I read this novel decades ago. Mishima committed seppuku on Nov. 25th, 1970, after failing to exhort military cadets to action. His ritual suicide offered a tragic and frightening parallel to his novels, especially this one, Runaway Horses. Mishima was a craftsman of language, but also briliantly connected reified objects to reincarnation. A peeled orange in the ocean electrified the spine today no less than years ago when I first read him. Today, older, wiser, I found the philosophy behind Mishima's work disturbing. I understand a different value system in Japan, but the glorificaltion of honor to the extent of ritual suicide cannot help but disturb anyone who reflects on it. Though I admire Mishima as a writer, I offer a lower rating than I would have earlier. A rigid code of honor accompanied by seppuku seems a dangerous zeitgeist which could destroy individuals, countries and our planet. Isao worries how aging could attentuate youthful purity. In his view, it is better to die young than face such attenuated purity. Let us reverse it and a better world for all of us. ( )

This book was way more intense than I thought. I swear Mishima writes with a sword and not a pen. Keep in my this is the second book in the series and I would read Spring Snow first. I didn't like this as much as Spring Snow, but I still loved the writing. While Spring Snow was more of a romantic tragedy, this was a political philosophy statement. These books were almost different animals, yet they are the same because Honda is still the main character and the theme that ties all these books together is reincarnation. This book makes you think about stuff too. There are some parts I would have changed if I was the editor, but overall I wasn't full disappointed. ( )

A creepy book for sure. Isao is just crazy to commit suicide in a blaze of glory, to purify the world somehow. It is so far from any mode of thought that I can find in myself... but this whole book just wallows in it. I trust that this is not an utter fabrication of Mishima, but reflective of some facet of Japanese culture. So the book is a way to learn a bit about Japan. But surely Japan is a part of the world, and this mode of thought is not exclusive to Japan. Actually, this book seems horribly relevant to the USA in 2020. There is definitely a current of violent loyalty to authoritarian purity in order to return to some past greatness. I still can't say that I understand this mode of thought, despite having wallowed in it for 400 pages. But maybe I have got a bit more familiarity. That's something. ( )

Reading this reminded me how big a drift there is between not only the modern and traditional outlook on life, but Far Eastern and Western, noble and common, idealist and realist, old and young - pretty much any dichotomy. And, these views are often so irreconcilable that we tend to judge too easy and too often, jump to conclusions even more so.
This book, much more than the previous one in the series, challenged my perspective of a woman with fairly leftist views, treasuring life above all in 2017, when ideals for which individuals are ready to die for all seem a bit blurry, twisted by the contemporary politics and post/wild-capitalist reality. The glorification of seppuku is hard to understand for an outsider to Japanese culture. The ideas of honor and glory are dangerous to play with, as they often lead to extremism, and in my opinion, personal sacrifice is rarely, if ever acceptable in their name. The ideals of patriotism, cultural purity and nationalism are even more problematic, given the history of the 19th/20th century. Somehow, in popular culture, when it comes to Japan, there is a larger tolerance, than when the same comes from e.g. German culture, maybe given the romanticism of the whole samurai mythos as it is portrayed in the West.

The novel is so typically Japanese, and if that means, in Mishima's words, that it is marked by elegance and brutality, I have to say the latter is a tad more overpowering.
Elegance was much more palpable in Spring Snow. It was not a very well constructed novel. Some parts were tedious to read, and some asked a lot of mental investment from the reader that did not really pay off.

What I loved was how the connection of this novel to the previous and the following in the series shone through, those little details that were mystical and surprising. I found Honda strangely refreshing, too. An interesting, but difficult read. ( )

Esta novela constituye la clave para comprender el pensamiento y la posición personal del autor ante la vida y el mundo. A través del hilo de la narración y de la rebeldía de unos protagonistas jóvenes que aspiran a una especie de pureza utópica, vamos desgranando las causas que llevaron a Mishima a su suicidio ritual. Se trata del análisis estremecedor y valiente de una tensa problemática, pero expresado de tal forma que en ningún momento decae el interés narrativo de la acción. La tetralogía El mar de la fertilidad se compone de Nieve de primavera , Caballos desbocados , El templo del alba y La corrupción de un ángel . ( )