4.0
The Decay of the Angel
ByPublisher Description
The final installment of the masterful tetralogy, The Sea of Fertility, finds Shigekuni Honda an elderly wealthy man in the 1960s, adopting a teenage orphan whom he is convinced is the reincarnation of his childhood friend. • "One of the best final scenes in the history of the novel.” —David Mitchell, The New York Times Book Review
Honda, now an aged and wealthy man, once more encounters a person he believes to be a reincarnation of his friend, Kiyoaki Matsugae—this time restored to life as a teenage orphan, Tōru. Adopting the boy as his heir, Honda quickly finds that Tōru is a force to be reckoned with. The final novel of this celebrated tetralogy weaves together the dominant themes of the previous three novels in the series: the decay of Japan’s courtly tradition; the essence and value of Buddhist philosophy and aesthetics; and, underlying all, Mishima’s apocalyptic vision of the modern era.
Honda, now an aged and wealthy man, once more encounters a person he believes to be a reincarnation of his friend, Kiyoaki Matsugae—this time restored to life as a teenage orphan, Tōru. Adopting the boy as his heir, Honda quickly finds that Tōru is a force to be reckoned with. The final novel of this celebrated tetralogy weaves together the dominant themes of the previous three novels in the series: the decay of Japan’s courtly tradition; the essence and value of Buddhist philosophy and aesthetics; and, underlying all, Mishima’s apocalyptic vision of the modern era.
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Meet readers like you in the Fable For You feed, designed to build bookish communitiesThe Decay of the Angel Reviews
4.0
“Misogynistic man comes to the conclusion that if he didn't exist the world would be better off without him. That he has wasted his life worshipping abusive men and never obtained a higher undestanding or an ideal peacefullness that only someone who can truly love can experience. That women who live without him (and have all misogynistic men erased from their lives) these women experience a higher quality of life and obtain a higher spirituallity. That they transcend but he is nothing. He is a rotten putrid absess. This is the books conclusion and this is what happened to the author once he finished writing this book. He took himself out. It's like he did himself a feminist.. almost. Except if he had gotten some mental health treatment maybe, just maybe he could of learned how to not be a misogynistic jerk and how to experience love and then had not wanted to die. This series of books has helped me feel a bit of sympathy for misogynistic men. Some of them need a lot of mental health treatment. Some of them are just psychopaths. It's sometimes hard to tell the difference. I think Mishima was extremely mentally ill and I pity him. But I think i'm done with him and I don't want to read anymore books by him. He grates on me and it is too much bro lit. Incels love him too much. They are attracted to the suicidality and they just want to romantasize it and wallow in it. It's gross and pitiful. I feel like I need a shower and have to wash the ick feelings off after each book. It's exhausting. They don't know how to actually analyze the book and learn something from it. It is so sad. The disease of toxic bro worship in it's finest element.”
About Yukio Mishima
YUKIO MISHIMA was born in Tokyo in 1925. He graduated from Tokyo Imperial University’s School of Jurisprudence in 1947. His first published book, The Forest in Full Bloom, appeared in 1944 and he established himself as a major author with Confessions of a Mask (1949). From then until his death he continued to publish novels, short stories, and plays each year. His crowning achievement, The Sea of Fertility tetralogy—which contains the novels Spring Snow (1969), Runaway Horses (1969), The Temple of Dawn (1970), and The Decay of the Angel (1971)—is considered one of the definitive works of twentieth century Japanese fiction. In 1970, at the age of 45 and the day after completing the last novel in the Fertility series, Mishima committed seppuku (ritual suicide)—a spectacular death that attracted worldwide attention.
Other books by Yukio Mishima
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