The Decay of the Angel
Ratings5
Average rating4.3
15
Ratings5
Average rating4.3
Yukio Mishima’s The Decay of the Angel is the final novel in his masterful tetralogy, The Sea of Fertility. It is the last installment of Shigekuni Honda’s pursuit of the successive reincarnations of his childhood friend Kiyoaki Matsugae. It is the late 1960s and Honda, now an aged and wealthy man, once more encounters a person he believes to be a reincarnation of his friend, Kiyoaki — 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.
Reviews with the most likes.
The 4th part of what is essentially one long book. They are truly fascinating in their totality. Mishima himself seems to eminate from the pages, the words themselves representing his own intensity.
They are complicated books. After the first two books I thought I had Mishima pegged for one who was obsessed with Japanese purity and chose to demonize other modern distractions. Then in the third book you get a wild romp of mysticism and eroticism. In this final volume, there is cynicism, reflection, and an attempt to circumvent fate that seems to serve as a metaphor for Japanese culture that I, as an American, can't quite articulate.
Overall, these books deliver a wide-ranging examination of existence set during 80 years of Japanese history. Mishima's striking voice creates a powerful text that is as good as any of the world literature classics I have read.
