Review
`I adore Mishima's prose and vivid descriptions. They pull me out of my daily reality'.
--Harper's Bazaar
--Harper's Bazaar
Book Description
'One of the outstanding writers of the world' New York Times
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
11 of 11 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
A very famous work in Japan, and one of the finest Japanese novels I have read. Mishima himself regarded his series of novels, The Sea of Fertility, as his masterpiece, but this is a tighter piece of work. It is neither cold nor overly dense, two frequent flaws in this author's work. On the contrary the novel displays great understanding and sensitivity and is immensely readable - even hypnotic.
Many tourists who visit Kinkakuji (the Japanese name for the Temple of the Golden Pavilion) don't even know that it is a 1950 reconstruction. It's not a fact heavily publicised at the site. After surviving the catastrophe of WW2 it was torched by a deranged monk - a monumental loss for Japanese art, culture and history. This is the story of that monk, and his slow, ineivtiable journey to that final, awful event.
This is a profound psychological study of depression and madness. Vivid images linger in the mind long after the last page has turned.
Many tourists who visit Kinkakuji (the Japanese name for the Temple of the Golden Pavilion) don't even know that it is a 1950 reconstruction. It's not a fact heavily publicised at the site. After surviving the catastrophe of WW2 it was torched by a deranged monk - a monumental loss for Japanese art, culture and history. This is the story of that monk, and his slow, ineivtiable journey to that final, awful event.
This is a profound psychological study of depression and madness. Vivid images linger in the mind long after the last page has turned.
28 of 31 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
The Temple of the Golden Pavillion, along with Forbidden Colours is one of the best known books by Yukio Mishima. The two things strangely that led me to Mishima's books were the Sakamoto/Sylvian single Forbidden Colours and Paul Schrader's film Mishima (1985). The latter includes a brilliant episode from the book, which shows us the impotent, stuttering student loner at the heart of this novel.
This was the first book of his I read, based on a true story that occurred in Kyoto in the 1950's it feels somewhere between Dostoyevsky's Crime & Punishment, Genet's A Thief's Journal or a more twisted Hemingway. These are only pointers, Mishima's voice is one that is deeply original- more so to the reader who is not that well versed in Japanese literature. Mishima takes the true story and crafts it around an existential-zen notion and explores the character of the Japanese male following the end of World War II. This book lays out many of the themes prevalent in the rest of Mishima's oeuvre- repressed homosexuality, violence, cruelty, tradition, honour, destruction etc. This book feels like part of a character that Mishima longed for and which may have been behind the semi-fascist actions committed before his own suicide. The best works to read of Mishima's after this are Confessions of a Mask, Forbidden Colours, Temple of Dawn and The Sailor Who Fell from Grace with the Sea.Despite many people objecting to Mishima, who is perceived as a fascist nutcase, his books are rich with some of the finest prose written in the 20th century. The reissue of The Temple of the Golden Pavillion is a welcome one.
10 of 11 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
For the readers that are unfamiliar with Mishima and his work, this book could be very difficult to understand. One of his best works, “The temple of the golden pavilion” was one of the many ways that Mishima tried to explain to the world how he saw it. Using the true story of the arson of one of Japans most famous temples Mishima brings forward issues and ideas that to most Westerners would seem perverse and disturbing. What people often miss to understand when reading this book is that it is a glimpse of the true Kimitake Hiraoka (Yukio Mishima’s birth name), his obsession with the beautiful and its link to death and bloodshed. The main character’s obsession with the Golden Temple is really Mishima’s obsession with Death and his believe that to remain beautiful you must die, and die young.
A truly wonderful book that will provoke the darkest thoughts and make its reader take and inward look to find their own “Golden Temple”
Most Recent Customer Reviews
The Temple of the Golden Pavillion
After reading and adoring a previous Mishima book (The Sailor Who Fell From Grace With the Sea) I eagerly bought and devoured this novel. Read more
Published 16 months ago by Spider Monkey
A bit too obsessive for me
I know a lot of people love this book (see the other reviews), and it's obviously got merit. However, this was the first book I read by Mishima and I found it pretty dull. Read more
Published 17 months ago by M. N. Dixon
An amazing book
This book has stayed with me for over 20 years since I first read it. It is an outstanding piece of work that grabs you in a very fundamental way. Read more
Published on 16 Feb 2010 by Bookclubber
Popular Highlights
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A dead mans face can tell us better than anything else in this world how far removed we are from the true existence of physical substance, how impossible it is for us to lay hands on the way in which this substance exists.
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For clearly it is impossible to touch eternity with one hand and life with the other.
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When people concen¬trate on the idea of beauty, they are, without realizing it, confronted with the darkest thoughts that exist in this world. That, I suppose, is how human beings are made.
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