Mishima Band of Thebes writes: “Brilliant writer and fascist militant nut, Yukio Mishima p
Mishima Band of Thebes writes: “Brilliant writer and fascist militant nut, Yukio Mishima published forty novels, many collections of stories and essays, and was thrice nominated for the Nobel Prize before, at 45, launching a deranged coup attempt against the Japanese government with four other men immediately after which he and another committed ritual suicide. Mishima wrote his first book in his early twenties and became a celebrity at 24 with his bestselling second novel, the autobiographical gay conformity story Confessions of a Mask. While that book chronicled a solitary experience, bigger shocks awaited in his novel Forbidden Colors exploring Tokyo’s vast gay subculture. In dreaming of an all male world it also gave voice to Mishima’s misogyny and gave rise to his dedication to a hyper-masculine ideal of beauty, starting with himself. He detested intellectuals’ emphasis on the mind, instead espousing a life of physicality, muscle, and action, which led to increased scenes of sadomasochism and gay rape in his fiction and greater vanity in his life. On a hardcore workout regimen, he began posing nude for gay photographers and acting in movies. Highlights of his prolific output are The Sound of Waves, a hetero love story so popular it’s been filmed five times; The Temple of the Golden Pavilion; The Sailor Who Fell from Grace with the Sea; and his Sea of Fertility tetralogy beginning with Spring Snow. In 1998 Jiro Fukushima published a book about his affair with Mishima and Mishima’s son and daughter successfully sued him for invasion of privacy and copyright violation for quoting their father’s letters to him.” More here HOMO MAGAZINE -- source link