Wednesday, October 31, 2012

The Temple of Dawn (Yukio Mishima)

----The Sea of Fertility #1: Spring Snow----
----The Sea of Fertility #2: Runaway Horses----

SUMMARY
Honda became a dirty old man. The latest Kiyoaki/Isao incarnation was a Thai princess (who ended up dead, again).

WHAT HAPPENED
After Isao's death, Honda went through a transformation: from the idealistic, righteous judge into the pragmatic lawyer who only took clients that could actually afford his service. A job took him to Thailand, and it was here that he met little Princess Chantrapa (nicknamed Ying Chan), whom her family thought was crazy because she claimed to be a Japanese youth--Isao. (And she recognized Honda, too.)

Next, Honda went to India on a paid trip courtesy of his current employer. Watching a funeral party and a cow by the Ganges, he achieved some sort of clarity about life.

A couple of years after World War II, Honda had developed a habit of secretly watching illicit coupling in public parks. It was also around this time that he met Ying Chan again, now a young woman who remembered nothing about her past life. He became obsessed with her, wanting to see her naked to establish her identity (both Kiyoaki and Isao had three moles in the exact same place).

KEY POINTS (or HOW HONDA SAW THINGS, maybe)
The ultimate personification of beauty = Ying Chan
The ultimate observer = A voyeur
The ultimate, godlike act in life = Sexual act

0 comments: