Runaway Horses (The Sea of Fertility)
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Book Description
The second novel in Mishima's masterful Sea of Fertility tetraology
Product Description
Isao is a young, engaging patriot, and a fanatical believer in the ancient samurai ethos. He turns terrorist, organising a violent plot against the new industrialists, who he believes are threatening the integrity of Japan and usurping the Emperor's rightful power. As the conspiracy unfolds and unravels, Mishima brilliantly chronicles the conflicts of a decade that saw the fabric of Japanese life torn apart.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
(4.5 stars) Runaway Horses (1969), the second in the Sea of Fertility tetralogy, continues the characters introduced in Spring Snow into 1932 - 1933, a time in which Japan is beset with enormous internal problems - the economy and rural poverty, the corruption of politicians, the rise of communism, the cutbacks in the army, and in foreign affairs. Many incidents of political violence have taken place, including the assassination of the Finance Minister, and on May 15, 1932, the assassination of Prime Minister Inukai himself, by eleven Navy officers.
As the novel opens, Shigekuni Honda, a main character in Spring Snow, now a judge in the Osaka Court of Appeals, has reached the age of thirty-eight, a man leading a quiet life of reason who believes that his youth ended with the death of his friend Kiyoaki Matsugae, eighteen years ago. When he is asked to substitute for his Chief Justice at a kendo exhibition in Nara, some distance away, he accepts. The star of the exhibition is young Isao Iinuma, the nineteen-year-old son of Kiyoaki's tutor during their childhood. Later, after climbing Mount Miwa, Honda performs a purification ritual in a waterfall and sees, once again, young Isao. This time he is stunned to notice a pattern of three moles under Isao's arm. His friend Kiyoaki had exactly the same pattern of moles, and had insisted on his deathbed that "I will see you again." Honda, who has always grounded his life in reason, now believes that Isao is the confident samurai reincarnation of Kiyoaki.
At the Saigusa Festival of Wild Lilies, Isao gives Honda a copy of a book which is a prized possession: The League of the Divine Wind, by Yamao Tsunenori, which rails against making Japan a republic and insists that all foreign influences be eliminated from Japan. (The Japanese word for "Divine Wind" is "kamikaze.") Long passages which go back to the early parts of the Meiji dynasty, set the scene for the action to follow as Isao, dedicating his life to the pure samurai tradition, establishes a group of other young men who plan executions of those in public life who have violated the code.
Much wonderful description of nature, including a section in which a white camellia is personified, accompanies the developing action, and some nature scenes of obvious symbolism add to the dilemma faced by Honda as he remembers dreams which Kiyoaki has recorded in his diary and left for Honda as a legacy. And as Isao begins to plan for what is the climax of this novel, one can see the author preparing the way for new understandings. Mishima succeeds in giving voice to points of view that would otherwise have been totally alien to me. By explaining the samurai code within the context of Japanese history and culture, and using characters of different beliefs whom I liked and respected, he was able to explain what lay behind the ritual suicide he himself committed shortly after completion of the tetralogy. Though the book is sometimes propagandistic and deals almost exclusively with men and their behavior, Mishima is a novelist who is in complete control of his subject matter, and his thematic transition between the 1912 and the 1932 periods is flawless. The Sea of Fertility has always been regarded as his masterpiece, and readers interested in Japan will not want to miss this novel. Mary Whipple
Spring Snow (The Sea of Fertility)
As the novel opens, Shigekuni Honda, a main character in Spring Snow, now a judge in the Osaka Court of Appeals, has reached the age of thirty-eight, a man leading a quiet life of reason who believes that his youth ended with the death of his friend Kiyoaki Matsugae, eighteen years ago. When he is asked to substitute for his Chief Justice at a kendo exhibition in Nara, some distance away, he accepts. The star of the exhibition is young Isao Iinuma, the nineteen-year-old son of Kiyoaki's tutor during their childhood. Later, after climbing Mount Miwa, Honda performs a purification ritual in a waterfall and sees, once again, young Isao. This time he is stunned to notice a pattern of three moles under Isao's arm. His friend Kiyoaki had exactly the same pattern of moles, and had insisted on his deathbed that "I will see you again." Honda, who has always grounded his life in reason, now believes that Isao is the confident samurai reincarnation of Kiyoaki.
At the Saigusa Festival of Wild Lilies, Isao gives Honda a copy of a book which is a prized possession: The League of the Divine Wind, by Yamao Tsunenori, which rails against making Japan a republic and insists that all foreign influences be eliminated from Japan. (The Japanese word for "Divine Wind" is "kamikaze.") Long passages which go back to the early parts of the Meiji dynasty, set the scene for the action to follow as Isao, dedicating his life to the pure samurai tradition, establishes a group of other young men who plan executions of those in public life who have violated the code.
Much wonderful description of nature, including a section in which a white camellia is personified, accompanies the developing action, and some nature scenes of obvious symbolism add to the dilemma faced by Honda as he remembers dreams which Kiyoaki has recorded in his diary and left for Honda as a legacy. And as Isao begins to plan for what is the climax of this novel, one can see the author preparing the way for new understandings. Mishima succeeds in giving voice to points of view that would otherwise have been totally alien to me. By explaining the samurai code within the context of Japanese history and culture, and using characters of different beliefs whom I liked and respected, he was able to explain what lay behind the ritual suicide he himself committed shortly after completion of the tetralogy. Though the book is sometimes propagandistic and deals almost exclusively with men and their behavior, Mishima is a novelist who is in complete control of his subject matter, and his thematic transition between the 1912 and the 1932 periods is flawless. The Sea of Fertility has always been regarded as his masterpiece, and readers interested in Japan will not want to miss this novel. Mary Whipple
Spring Snow (The Sea of Fertility)
21 of 27 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
For a student of the Mishima phenomenon, the second volume in his tetralogy is interesting in the extreme. The protagonist of "Spring Snow", Kiyoaki Matsugae, is reincarnated as the son of his tutor, Iinuma. The young Isao is the converse of the effete, introspective Kiyoaki. He is consumed by a ferocious, impatient physicality which finds expression in kendo and in his devotion to ultra right-wing patriotism. Isao comes to the notice of Prince Toin, a member of the imperial family, and of a hot-headed army officer who, for a while at least, goes along with the naive dream of a kamikaze coup: for Isao's ambition is to see the Emperor restored as the spiritual leader of a martial Japan.
Isao's idealism is rendered in intense, homoerotic detail. He is perhaps what Mishima most yearned to be -- an anti-intellectual, motivated by love of the Emperor. Above all, Isao dies young. His suicide is a compressed version of that of the young soldier in Mishima's short story (or, rather, masturbation fantasy), "Patriotism", a lascivious account of seppuku.
Mishima's version of Japan in the 1930s reads suspiciously like the turbulent, westernizing sixties, during which he assembled his corps of fascist dimwits and body-builders. This private army had less to do with politics than the author's own, increasingly deranged, exhibitionism: culminating, of course, in his bizarre and very public demise.
Even if Mishima was not someone you might care to have as a neighbour, he was indisputably a terrific writer. He understood perfectly that imagination lies in the detail. There are some longueurs in "Runaway Horses", but also many passages of electrifying brilliance: for instance, Shigekuni Honda on Mount Miwa; or the scene in which Isao, having taken a rifle and shot a pheasant, fulfils a prophesy from his former life; or the prison-dream which presages his next as a woman.
This book repays careful reading. It consolidates not only much of what Mishima seemed to be about, but also the whole quartet. "Spring Snow" is a little too mannered and controlled, too lush; "The Temple of Dawn" too cynical and abstruse; and "The Decay of the Angel" is a clearly the work of a man going off his rocker. In "Runaway Horses", though, we find Yukio Mishima at the peak of his form. It is one of his most successful novels and is, by any measure, a masterpiece.
2 of 3 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
As much as being love with contents of books, to me the cover is also essential. I purchased the entire series of 'The Sea of Fertility' from Vintage Classic, received them promptly yet the cover for this volume ('Runaway Horses') was NOT in line with others. Meaning the book cover you see in this page is not what you are ordering! As you look carefully, the information states it's 2000 version while other three volumes are from 2011, the latest publishing. It was my ignorance nonetheless I would like to share this experience with those might press 'Buy' innocently believing in the shown cover of the book. Please make sure you receive what you've requested if you care. Just on a final note, Amazon.uk and the eu team had swiftly solved my problem regarding refunding and returning. Should be given credits for that.
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
probably best read as part of the tetralogy
Isao is a young fanatically driven idealist in 1930s Japan and seeks his fulfillment in the 1930s Japan equivalent of a suicide attack on the enemy. Read more
Published 13 months ago by William Jordan
The template of a long held dream ...
This is my favourite book ... not just of those produced by Mishima , but of all authors . As a Westerner , I can only guess as to the workings of the great man's mind , but to me... Read more
Published on 29 Dec 2007 by M. J. Lawrenson
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