summary: Lovely imagery, moving characters, but a flawed novel
Review: Yukio Mishima's SPRING SNOW is the first novel of his tetralogy "The Sea of Fertility", an attempt to trace the decay of Japanese values in the hundred years or so after its opening to the West. I found it a decent read, though the book is certainly flawed.

On the surface the novel appears to a simple tragic love affair taking place in 1911. Kiyoaki, a son of a marquis and finishing high school, enters a complicated relationship with Satoko, the daughter of a count he boarded at during his early childhood. He cannot decide whether he truly loves or despises her until she is engaged to a royal prince, at which point series of events make their lives fall apart. Kiyoaki is supported all the while by Honda, his best friend and a law student who is discovering at this time Western philosophy. In the background the Meiji emperor has just died and his successor swept into power, and provincial nobles are attempting to legitimize themselves in Tokyo while the fortunes of the old center of power decline.

Mishima's style is quite alluring, but the finest aspect of the novel is its characters. Kiyoaki is fantastically portrayed, a deluded romantic who unwittingly serves the forces of history tearing apart Japanese nobility. There is always a conflict between despising him and pitying him. Satoko is more of a mystery, but this seems to be intentional, an expression of some unknowable female otherness. Honda is the intent observer, trying to make sense of the tragedy befalling his friend and his society.

The translation by Michael Gallagher is generally readable, though I occasionally wondered if bits were added to Mishima's text in order to explain aspects of Japanese culture to English readers.

I found the novel a bit disappointing because it does not seem to go far enough in condemning Japan's adoption of Western values and in praising the traditional culture centered around the emperor. I began the novel hoping to find a manifesto of Mishima's creed which brought him to lead his glorious coup of 1970 and which ultimately led him to commit ritual suicide when his plans for a greater Japan failed. However, I have not yet moved on to the subsequent novels in the "Sea of Fertility" cycle, so perhaps this theme is developed further afterwards.

I would generally recommend SPRING SNOW. While an imperfect novel, it does entertain and is does leave one with the desire to move on to other works by Mishima.