Spring Snow by Yukio Mishima

Spring Snow by Yukio Mishima

Tokyo, 1912. The closed world of the ancient aristocracy is being breached for the first time by outsiders - rich provincial families, a new and powerful elite.

Kiyoaki has been raised among the elegant Ayakura family – members of the waning aristocracy – but he is not one of them. Coming of age, he is caught up in the tensions between old and new, and his feelings for the exquisite, spirited Satoko. His devoted friend Honda watches from the sidelines. It is only when Satoko is engaged to a royal prince that Kiyoaki realises the magnitude of his passion.

'An austere love story, probably my favourite of his novels' David Mitchell, Independent on Sunday

'[Mishima's] best work, unnerving as it may be, still casts a spell; and I suspect it will retain its dark radiance' Guardian

Romantic obsession and sexual intrigue meet in the sumptuous historical melodrama * Variety *
Mishima is the Japanese Hemingway * Life magazine *
This tetralogy is considered one of Yukio Mishima's greatest worksIt could also be considered a catalogue of Mishima's obsessions with death, sexuality and the samurai ethic. Spanning much of the 20th century, the tetralogy begins in 1912 when Shigekuni Honda is a young man and ends in the 1960s with Honda old and unable to distinguish reality from illusion. En route, the books chronicle the changes in Japan that meant the devaluation of the samurai tradition and the waning of the aristocracy. * Washington Post *
Mishima's novels exude a monstrous and compulsive weirdness, and seem to take place in a kind of purgatory for the depraved
Perfect beauty…. A classic of Japanese literature * Chicago Sun-Times *

Yukio Mishima was born into a samurai family and imbued with the code of complete control over mind and body, and loyalty to the Emperor - the same code that produced the austerity and self-sacrifice of Zen. He wrote countless stories and thirty-three plays, in some of which he performed. Several films have been made from his novels, including The Sound of Waves, Enjo which was based on The Temple of the Golden Pavilion and The Sailor Who Fell From Grace with the Sea. Among his other works are the novels Confessions of a Mask and Thirst for Love and the short story collections Death in Midsummer and Acts of Worship. The Sea of Fertility tetralogy, however, is his masterpiece. After Mishima conceived the idea of The Sea of Fertility in 1964, he frequently said he would die when it was completed. On 25 November 1970, the day he completed The Decay of the Angel, the last novel of the cycle, Mishima committed seppuku (ritual suicide) at the age of forty-five.

SKU	Unavailable
ISBN 13	9780099282990
ISBN 10	0099282992
Title	Spring Snow
Author	Yukio Mishima
Condition	Unavailable
Binding Type	Paperback
Publisher	Vintage Publishing
Year published	1999-03-11
Number of pages	400
Cover note	Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary.