Temple of the Golden Pavilion

Author(s): Yukio Mishima

General Fiction

 


In The Temple of the Golden Pavilion, celebrated Japanese novelist Yukio Mishima creates a haunting portrait of a young man's obsession with idealized beauty and his destructive quest to possess it fully.


 


Mizoguchi, an ostracized stutterer, develops a childhood fascination with Kyoto's famous Golden Temple. While an acolyte at the temple, he fixates on the structure's aesthetic perfection and it becomes his one and only object of desire. But as Mizoguchi begins to perceive flaws in the temple, he determines that the only true path to beauty lies in an act of horrific violence. Based on a real incident that occurred in 1950, The Temple of the Golden Pavilion brilliantly portrays the passions and agonies of a young man in postwar Japan, bringing to the subject the erotic imagination and instinct for the dramatic moment that marked Mishima as one of the towering makers of modern fiction. With an introduction by Donald Kee≠ Translated from the Japanese by Ivan Morris.

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'One of the outstanding writers of the world' New York Times

A dark vision...a beautiful, disturbing novel Los Angeles Times Mishima writes with a fury that seldom flags Glasgow Herald Glitters with images of beauty and destruction, cruelty and sacrifice, dedication and betrayal The Times An amazing literary feat Chicago Tribune

Yukio Mishima was born into a samurai family and imbued with the code of complete control over mind and body, and loyalty to the Emperor - the same code that produced the austerity and self-sacrifice of Zen. He wrote countless stories and thirty-three plays, in some of which he performed. Several films have been made from his novels, including The Sound of Waves, Enjo which was based on The Temple of the Golden Pavilion and The Sailor Who Fell From Grace with the Sea. Among his other works are the novels Confessions of a Mask and Thirst for Love and the short story collections Death in Midsummer and Acts of Worship. The Sea of Fertility tetralogy, however, is his masterpiece. After Mishima conceived the idea of The Sea of Fertility in 1964, he frequently said he would die when it was completed. On 25 November 1970, the day he completed The Decay of the Angel, the last novel of the cycle, Mishima committed seppuku (ritual suicide) at the age of forty-five.

General Fields

  • : 9780099285670
  • : Penguin Random House
  • : Penguin Books Ltd
  • : 0.181
  • : December 2009
  • : 197mm X 132mm X 16mm
  • : United Kingdom
  • : books

Special Fields

  • : Yukio Mishima
  • : Paperback
  • : 01
  • : English
  • : 895.63
  • : 256
  • : FA