Book Look: Spring Snow by Yukio Mishima
Mishima is a controversial character, partly because many on what is glibly called the "alt-right" have taken him as a bit of a role model. I leave it as an exercise for the reader if you want to read up on him. Like many reactionaries (that's not a dirty word to me, it's just an accurate description), Mishima looks back to a romanticized time of beauty, valor, and purpose. I am highly skeptical of that since I am old enough to remember a time that some folks think of as romantically idealized and it was no such thing.
Spring Snow is the first of a tetralogy of novels that Mishima meant to be his crowning glory; a sweeping overview of the changes in Japan over the course of a half a century, placing personal stories in the context of the sociopolitical. Authors have tried this many times, usually via a multi-generational family saga. Mishima attempts it by following a single character and his encounters throughout his life with a reincarnated friend who always dies before his/her twentieth birthday. The first death is in Spring Snow and each subsequent novel is a reincarnation.
Spring Snow centers around Kiyo, a diffident, detached, spoiled, 19-year-old son of a "new money" family scion. Kiyo's world is noticeably divided between fashionable attraction for western culture and the traditional imperial worship culture. Also in this mix we have Satoko, the beautiful daughter of a generations-old legitimately aristocratic family, though now fallen on hard times. The new-money and old-blood families have a symbiotic connection for the sake of each other's status. The son and daughter have a great attraction to one another in the juvenile manner of antagonizing each other and denying their feelings. At a time when they are bickering and distant, Satoko finds herself betrothed to a crown prince -- a relative of the Emperor. Like a child demanding a previously ignored toy once it is taken away, Kiyo sees the truth of his feelings and desperately desires her. They begin an illicit affair, cuckolding the crown prince. More star-crossed they could not be.
When Satoko becomes pregnant their affair is discovered. The public exposure of such wanton illicit behavior would be an insult to the Emperor himself and effectively the end of both families, at least as far as their status went. All the bitterness between the two families comes out, but they succeed in minimizing the damage and saving face, though they must scramble, connive, bribe, and lie to do it. In the course of things Satoko gets an abortion and enters a nunnery, never to see Kiyo again. Kiyo's soul is lost, he cannot return to his previous life. He attempts to see Satoko at the nunnery but is denied and falls ill from waiting for her in the cold weather and dies. As I alluded, it's all very tragically Shakespearean.
Throughout it all Mishima bends the narrative to hint at the lost qualities of the past in the face of what might be called cultural progress. In Spring Snow these are fairly subtle and more along the lines of s minor lament for those losses without outright condemnation of the present. My understanding is that this changes in the sequels.
Should you read Spring Snow? It is slow, especially at the start. Mishima does not subscribe to the "grab the reader's attention quickly" philosophy. He writes with a languid elegance that matches well with the overly formal era he is describing. He is absolutely not one to tell a joke. Aesthetics, sensuality, and romanticism dominate his approach. Not a blade of grass flutters without an ornate description. But, if he builds his story and characters slowly, he builds them with care and depth. There were a couple of times during the early chapters when I suspected he was going nowhere with this and nearly gave up, but by the middle of the book I was fully invested. Still, it is for the patient reader (but we all have time these days, don't we?) who has an appreciation of nuance and quiet action. In that sense, it is like Mishima himself: better suited for an earlier time. I am on the fence as to whether to dive into the remaining three novels.
