The terrifying judges of right and wrong by Yukio Mishima
Yet another fantastic and intriguing novel that I have been introduced to by Japanese literature. Mishima'sThe sailor who fell from grace with the sea” is a work of art. It talks about themes such as death and life and romance and objectivity and betrayal and punishment. It is a terrifying story that the more you read, the closer you get to those fears that you have grown inside you.
To understand this novel, there has to be a minimum understanding of who Mishima was. He was a Japanese play writer, actor, singer and writer. He is critically acclaimed worldwide as the most significant Japanese writer of all times, but that is the least exciting thing. He was significantly involved in politics, he was an imperialist, and he clearly supported the war and what came with it. He was married and had two children; however, he had many affairs with a homosexual man. He died in 1970 through the act of seppuku or harakiri, an act of killing oneself for the purpose of morality and the greater good. He is said to have killed himself because of politics or morality. He was an imperialist and fought to have the same moral code that samurais had. He was also a known homosexual man who had many affairs with male actors who impersonated women. His life was full until his last day, and I would really recommend watching the documentary. I will link below.
The story is terrifying and disturbing. Not because there were frightening points were I had to stop reading and look around my room, checking for monsters. It was more like the whole idea that there might be someone in the world so terrifying and full of disturbing people. One of our main characters, Noboru, is a group of kids who think of the authority or power of justice. They are the judges of right and wrong. We see some parts of the story through a third-person narrator through Noboru’s eyes. He slowly sees what is happening. This was too terrifying to me because he acted as if nothing was wrong. Even if they were not “normal”, his comments and actions worked as if nothing was wrong. The fact that he watched his mother through a hole in the wall and, equally so, went to sleep without any consequences.
The group of kids are thought to be exempt from the law not because of their young age but because they are meant to judge everyone else’s actions. They believe that they have the authority to know what sin is and to take action against that. They are like the accountants of every sin people commit, and they have committed. They are not accounted to sin as they are the judges of other people’s sins. They are the protectors of humanity, one that has no real purpose. It’s their duty, and if they don’t do anything to redeem other’s sins, there will be chaos. It’s their responsibility to punish those who sin.
For 13-year-olds to think this makes me shiver. The last few pages of the book are where the action takes place. It is focused on just a small fraction of time that makes it so effective. It is not a horror novel but rather a physiological thriller that makes us question what reality we are surrounded by. There was a part I was too disgusted with, and that was when the children kill the cat like it was never alive. This part was disturbing and terrifying just by itself. The fact that scared me was that they thought to have the authority to punish those who were wrong in their account. They have the excuse that their actions are for the greater good and that they are using these to protect humanity's fate.
It is scary but equally addictive. We expect horrible things to happen to the sailor, but we don’t expect the children to be so terrible and fo the story to be so dark. I kept reading, and it never really told me what they were going to do precisely.
This book shows how something as disturbing as the brutality the kids go under, and the horrible thoughts that take place, and the elegance that Mishima is using to describe these events can become something beautiful and so readable, becoming an instant classic. There were so many abstract topics discussed and talked about, but Mishima and the translator John Nathan were able to captivate the reader with their magnificent words. Their words were so poetic that I had to reread those words. It felt as I was reading the wind and the sea simultaneously, and I could feel touched by those words.
This book discusses many themes that were obviously important to Mishima. He was a right-wing imperialistic homosexual. You might disagree with his political ideas, but it doesn’t mean that you can’t enjoy how much of a masterpiece this book is. It talks about glory and honour. The kids think that they can detach emotionally and detach form life, hence the horrible scene with the cat. I believe that those disturbing parts of the book help the reader understand how the writer wanted to make the kids and the ideas present. Yukio Mishima wants the reader to get uncomfortable in their houses' comfort to make them realise how terrible their thoughts actually are.
He also discusses the idea of love and how it can bring meaning and honour, but it is not what men would want or how they want to read that sense of glory. He discusses the idea of masculinity and what some people might think masculinity would take and what it takes to reach that glory they seek. The group of kids are willing to kill Ryuji to give him the glory he wanted. They think they have the honour to do so and that they can do that because they have detached from humanity and are no longer subjected to something as weak as emotions.