I recently finished reading Yukio Mishima’s novel, “The Temple of the Golden Pavilion,” or “Kinkakuji” in Japanese.
It is the second novel of Mishima’s that I have read. Both of them have been about highly intelligent young men who are misfits in their society. In both novels, the main character takes drastic, selfish action to attack society. In this novel, a trainee monk at the beautiful Kinkakuji temple in Kyoto comes to the decision to burn it down.
It is not at all surprising to learn that Mishima tried to instigate a mad revolution in peaceful Japan to return the country to militarism, or that he committed suicide by imitating the samurai’s custom of seppuku. Clearly that boy had some issues.
Here are a few interesting quotes from the novel which I have picked out.
“The special quality of hell is to see everything clearly down to the last detail.”
In the Christian tradition, Adam and Eve were thrown out of heaven for eating an apple from the Tree of Knowledge. If a lack of knowledge is heaven, or blissful ignorance, is too much knowledge hell?
“Clearly it is impossible to touch eternity with one hand, and life with the other.”
Choose life. If eternity really exists, then it will still be waiting for you later.
“Cripples and women hate being stared at, for they tire of it.”
That’s why beautiful women should date only blind men.
Vocabulary:
a misfit – a person who doesn’t fit in
(eg., “He seems to be a misfit. He has
no friends, and can’t keep a job for very long.”)
a cripple – This is often now seen as an
offensive or outdated word – Someone who has a severe physical injury or
disability (eg., Jesus is said to have healed cripples, and made them able to
walk again.)
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