The Temple of Dawn
Ratings9
Average rating3.5
15
Ratings9
Average rating3.5
Yukio Mishima’s The Temple of Dawn is the third novel in his masterful tetralogy, The Sea of Fertility. Here, Shigekuni Honda continues his pursuit of the successive reincarnations of Kiyoaki Matsugae, his childhood friend. Travelling in Thailand in the early 1940s, Shigekuni Honda, now a brilliant lawyer, is granted an audience with a young Thai princess—an encounter that radically alters the course of his life. In spite of all reason, he is convinced she is the reincarnated spirit of his friend Kiyoaki. As Honda goes to great lengths to discover for certain if his theory is correct, The Temple of Dawn becomes the story of one man’s obsessive pursuit of a beautiful woman and his equally passionate search for enlightenment.
Reviews with the most likes.
This is a much more complex book than Spring Snow and Runaway Horses. While those books focus on characters who have a purity of spirit to the point of being unable to lead what we might consider a “normal” life, this book focuses on Honda, the old judge who serves as what seems a sort of spiritual brainstorming proxy for Mishima and as again (what seems to me) a proxy for Mishima's thoughts on post-war Japan.
I was fascinated by Honda's spiritual adventure through India and Thailand if a bit bogged down by the chapters of him reflecting on points of Eastern religion.
Ultimately Honda becomes consumed by a desire that seems inappropriate but serves as a basis for all sorts of interesting ruminations by him.
I might finish this when I get over the fact that middle aged Honda wants to caress the thighs of a prepubescent princess that might be the reincarnation of his dead friend as she takes a piss
