Patriotism

Rating:
Summary: Deceptively Simple
Review: The story is very straight forward and written in an easy to read style. It is deceptively simple though. There are themes that might go over the head of a person uninitiated in Japanese thought. This is not to say it is unreadable to a westerner, just that a minor understanding of Bushido would help in understanding the story. There are parts that read like a romance novel and parts written like a Samurai text, but mostly it is all interwoven in such a beautiful and emotive manner. Mishima was a complex individual and those same complexities are found in his writings, all of which I would recommend, including his biography written by John Nathan.

Rating:
Summary: death in favor of life
Review: this vivid story about the vital warmth of flesh and blood shows how death incessantly attracts human beings with full of desire to live and love. although, to the extent which we admire the two lovers' life and death full of vitality, we are to wonder what kind of relation there might be between the writer's exhibitionist life (and death) and this sarcastic title of (blind) patriotism that reveals the lurked militarism under the name of aesthetics, and of which ideology dangerously outlasts the ostensible acclamation for physicality.

Rating:
Summary: Among the Greatest Stories
Review: To recall Madama Butterfly's comment on life: If one cannot live with honor, one can die honorably. This would be something with which the lieutenant and his wife, depicted in this story, would certainly agree. The reviewers who have commented here are caught up in the gore and blood of this story. Mishima indeed took care to precisely delineate of the act of disembowelment but the gore in this story is more clinically described than done for gratuitous results.

What is at the center of this story is being true to one's beliefs. Toward the end of his life Mishima was outspoken about the traditions of Japan that were rapidly disappearing, among them being allegiance to the Emperor. The event that the story was based upon was a rebellion by a group of junior officers in the Japanese army. They felt that the power and position of the emperor was being infringed upon and proceeded to kill some members of the government who they felt were leaning too much to the West (apologizing to family members). In other words, the soldiers reacted to a threat to traditional Japanese values. The soldiers who participated in the rebellion did not count upon Hirohito feeling otherwise, for he did not support their actions.

The lieutenant is left alone after his comrades participated in the rebellion while he was on leave. He keep faith with them in his act of seppuku, hence the fact that the majority of the story is actually concerned with the act itself. We may wonder why the lieutenant feels he must go through with his act, particularly since the rebellion was a dismal failure. The answer, I think, is honor.

The theme of this story, of keeping faith to traditional values, is echoed in Runaway Horses and, of course, in Mishima's own life - the unity of pen and action. Ironically, the story became the subject of a film where Mishima played the lieutenant.

If we can put aside our fear of blood, the language Mishima employs is astonishingly beautiful and concise. There are few stories that can match the impact conveyed by the words of Patriotism. The only one that I find similarly affecting is Jack London's The Red One. This is a work that is experienced and felt as few works of fiction can even hope to approach.