Yukio Mishima, Temple of the Golden Pavilion

[This book was read for Bookbug in April 2025]

The Temple of the Golden Pavilion was my introduction to the literary Mishima. Having been somewhat familiar with Mishima's only directorial work in film, and his infamous nationalist politics which culminated in a failed coup, this novel was a mild surprise. For one thing, its themes were oddly resonant with the ones in Osamu Dazai's No Longer Human, at least as far as self-loathing and the desire for suicide is concerned.

I was also struck by the lengthy philosophical meditations on the nature of beauty and desire. While these meditations, were not posed in epistemic terms familiar to me, I found them quite engaging, and almost pleasurable to read. The philosophical thrust appeared to be oriented in the direction of Nietzsche's thought, but I haven't read and engaged with nearly enough of Nietzsche's writings in the last half-decade to make that claim with any confidence. I did, however, find the fact of Mizoguchi's every sexual encounter being interrupted by thoughts of the temple, extremely funny, though I have reservations about whether Mishima intended for it to be funny.

What remained unsurprising was the imbrication of Mizoguchi's self loathing to his disability; now, this aspect is far more complex than it first appears, for it is contrasted with the physically disabled Kashiwagi's lack of self loathing (or rather, complex relationship to self-loathing), and the posthumous revelation of Tsurukawa's abundant self-loathing, despite his lack of disability. Regardless, I am not optimistic about what may be excavated about Mishima's views on disability should a systematic inquiry be undertaken. It is, of course, entirely relevant to the novel's underlying theme concerning beauty, for it continuously throws into relief the interplay between perfection and imperfection.

There are perhaps, in the shadows of the narrative, a criticism of the life of Zen Buddhist monks — this appears to be woven into the events of the narrative, and into the analysis of the tales from its teachings — but again, the remoteness of these aspects from my own context renders them rather obscure, arousing some small curiosities, nothing more. In the end, I remain unsure of how I feel about the novel; it demands a re-read and then another, and perhaps a revisiting of No Longer Human to compare and contrast, especially since the latter originates on the other side of the political divide.