The Sailor Who Fell From Grace With the Sea, by Yukio Mishima

This, like so many Mishima novels, glows with the intensity of psychological introspection; Mishima’s characters are so fully revealed in their thoughts, desires, and dreams that they rise off the page like real people, like written word made flesh. In this novel, the characters struggle with widowhood and loneliness, singlehood and loneliness and adolescence and loneliness; each comes to terms with his or her state in his or her own way: through a second marriage, through a sailor’s life, and through a gang of thirteen year old ruffians intent on anarchy.

And, as you may have guessed from that last word—anarchy, the bane of peaceful households everywhere—the ending is not a happy one. Ryuji, the sailor of the title, dreams of a special glory, a unique destiny. When he decides to marry Fusako, the mother of a thirteen year old boy, he earns the emnity of that boy and, eventually, a tragic destiny that is his alone.

While the buried themes in this novel were farther down than most of Mishima’s other novels—the messages about Japan and its place in the modernized world were still there, though, never fear—I felt that the story, and characters, were stronger than many of his other works. This was a quick read, but an important one, and better yet, enjoyable. The entire work didn’t impress me with its prose, but the ending certainly did: the last few pages, the epitome of Ryuji’s tragic destiny, were, in a word, glorious. They made it all worthwhile.