The Sailor Who Fell From Grace With The Sea (1994) - Plot & Excerpts
All outsiders are enemies. We are a gang of one. Mishima's typical samurai-grace with the pen is on full display here. Simplicity has its rewards, but for me, strands itself on several occasions. The 13-year-old, now fatherless, Noboru, has a reckless curiosity, one which separates him from the essence of his mother via midnight peephole rendezvouses. When newcomer, the overly eager sailor, Ryuji, enters this set-in-stone paradigm, a childish anger churns and eventually erupts in a classic ending that is as cold-hearted as it is disconcerting. Noboru is curious, recklessly confident, and ultimately, naive. He's a child that inhabits an adult world. Entrance into the "gang" of similar like-minded children only came with one requirement: submission to the gang leader, or, "the chief."The philosophies perpetuated by these roving misfits are inadvertently hinted at by Mishima, who doesn't hit you over the head with subtext. Like the water, he lets the deeper story roll around in your head, and if the writing is precise, you'll come to the proper conclusions accordingly. In addressing the situation of no longer having a father figure, Noboru adopts the code of "objectivity," which becomes over the course of 180 swift pages, unbridled subjectivity. These are children lost at sea, undeniably intelligent, who have found opposition to emotion, an agreement with death. It's a denial of the self. The body is pumping with blood, but we are operative machines that are only oiled by such gruesome acts as the kids ruthlessly killing and then dissecting a harmless kitten to prove to the uninitiated that life can become not so frightening if you let death swell and consume you. This is the lost art of psychopathy most children learn to stray away from, and most likely from love. The very stimuli these lost children have been deprived of is subsequently the reason why most young people join quick-fix groups/cults/gangs. Leadership is awe-inspiring to a young mind. It is wanted. A soul without love must conquer another through power, or in Noboru's case, not anger, not hate, but a certain non-emotion that looks upon outsiders with distaste. Noboru's charges against his mother's boyfriend are somewhat amusing, but telling of a child's mind. smiling at me in a cowardly, ingratiating way when I met him this noon. By the end of the story Noboru has accumulated 18 sins against his festering notion of objectivity. Enough to warrant a punishment. In some ways, The Sailor Who Fell from Grace with the Sea works as a disturbing provision to real life indoctrinations, whether by parent or media or government. Children are often not given the freedom to blossom. While Mishima doesn't give the reader a righteous path to follow, he does the direct opposite of the gang, and forces the reader to find an in-between. There is no Truth here. When Noboru wishes Is there no way that I can remain in the room and at the same time be out in the hall locking the door? he is exposing an impossibility of a one true path. Simply, the sailor who fell from grace read too many storybooks on ship. There are no real heroes in the world, only anti-heroes. So, what's the fuss about the rating even though it seems like I enjoyed it on a intellectual level at least? I thought it could've been more dense. I feel like Mishima set out to accomplish something and does with flying colors, but I think the book could've been fleshed out more. Noboru is undoubtedly robotic, and we never really get to know him, even when a personality emerges. All of this has been conducted masterfully by Mishima, and maybe a possible ulterior of the struggles of fatherhood, but it lacks a punch. And yet, the ending shines. Even as he spoke the boy appeared to have forgotten the subject, as though it were a balloon he had abandoned to the sky. It is the perfect literary example of the monster movie where the monster isn't revealed until the end. Where all the suspense builds and builds and we finally see the grotesque creature for what it really is. Well, that's what we think is going to happen. But have you ever seen a monster horror movie where the monster is never revealed at all, and it still ends up working? That's what happens here. Mishima commits fully and trusts that the reader's imagination is worse than anything he can outline on paper. Once again, he has taken a road of no direction. Although the blossoming happening in your head by book's end is a terrifying one, it is pure in shape, and alas, transcribed by the unknown, the assumptions of a child of murder.
HIGHEST RECOMMENDATION!"If I were an amoeba, he thought, with an infinitesimal body, I could defeat ugliness. A man isn't tiny or giant enough to defeat anything."Ryuji, the "emasculated" sailor in Mishima's great novel, thinks such thoughts on long sea voyages, standing watch on deck; his only friends being the stars. His vague notions of glory -- that something great awaits him at the next port -- allow him to avoid his sense of powerlessness and the reality of his aimlessness. His idea of romantic completion is an unconsumated coupling that is destroyed utterly in instant oblivion -- a kiss and the lovers' lives brought to an end in a tidal wave, for instance. To him, this is the idea of a perfect marriage. His lifestyle of staying on the move and not becoming attached ends soon after he meets a well-to-do widow, Fusako, in the port of Yokohama. The Sailor Who Fell From Grace With the Sea shifts its narrative foci deceptively. As it starts it, we think it might be a novel about burgeoning adolescent sexual discovery, as Fusako's 13-year-old son, Noboru, discovers a peephole into his mother's adjoining bedroom, well hidden in a cabinet inside the closet. It allows him to study his mother's naked body and later the coitus between she and Ryuji. The focus then shifts to Ryuji, and over time we learn his backstory, and how Noboru's interest in ships and maritime trivia lead to the eventual hookup of his mother and sailor. There's a lovely sentence in which Ryuji thinks about how his great quest across every corner of the Earth ends on a point of exquisite sensation: the tip of his finger caressing a woman's nipple. The book is filled with countless wonders of such poetic beauty, but eventually it leads into darker territory about what it means to be a man, about the lies of fathers (or more accurately, the fear of growing up into a world where there is no real control or heroism for a man), and the seductive violence of groupthink. Noboru, as it happens has joined a group of proto-fascist youths who pervert the Nietzschean idea of the Superman. Their hatred of weak men, which all of them consider their fathers to be, drive the characters to a fate about which I cannot elaborate. Let's just say that the moment Ryuji morphs from a sailor-hero to a mere father figure in Noboru's mind is a pivotal one. There's a very disturbing passage in the book where the gang practices their "manly" cleansing ritual of cold violence on a poor kitten. To them, in their warped idea of real manhood, such violence brings some kind of order to the universe. The book accurately essays the dangers of social conformity in extremis and along the way somehow manages to mix in equal portions of romantic longing, family dynamics, the workings of port cities and international import and export, the pull of the sea vs. life on land, and the lure of ritual -- the latter being something of great appeal to the traditionalist Mishima. I suspect that Mishima's concerns about the Japanese man as an emasculated being might also stem from the sense of Japanese defeat after World War II. The novel takes place after the war, more or less contemporaneous to its publication in the 1960s. I also love how the novel enters the thoughts of the characters as they internally edit themselves when they verbalize bland platitudes and chitchat to one another -- chastising themselves for not saying what they really want to say. The physical descriptions of the living quarters, the environs and the sights of Yokohama are masterly. Rarely have I encountered a book in which so much poetic and langorous space co-exists within such a fast-moving, concise narrative. The book seems to be going in one very romantic direction and then shifts gears to something disturbing and ominous. It takes a deft hand to make such a change of emphasis work. Mishima, it seems, possessed the mastery to pull it off. This is a great book and a super fast read. Another one for my favorites category.
What do You think about The Sailor Who Fell From Grace With The Sea (1994)?
The Sailor Who Fell From Grace with the Sea follows the adventures of Noburu a 13 year old boy and his crazy gang of schoolmates, "all smallish, delicate boys and excellent students," who try to oppose their relative powerlessness in the world by developing a dark idealistic "philosophy" that glorifies inhumanity and emotional detachment. We are also told the story of Fusako, Noburu's mother, the widowed proprieter of a successful high-end boutique, and her passionate affair with Ryuji, a sailor. We watch as their awkward interactions and a meaningless one night stand evolve into a tender relationship and real need for one another. We witness Noburu's attempt to rectify the wildly confused emotional response he has when Ryuji, who he initially idolizes for his heroic life at sea, devoid of attachment, and his mother embark on a real relationship, with the credo of his "gang", that labels this sort of emotion as unforgiveable weakness.Ryuji, in turn, represents the forsaking of youthful idealism for adult responsibility and the need for companionship. This makes Ryuji the embodiment of everything that Noburu and his friends aspire to and also everything that they have profound contempt for. Ryuji seeks a life at sea as a young man because of his contempt for everything on land, and devotes himself to a romantic vision of death and the glory to be found in this isolated life apart. When we meet him he is beginning to realize that this abstract "glory" may not really be out there and that the comfort and stability he finds in his connection to Fusako, might make the prosaic life on land more appealing than the glorified and lonely sailor's life he has created for himself. Noburu and his gang are digusted by their hero's disloyal decision to "sell out" and betray their dark and angry ideals. It is interesting because I remember that period of youth where purity is tangible and anger and pain and fundamental belief in something feels like the only logical way to account for the inequity in the world. I remember feeling like I would never become a compromised adult (or "father", as Noboru's gang would label this figure) willing to sacrifice my ideals for anemic insignificant comfort and ease. And I also remember realizing that life is really shades of gray and finding myself too old for my black and white ideals and longing for something soft to make this life more bearable and truly worth living.In our post-Columbine world the violence that Noburu and his friend's embrace is not that surprising. But the tragedy of their vision-- limited by their youth and their strict ideals-- is shockingly real and painstakingly well thought out. The ideas in this book are very complex, and that complexity can make reading it difficult. (I am sure that some of this could be attributed to the fact that I was reading the book in translation.) Some of the metaphors that Mishima comes up with are incredibly graceful-- when describing the awkwardness of the reunion between Fusako and Ryuji after a long absence at sea, he writes, "Why should things proceed as smoothly as an arm slips into the sleeve of a coat unworn for half a year?". But I found his descriptions of the blossoming love between Fusako and Ryuji to be so clumsy that, given the dark critical tone of the book, I kept doubting their sincerity. The author's note tells us that, "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....On November 25, 1970... Mishima committed seppuku (ritual suicide) at the age of 45." Coupled with this fact, one wonders if The Sailor Who Fell From Grace with the Sea is Mishima's account of his attempt to find meaning and principle in his own life.
—Amanda
Beauty and the beast! As that teapot sang "It's a tale as old as time". Noboru watches his mother in her room through a chink in the wall that was chiselled by billeted soldiers during the occupation (those kinky gaijin). He then watches his new sailor hero and mother have sex. The sailor compromises on his notions of death and glory. Noboru, with his weird nihilistic friends, forces him back on that pedestal.Note to animal lovers: no kittens were harmed in the reading of this book. "His broad shoulders were square as the beams in a temple roof, his chest strained against a thick mat of hair, knotted muscle like twists of sisal hemp bulged all over his body: his flesh looked like a suit of armor that he could cast of at will. Then Noboru gazed in wonder as, ripping up through the thick hair below the belly; the lustrous temple tower soared triumphantly erect.""Yoriko's flaws and her vulgarity were apparent as always, but they seemed as cool and inoffensive as goldfish swimming in a fishbowl.""the sea is too much like a woman. Things like her lulls and storms, or her caprice, or the beauty of her breast reflecting the setting sun, are all obvious. More than that, you're in a ship that mounts and rides her and yet is constantly denied her.""He checked himself for pity; like a lighted window seen from an express train, it flickered for an instant in the distance and disappeared. He was relieved.""Noboru tried comparing the corpse confronting the world so nakedly with the unsurpassable naked figures of his mother and the sailor. But compared to this, they weren't naked enough. They were still swaddled in skin. Even the marvelous horn and the great wide world whose expanse it had limned couldn't possibly have penetrated so deeply as this ...""Whenever he dreamed of them, glory and death and woman were consubstantial. Yet when the woman had been attained, the other two withdrew beyond the offing and ceased their mournful wailing of his name."
—David
Mishima creates very evil characters but he doesn't condemn them or let them suffer the consequences of their actions. It's very unnnerving. But at the same time, he's an excellent writer and story-teller. He unloads a lot of philosophy in the text but the reader can't trust that that is what the writer is espousing. Is it just part of the story? What does the author really think about this idea or the treatment of this person. Like the mother. Most of his books I've read, the women are treated like dirt even though some are genuinely intelligent and interesting. Mishima went through the trouble of creating some intelligent interesting women, so why does he allow them to be all slapped up? Is his creation of intelligent interesting women subconsious and he truly is chauvanistic, or does he want the reader to condemn the actions of his protagonists without his telling them to do so? What I like about Mishima is that he doesn't hold back in brutality. He's raw and honest. And in honesty, he doesn't give real answers. He leaves strings untied and blanks to be filled by the readers imagination. Besides, who can really understand a person anyway? There is no single explanation to why someone behaves the way they do. It's like predicting cloud formations.
—Namrirru
