Click on a thumbnail to go to Google Books.
Loading... Sun and Steel (original 1970; edition 2003)by Yukio Mishima (Author)
Work InformationSun and Steel by Yukio Mishima (1970)
Stuff from Bard (8) Books for Birute (16) Loading...
Sign up for LibraryThing to find out whether you'll like this book. No current Talk conversations about this book. Get another version of this book. This a cheap, quick, money-grab. The quality of this book is low. It has multiple spelling mistakes, incorrect translations, and the publisher address is just a yahoo email address. As for the book and mishima, I wanted this book in order to get a cumulative cheat-sheet of mishima's books. When I was reading, I couldn't help think mishima is a man whom is still under the effects of japanese propoganda. Japanese propaganda was effective enough to convince its people to commit suicide for the hive. Mishima elevates those whom commit suicide as the most admirable and what every should aspire to be. This guy drank the kool-aid. Lectura obligatoria para quienes busquen conocer algo más sobre Mishima y sus ideas. Complemento ideal para su ensayo [b: La ética del samurái en el Japón moderno]; el cual recomiendo leer primero, ya que es bastante menos denso. Y es que de a ratos se vuelve un poco demasiado intrincado en su metafísica de la vigorexia. Por otro lado, el epílogo sobre su experiencia en un caza F-104 es simplemente delicioso. Mishima on his way towards ascension; you can watch him as he climbs. A heavily complex, superhuman-esque essay on aesthetics and nihilism, on synthesis of pen and sword. It is the key to his life and art, a must-read for whomever wants to understand the author's behavior and grounding philosophy. Mishima, who said to have been inspired by Nietzsche along others clearly overcame the German philosopher, perhaps recovering the key to experience true and pure existence.
In addition to exploring the beliefs that underlie much of Mishima's work, "Sun and Steel" stands as a devastating portrait of an extraordinary mind. "'Sun and Steel's' power is that it is a book one must experience step by step, led as if by a monk, or by a great film master, from inner tissue to outer and back again, along his way." "After writing something like that, the only thing for you to do is die." Belongs to Publisher SeriesIs contained in
In this fascinating document, one of Japan's best known-and controversial-writers created what might be termed a new literary form. It is new because it combines elements of many existing types of writing, yet in the end fits into none of them. At one level, it may be read as an account of how a puny, bookish boy discovered the importance of his own physical being; the "sun and steel" of the title are themselves symbols respectively of the cult of the open air and the weights used in bodybuilding. At another level, it is a discussion by a major novelist of the relation between action and art, and his own highly polished art in particular. More personally, it is an account of one individual's search for identity and self-integration. Or again, the work could be seen as a demonstration of how an intensely individual preoccupation can be developed into a profound philosophy of life. All these elements are woven together by Mishima's complex yet polished and supple style. The confession and the self-analysis, the philosophy and the poetry combine in the end to create something that is in itself perfect and self-sufficient. It is a piece of literature that is as carefully fashioned as Mishima's novels, and at the same time provides an indispensable key to the understanding of them as art. The road Mishima took to salvation is a highly personal one. Yet here, ultimately, one detects the unmistakable tones of a self transcending the particular and attaining to a poetic vision of the universal. The book is therefore a moving document, and is highly significant as a pointer to the future development of one of the most interesting novelists of modern times. No library descriptions found. |
Current DiscussionsNonePopular covers
Google Books — Loading... GenresMelvil Decimal System (DDC)813Literature English (North America) American fictionLC ClassificationRatingAverage:
Is this you?Become a LibraryThing Author. |
"All we are left with is the freedom to choose which method we will try out when brought face to face with that void in the progressive tense, in the interval while we await the “absolute”." -- Here decisions are made and coordinates of change and motion fixed.
"A hostility towards the sun was my only rebellion against the spirit of the age" -- The symbols of the Sun were sabotaged, the dark sun slipped in and ruled the totalitarian agenda, the Aion, ever-free is the liberati and liberator. Detached from death, scorcher of deserts and life-nourisher, it guides through intellect and solar heroism.
"There are, of course, many cases of psychosomatic diseases where the spirit extends its domain to the body. But what I was considering went further than this. Granted that my flesh in infancy had made itself apparent in intellectual guise, corroded by words, then should it not be possible to reverse the process—to extend the scope of an idea from the spirit to the flesh until the whole physical being became a suit." - Hypostastis and reification, spiritualization of flesh and carnalization of the spirit, there is a harmonious whole subverting the dualisms, E Pluribus Unum. ( )