I have to talk about a book I read recently called Thirst for Love by Yukio Mishima - an insane author who lived a spectacular life. This book completely assaulted me and my expectations. It striked through to my heart and connected with me so closely that now I feel I must try to ingest as much Mishima as I can. He embraces the duality of life and death, elegance and brutality, masculine and feminine, strength and beauty. The story is depicted through Etsuko’s stream of consciousness, a widowed woman who is invited to live at her in-laws home in rural Osaka. It follows her troubled mind - once tormented and abused by her late, adulterous husband - as she seems to passively float through life, or as she would put it, drowning without ever screaming. She yields, apathetically to her aged father-in-law’s advances whilst growing an obsessive, impossible love for the oblivious young servant boy Saburo. The story moves relentlessly and characters' behaviours become perverse as they grow more and more enamoured with their forbidden loves. Etsuko shines against the inadequate people that surround her and it seems fitting that her intense love be doomed by her dark, taut, coiled machinations of her fevered mind. The tragic finale, unbelievably fantastic yet completely believable, is an example of Mishima’s genius ability to make the written word lifelike. Thirst for Love is one of the best psychological novels I’ve ever read, and it is completely original and stunning. I believe Mishima to be a combination of brilliance and madness, capable of describing any subject, feeling, character, or time. I felt like he was describing my own thoughts - ones that I have never even had, yet when I read them, it was like he had known my mind.
#mishima #bookrecommendation #yukiomishima #japaneseliterature
