Yet another intense psychological novel from this truly great writer. This story was inspired by actual events - the burning of the Golden Pavilion Kinkaku-ji in Kyoto, dating from the 1400s and considered a national monument, by a young acolyte in 1950. Mizoguchi, the young Buddhist acolyte in the novel, is afflicted with an ugly face and a stutter. His stutter alienates him from others and he starts to harbor evil thoughts. His physical ugliness he justifies with inner ugliness and on this is rooted his obsession for beauty and a pathological urge to destroy whatever represents beauty. The Golden Temple is for him, the most beautiful thing on earth, and so he must destroy it.

Typically Mishima, there is plenty of internal monologues in this novel, as well as the intellectualizing of a seemingly trivial act. Symbolisms abound, more obvious in the types of friendships Mizoguchi is able to develop. His dark and morbid outlook is reinforced by his friendship with a fellow-student, who is also ugly and deformed, and who is even more masochistic and bitter with life. He also befriends a student who symbolized the good and the perfect. But all of them reject the world, in their own ways.

This is certainly not an easy read, and it takes effort on the reader's part to be able to hold the narrative and follow the thought processes of a disturbed mind. ( )

'The Sailor Who Fell From Grace With The Sea' is a remarkable novel that examines a child's struggle to accept the world and his place in it. 'The Temple of The Golden Pavilion' is a similar examination, this time looking at a slightly older boy, who is studying to become a Buddhist priest.

In this novel, the main character is a young man who suffers from an unconquerable stutter, who finds himself unable to properly interact with the world around him. His every conception of the world is tainted by this stutter, and by his highest ideal of beauty, the Golden Temple in Kyoto, where he studies and lives.

As with 'Sailor', the boy is overcome with hatred towards his mother; here, it is for the act of adultery that she perpetrates with his uncle, whilst he is sleeping in the same room, and in the presence of his ill father. This feeling of hatred and anger is made tangible all through the book, right to its bitter conclusion. ( )

A straight ahead, honest glance into the perversity of the human soul. A disturbing read because you can easily see how it applies to everybody's destructive impulses, and recognize how people go about lovingly placing them in the context of their respective lives. Those that place them too high on the list of "things to do" get to do the perp walk or take a nice trip to the rubber room. Of course, we all get to share in the pain and tragedy of the aftermath. It's all about sharing. ( )

What could have been an absorbing treatment of an anti-social neurotic gets tripped up by a lot of navel-gazing twaddle; whether due to Morris' translation or Mishima himself, I'm not sure. ( )

OOhhhh…I think this book is awesome. I know a lot of people don’t like it because it is very literary and cerebral, but I eat that stuff up. Most of the time is spent in the protagonists head. We understand the way he thinks and looks at life. We get to see how the mind of a criminal is formed over time. A compelling read. Philosophical. Provokes thought and discussion. A book you can definitely discuss over a meal. It is also based on a famous true story. ( )