Voices of the Fallen Heroes and Other Stories

by Yukio Mishima, Stephen Dodd (Editor / Translator), John Nathan (Introduction / Translator)

A new selection of lyrically haunting short stories from a Japanese literary icon.

A writer is seized by apocalyptic visions; a voyeuristic marquis commits a brutal act; and a trio of beatniks dance to modern jazz in the ruins of an abandoned church. Here, stark autobiography contrasts with pure horror, and the tenderness of first love cedes to obsession, heartbreak and deathly beauty. A new selection of Mishima’s short stories from the 1960s, Voices of the Fallen Heroes traces the final decade of Mishima’s career and offers a unique glimpse into the mind of one of Japan’s greatest writers.

In the title story, a séance brings forth the spirits of young officers in the Imperial Army and the kamikaze pilots of the Second World War, who reproach the Emperor and mourn Japan’s modern decline. In another, Mishima recounts the true story of the time a deranged fan broke into his home at dawn, insisting on meeting the author and imploring him to ‘tell the truth’. Elsewhere, a beautiful youth achieves eternal life through violent murder, and an ill-matched couple seal their fate with a pack of cards, tangled in the web of time and unfulfilled desire.

Available in English for the first time, and carefully selected by expert translators, these captivating stories are the perfect introduction to Mishima's work, on the 100th anniversary of his birth.

Genres: Short Stories, Fiction, Japanese Literature, Japan, 20th Century, Classics, Asia

258 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 14, 2025

About the author

Yukio Mishima (三島 由紀夫) was born in Tokyo in 1925. He graduated from Tokyo Imperial University’s School of Jurisprudence in 1947. His first published book, The Forest in Full Bloom, appeared in 1944 and he established himself as a major author with Confessions of a Mask (1949). From then until his death he continued to publish novels, short stories, and plays each year. His crowning achievement, the Sea of Fertility tetralogy—which contains the novels Spring Snow (1969), Runaway Horses (1969), The Temple of Dawn (1970), and The Decay of the Angel (1971)—is considered one of the definitive works of twentieth-century Japanese fiction. In 1970, at the age of forty-five and the day after completing the last novel in the Fertility series, Mishima committed seppuku (ritual suicide)—a spectacular death that attracted worldwide attention.

Reviews

[Roman Clodia · Rating 4 out of 5]

I savoured a shared mood a hundred miles from loneliness, a harmonization of the human heart through communal death and mutual understanding.

This is a collection of late Mishima stories that show the breadth of his work and interests. It may not be a good starting point for someone new to Mishima, however, as none of them matched the breathtaking delicacy and brutality of Patriotism for me.

There are stories here that showcase the author's nationalist patriotism and the 'betrayal' of Emperor Hirohito. There are haunting ghost stories, and gothic-esque soul divisions where something unknown and almost unacknowledged emanates from the narrator. A striking tale set in America foregrounds a moment when the world stops in a fiery blast of annihilation, characterised here as a profound instance of complete and coherent human understanding as humanity is united in death.

There is something so distinctive about Mishima's vision, that disturbing aesthetic of morbidity and sensitivity.

Thanks to Penguin for an ARC via Netgalley

[emily]

Almost can't believe that I like this even less than I did Beautiful Star . But it's true, that's just my subjective view. Simply unmoved by the text, narrative, etc. ; maybe in terms of my sentiments regarding Mishima's work, I have (but finally) plateaued .

[Owen Hatherley · Rating 4 out of 5]

Like some of the other recently translated Mishima, most of this is extremely enjoyable - revealing a much funnier, weirder, more modern, less otherwordly and self-orientalising writer than previously known in English (and also one much more conscious of his own self-generated spectacle, as in a first-person story about him being accosted by a stalker). A couple of his more obviously fascistic stories are in here too, which is less fun, especially the fundamentally quite moronic title story.

[Fulya · Rating 4 out of 5]

Bu kitabı çok heyecanla elime aldım. Vintage bu sene Mişima’nın doğum günü olan 14 Ocak’ta daha önce hiç İngilizcede yayınlanmamış olan bu öyküleri bastı. Bana ulaşması da bir 10 günü buldu. Çok uzun zaman sonra hiç bilmediğim bir kitabının çıkması beni mutlu etti.
Kitapta 14 öykü var, 8 tane de çevirmeni var kitabın ama hepsi çok iyi iş çıkarmış, takdir ediyorum. Mişima’nın dilini başarılı bir şekilde aktarmışlar.
Maalesef bu tür öykü derlemelerini yazarların kendileri değil editörler derlediği için belki normal şartlarda yazarların yan yana getirmeyeceği öyküleri tek bir kitapta topluyorlar.
Benim Mişima’nın en iyi öykülerinden olduğunu düşündüğüm hepsi de ölmeden birkaç sene önce yazılmış 4 öykü var ki döne döne okuyabilirim. Mişima aynı dönem içinde hem Bereket Denizi dörtlemesine başlamış, hem Madame de Sade oyununu yazmış hem de Patriotism öyküsünün filmini yönetip başrolünde oynamış. Yani 1964-70 arası aşırı bir verimlilik yaşamış ve bu da as sonra bahsedeceğim dört öyküsünü olgunluk dönemi eserleri yapmış.

The Peacocks bir parktaki tavuskuşlarının hepsinin canice öldürülmesiyle başlıyor. Polis tavuskuşlarına hayran bir adamdan şüpheleniyor ve bu cinayetleri kimin işlediği öykünün sonunda şahane bir ters köşeyle ortaya çıkıyor. The Love at Dawn birbirinin gençliğini yaşatmak isteyen orta yaşlı bir çiftin bu gençlik saplantısı için başka insanlardan nasıl faydalandığını anlatıyor. The Strange Tale of Shimmering Moon Villa’da ise bir malikanenin saplantılı sahibinin saplantılarının ne boyutlara vardığını görüyoruz. From the Wilderness ise benim bu kitap basılmadan New Yorker’da ön okuma olarak yaptığım kitabın ilk öyküsüydü. Orada da hayran kalmıştım, tekrar okuyunca da hayran kaldım. Mişima’nın evini basan saplantılı bir hayranı onun çalışma odasına girer ve olaylar gelişir. Şimdi buradan bakınca bu dört öykü de Mişima’nın en sevdiği temalardan olan saplantı temasının etrafında dolaşıyor. Çok şahane hikayeler.
Geri kalanlar arasında ise Straberry, Cars, The Flower Hat ve Poor Papa iyi olmakla birlikte derlemenin gerisi olmasa da olurdu diyorum. Bakalım Türkçeye ne zaman gelecek.

[Tosh · Rating 3 out of 5]

It is a disappointing collection of short stories that Yukio Mishima wrote in his last decade. I have to think about why this volume is below the mark for Mishma, but I suspect that he was an artist who produced a lot, and not everything he wrote was top-notch. I now suspect that the translators and editors in the English language were able to cherry-pick his work and chose to (of course) publish the masterpieces.

Still, I love the author/artist and that he kept at it until his end. However, the work itself may not always be first-class, and now that his wife has passed on, we will see more of Mishima's writings. Hopefully, there is an unseen masterpiece among the pile of writings. Still, Mishima has given a lot to the world of books (and questionably other stuff), but he was, and still is, a fascinating figure. For the Mishima beginner or someone who wants to dip their toe into this world, start off with "Confessions of a Mask."

[James · Rating 5 out of 5]

Like DEATH IN MIDSUMMER, another classic collection of short fiction from Mishima. The story that gives this collection its title is a clear standout, but I also greatly enjoyed "The Flower Hat," "Moon," "Tickets," and "From the Wilderness," among others.

[Christopher Jones · Rating 5 out of 5]

Some passages in here were totally mesmerising ❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️

[Ksenia · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 ⭐️

One of the best things about this collection is its great introduction by John Nathan. As he puts it:

"Mishima's short stories, a large, variegated canvas of subjects and moods, open a small window on his creative process. They seem to have been written impulsively, dashed onto the page in a single session or two, a respite from the labour of erecting the edifice of a novel. Often enough, they represent a memorialization of moments in his life he wanted to preserve."

This is exactly what Voices of the Fallen Heroes is like - it's an assortment of vignettes, thoughts, concepts, ideas, symbols, political views - Mishima's recurrent themes and fixations condensed to 14 narrative sketches. It is definitely a book for people who are familiar with his work and life already; I would not recommend this to anyone as their first foray into Mishima.

Nevertheless, the pull of these short stories is impossible to resist. These are tales inhabited by ghosts, primarily concerned with moral and cultural decay, as well as existential discombobulation. Blending dreamlike atmosphere, almost approaching magical realism, with sinister, violent realism, almost approaching grunge, left me both charmed and horrified. Incapable of looking away, unsure of my own reality.

I primarily read the physical copy, but also listened to a few stories on audio. I would strongly recommend the audiobook version. Brian Nishii's wonderful performance imbues Voices of the Fallen Heroes with rhythm and drama, and brings them even more to life.

Personal favourites: "The Flower Hat", "Moon", "Cars", "Tickets", "The Peacocks", "True Love at Dawn", "Voices of the Fallen Heroes"

[Jade · Rating 4 out of 5]

jemig wat prachtig weer

[Charlie Taylor · Rating 5 out of 5]

Magical

[Alex Sarll]

Freshly translated into English, these are stories from Mishima's last decade, so I expected them to be him turned up to 11, especially given the bold, appalling, absurd way that decade would end. But for the first few, it really wasn't clicking for me; the stories were fine, but lacked the strange poisonous charm I associate with his work, the sense of being seated at an exquisite, toxic feast. I wondered if some of it might be down to issues with the translation, but while I struggle to believe a sentence like "The police were opposed to bringing out the traditional mikoshi (portable shrine)" clunked quite so hard in the original, there are multiple translators working on different stories here, and the same names seem to appear without any apparent consistency on the duds and the gems. Because it does improve; the extravagant crime and curdled beauty of The Peacocks is the first time I really got the insidious charge of him, but from there the collection takes flight, most impressively in the title piece, also by far the longest thing here. It's barely even a story, really, though the supernatural framing is interesting; I've always been impressed, and more so since visiting, that Japan was the one developed country never mug enough to fall for monotheism, but I was still unaware that Shinto incorporates possession rites reminiscent of Voodoo or the Pythia. Which is here mainly an excuse for Mishima to ventriloquise the lament of the title, a powerful, horrible brew of nationalism, betrayal, and murderous-suicidal homo-eroticism: "How unworthy and overwhelmed we feel! Our chests in their military tunics swell as we welcome our sovereign by raising our swords. We see before our eyes how the blindingly bright, silver-gleaming blades allow the drops of blood from the swords' tips to trickle down towards their hilts." All this in large part to bemoan the imperial abdication of godhead at the end of the War, something I've long found fascinating and, in the West at least, bizarrely underexplored. The craziest part is how much of the message from beyond emphasises that what has been lost can never be restored, even though that was precisely the cause in which Mishima was soon to sacrifice his life – as though he knew from the off that his coup would be vaguely farcical, but couldn't help attempting it anyway.

(Netgalley ARC, though I've been a bit lax about the 'A' on this one)

[Rahdika K · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a collection of 14 provocative tales that, frequently set against the backdrop of post-war Japan, examine existential melancholy, the intricacies of interpersonal relationships, and the destructive nature of selfish ambitions. Also explores the contradictions between individual identity, social expectations, and the transient aspect of life through rich characters and profound emotional struggles.

I absolutely loved reading these stories:
-The Flower Hat
-Tickets
-True Love At Dawn
-Voices of The Fallen Heroes
-The Dragon Flute

The longest story in this book was Voices of the Fallen heroes, while the rest were only a few pages long. I think this book is an excellent exploration of the human psyche, identity while the author also slides in some of his political views.

Overall, I really enjoyed reading this book and dissecting the metaphors that the author had included in the stories. These stories are rather compact but packed with amazing insights if the reader is willing to look beyond the characters and the settings.

Would definitely reccomend this book to be read and discussed.

Thank you to Times Reads for the review copy.

[Josh 蔡 · Rating 4 out of 5]

i read this on and off since around early june-- outside the titular story, true love at dawn and the dragon flute, the rest I had read more or less within the week
voices of the fallen heroes itself was quite an incredible short story, i've never read something quite like it-- a sort of mystical fascism combined with mishima's usual skill for beautiful, cold imagery is pushed up a notch, and made the story, the 2.26 coup, the kamikaze attacks, and idea of the sea and the afterlife; borderline a surreal and gothic story.

what interested me about all these short stories is they manage to overcome my initial skepticism or fatigue in the switching through of places, tone and theme thats inherent in short story collections read in a few sittings and made me emotionally engaged quite consistently.
8/10

[Ethan · Rating 3 out of 5]

Felt like a poor introduction to Mishima's overall work but I'm intrigued enough to pick up some of his novels. He seemed pretty on the level. Now to take a big sip of coffee and scroll to the "Coup attempt and suicide" section of his Wikipedia biography.

[K Sch · Rating 4 out of 5]

Strawberry 2/5
The Flower Hat 3/5
Moon 3/5
Cars 4/5
Poor Papa 4/5
Tickets 5/5
The Peacocks 5/5
True Love at Dawn 5/5
The Strange Tale of the Shimmering Moon Villa 4/5
From the wilderness 5/5
Voices of the Fallen Heroes 5/5
Companions 4/5
Clock 3/5
The Dragon Flute 5/5

[ThePageGobbler · Rating 3 out of 5]

Beautiful prose and the titular story is amazing but can’t say I was hugely jazzed by these. Somewhat anachronistic for the time he was writing (Yeats would have loved him) and filled with humourless fixations on love in particular, a lot of which leads to some very predictable short story forms. The usual focus on youth, war, etc. from someone of his political persuasions too. Very readable and good at articulating the fault lines of post-imperial Japan but without much irony or subtlety

[GONZA · Rating 3 out of 5]

Mishima is one of my favorite authors and one whose short stories I also tolerate, which is the genre I detest the most along with YA. That said, in my opinion, except for a few, there are some pretty forgettable short stories in this collection, as already mentioned though with exceptions. The themes are the usual ones anyway, death, sex, honor etc. The translator is different for each story, but as not being able to read the original myself, I can only assume it works because it sounds good.

Mishima é uno dei miei autori preferiti ed uno dei quali tollero anche i racconti, che sono il genere che detesto di piú assieme al YA. Detto questo, secondo me, tranne alcuni, ci sono dei racconti piuttosto dimenticabili in questa raccolta, come giá detto peró con delle eccezioni. I temi sono i soliti comunque, morte, sesso, onore etc.Il traduttore é diverso per ogni racconto, ma come al solito, non potendo io leggere l'originale, non posso che dare per scontato che funzioni, perché suona bene.

I received a digital advanced review copy from the publisher in exchange for a honest review.

[Andreea · Rating 4 out of 5]

Yukio Mishima’s Voices of the Fallen Heroes is a collection of short stories from the late period between 1962 and 1969, during the last decade of his life. The stories are grounded in Mishima’s long-standing obsessions: beauty and decay, nationalism, violence, and the unexplainable pull of death. The stories are interesting, and I found some catchy, but some also missed the punchline, the twist that makes you question what you read. However, the writing is exquisite, lyrical and brutal at times, direct and suggestive simultaneously.
The stories were written during a period of increased creativity for Mishima when he completed novels and plays and even played in a short film that he himself directed. His fiction is tightly connected to his politics, and these stories may sometimes reflect his convictions, particularly Voices of the Fallen Heroes, which shows a strong ideological preference for extreme nationalism. Some explore Japan’s identity post-war, some nostalgia for an imperial past, and Mishima’s belief in sacrifice as the ultimate form of beauty.

Poor Papa is a seemingly mundane domestic story exploring the impact of parents’ separation on a daughter. Itoko is 16 and lives with her mother, with whom she has a taut, conflictual relationship. As she grows, she looks more and more like her mother. On the other hand, she idolises her father, who left her mother for another woman, even if she didn’t feel the same when he was with them. She also starts idealising the woman her father is with, finding flaws in her mother that explain why her father has left. After an intense argument with her mother, Itoko leaves home to meet her father’s mistress and, perhaps, find some consolation there. But things are not as she thought them to be.

The Peacocks is a weird one with a supernatural undertone (hence why I liked it). A man has an obsession with peacocks, which he finds beautiful, so he visits the local Amusement Parks to observe them and immerse himself in their beauty. However, the peacocks are killed in a brutal attack, and an inspector investigates the murder by interviewing the man who was always present there. After the inspector leaves, the man ponders the intersection of beauty and death and starts regretting he was not the one who killed the peacocks as it would be an act of aesthetic perfection rather than cruelty, from his perspective. He sees murder as a way to preserve beauty in its most refined form rather than an act of destruction. As another batch of peacocks is killed again, the man accompanies the inspector to stalk and find the perpetrator. But they both have the odd experience while at it.

True Love at Dawn is another eerie story that follows a couple with weird encounters with younger people. Both the wife and the husband pick up young, beautiful people in bars and bring them home. Here, drugged, they trick them into acts they might not consent to. However, one of the people they picked up takes revenge on them and kills them. He can not explain why - and the story is the interview he gives to the police - seeing them together, kissing, was the most beautiful act he could see but also compelled him to destroy it. Precisely because it was too beautiful. It was a weird one, but I oddly liked it.

From the Wilderness is a semi-autobiographical account following a novelist whose house is attacked in the middle of the night by a deranged fan who wants to talk to him. The writer shares his experience with a mix of detachment and fascination, somehow feeling attracted to the young man who invaded his home, turning the otherwise personal event into a reflection on artistic obsession and the burden of fame. Is the young man a true perpetrator, or was he a part of the writer himself?

The titular story, Voices of the Fallen Heroes, is the most openly political in the collection. Structured as a séance session where the spirits of young officers who staged a failed 1936 coup speak from beyond the grave through a young priest, it reflects Mishima’s political views and beliefs. Later on, the officers are joined by the spirits of kamikaze pilots, lamenting their useless deaths. The story is a profound criticism of Emperor Hirohito’s denial of those who died in his name, reinforcing Mishima’s belief that post-war Japan had lost its honour. Structuring the story as a séance allows Mishima to create an idealised version of Japan’s fallen soldiers, positioning them as tragic figures whose loyalty was betrayed in the face of modernity.

His fixation with beauty and decay and how those two work together to create art is present in his stories here, as he seems to believe that beauty is feeling and should be destroyed before it disappears. These themes are present in his work, which culminated in his 1970 suicide after a failed coup attempt. Hence, this is not an easy collection to read, as it is filled with symbolism. The introduction was a great help to me in understanding the context of his stories and his struggles. I recommend these if you love Mishima’s previous work or want an introduction to his writing style.

[Divya Shankar · Rating 5 out of 5]

Voices of the Fallen Heroes is a collection of 14 stories by Yukio Mishima, edited by Stephen Dodd. With an introduction by John Nathan who has penned Mishima’s biography, it boasts of various translators at work. Those who have read Mishima at least once or know a little of his life would agree he is an amalgam of paradoxes. His writing combines ferocity with a certain tenderness, juxtaposes naivety with daredevilry. Even as he extols traditional Japanese values and criticizes its dilution by the Western thought, he travelled a lot to the West and hoped to win the Nobel Prize for Literature. So obsessed was he with the body, its beauty and appearance that ageing and its deterioration over time instilled the worst fear; an abrupt death in youth felt heroic and aesthetic. This obsession for bodily attributes and the realm of imagination/excitement it stirs in the onlooker features pronouncedly in his stories. Eroticism in prose shines, at times it’s veiled and at others plain/bare. The author’s fixation for the sea and islands is evident too.

Middle-aged men using a mix of time at hand and boredom for casual flings with young girls feature in stories ‘Strawberry’ (tr by Paul McCarthy) and ‘Cars’(Jeffrey Angles). There’s a brush with the supernatural in ‘Companions’ (tr by Paul McCarthy) and Tickets (tr by Juliet Winters Carpenter).‘The Dragon Flute’(tr by Sam Bett), the last story written by Mishima, is fleshed out from his experiences of training Tatenokai cadets.

The use of metaphor is stunning, especially in ‘The Flower Hat’ (tr by Stephen Dodd). Here, the narrator’s casual observations while seated on a bench in the Union Square in San Francisco on a Sep afternoon assume political hues, yielding a portrait of the post WWII world, one that he equates to a cracked glass container, uneasy and fragile. The immaculate attention to detail stumps us readers in the story Peacocks (tr by Juliet Winters Carpenter), the beauty of the bird is described with flamboyance and there is a dance of macabre when detailing its slaughter/death. The titular story is a masterpiece, a strongly political piece.

Each story in this collection written by Mishima in the last decade of his short life is more than a sum of just plot, characters and themes. It is extremely telling of the author's perspective, beliefs, obsession and fears. Every story here presents a little of Mishima in flesh and blood.

In the introduction to the collection, John Nathan writes, “Yukio Mishima wrote in a frenzy, as if his demons arrived with stories that he was compelled to tell in order to placate them.” That the author chose the pen to quell these demons but ended his life with a sword in a sepukku ritual leaves us readers on an unending quest to know him more, whether we agree with/like his thoughts or not.

Thank you Netgalley and Penguin UK Books for the copy of this fabulous collection.

[Trevelyanwright · Rating 4 out of 5]

Mishima: a review in two chapters

Part One

If Yuko Mishima is the poet of something, then he’s the poet of a queasy, unsettling feeling that pervades these twenty-odd short stories. They’re almost all set in contemporary Japan, and are firmly grounded in a realistic and secular style that Mishima’s more well-known novels sometimes eschew in favour of the period setting, the fable and the spiritual. Where does this quesiness spring from? Closeted sexuality is one source - as in the story that features an adolescent girl and her divorced father. The intensity of her feelings for him and her physical resemblance to her mother combine to unsettling effect. A much older man strikes up a relationship with a girl as they wait for the results of driving tests.Two middle-aged lovers keep themselves forever young by sleeping with their teenage dopple-gangers.

The threat of violence is another - a man obsessed by peacocks (such a Mishima animal) becomes a target of police enquiries after the birds are slaughtered at a local zoo. A voyeuristic nobleman meets a violent end after taunting a learning disabled child. If there’s a quintessential Mishima theme it involves dysfunctional sexual desire and bloody violence. Beneath the ordered surface of contemporary Japan: all modern conveniences, cars and cigarettes, lurk darker and more animalistic desires.

Part Two
Was ever an author’s biography and image so enmeshed with his work as Mishima - or perhaps as true to say no writer so carefully cultivated and self-mythologised his own image through his life and writing. Mishima was a reactionary and a far-right ideologue who extolled the martial and spiritual virtues of traditional Japan. Much the longest story in this collection - presented as a true incident - rehashes these views. A framing device of a traditional ceremony in which the gods inhabit the body of a priest sees two groups of totemic figures from Japan’s military past summoned: a group of young army officers who were executed after an attempted coup, and the Second World War kamikaze pilots. Only those with a very large appetite for extended discussions around whether the Emperor was betrayed, or he betrayed himself, or he was a god, or a man, will stick with this.

So stick with the stories - they’re a strong four, but this reader would counsel you to not feel bad about skipping through the title 'story.' On that basis four stars.

An ARC provided by Netgalley in return for an honest review.

On a lighter note Netgalley asked if I would like to connect with the author through events or interviews.

[Viviana Rizzo · Rating 3 out of 5]

**Thank you Penguin Classics and NetGalley for having offered me a copy in exchange for a honest review **
(Recensione in italiano in fondo)

🇬🇧
Unsettling, upsetting, nauseating and enchanting: this is the new short story collection by Yukio Mishima, “Voices of the Fallen Heroes”, edited by Penguin Classics.
Controversial personality, a bitter ed nationalist and an amazing, talented author, Mishima charmed me with his raw and poetic writing style, with this lexical force and literary fieriness.
I admit that what I love more is his writing style (thanks to the amazing translation by Penguin as well) than his short stories themselves, which often left me confused, although I considered them very interesting. The stories I appreciated most were the upsetting “Peacock”, a dizzy union between death and beauty, body frailty and memory, and “Voices of the Fallen Heroes”, the manifest of young Japanese heroes, the coupists of 26th February incident and WWII kamikazes, betrayed by the emperor when he declared his mere humanity and by the government’s controversial choices. I empathises with the young fallen of this story, belonging by a generation of youth betrayed and ignored by the current political system and by the past generations which hold the power. Apparently, this means to be young: be betrayed by the past.


🇮🇹
Inquietante, sconvolgente, nauseante e affascinante: questa è la nuova raccolta di racconti dedita da Penguin Classics di Yukio Mishima, “Voices of the Fallen Heroes”.
Personaggio controverso, un amareggiato nazionalista e autore incredibilmente talentuoso, Mishima mi ha affascinata con il suo stile poetico e crudo, con la sua forza lessicale e il suo ardore letterario. Ammetto che però ho amato più il suo stile di scrittura (anche grazie alla splendida traduzione offerta dalla Penguin) che i racconti in sé, che spesso mi hanno lasciato confusa, seppur li abbia considerati estremamente interessanti. Le storie che ho apprezzati maggiormente sono state l’inquietante “Peacock”, un vorticoso connubio tra morte e bellezza, tra la fragilità del corpo e il ricordo, e “Voices of the Fallen Heroes”, il manifesto dei giovani eroi giapponesi, i golpisti dell’incidente del 26 febbraio e i kamikaze della Seconda Guerra Mondiale, traditi dall’imperatore quando esso ha dichiarato la sua semplice umanità e dalle scelte controverse degli allora governi. Ho empatizzato molto con i giovani caduti di quest’ultimo racconto, appartenendo a una generazione di giovanə traditə e ignoratə dall’attuale classe politica e dalle generazioni passate che detengono il potere. A quanto pare questo significa essere giovanə: esser traditi dal passato.

[Zach · Rating 4 out of 5]

there's only three or four books of mishima's in translation i've yet to read, so it was a real blessing to see the announcement of a new translations of his later short stores. hardly a master of the form, there are stories here that veer dramatically in confounding directions, end with theatrical conceits that come across as silly, bizarre. his inclinations towards the gothic can sometimes swallow him whole and there's a clumsiness to some of the narratives that don't glisten with the immaculate polish of his full length work

and yet, so many of these stories were such a miracle to encounter. his description of male beauty stupefies and inspires, passionate love shines with the intensity of an entire sun in your hands, sudden strikes of violence splatter and stain to a physical, shocking degree. my favorites were the most decadent episodes depicting love in perverse forms as an aging couple looking to recuperate the beauty of their youth cuckold one another with a brash young man and woman, an aristocrat boy vanishes into the realm of vision and observation as he forces his playmate to take a woman on his behalf, a prostitute loses all mental constitution in love with her brooding object of desire.

i was inspired by mishima's imagination of what disturbed forms sensuality can take and found the experience of the book to be one that really makes the mind move. this slanted and obscure perspective on the vastness of human emotionality makes one see the unspoken motions of the heart as an entirely new thing.... it continues to sadden me all these years after first being exposed to him that a full life of beautiful literature like this was taken away by the author' own hand. but what does remain from his body of work remains electrifying more than a half century after his death

[Choppy · Rating 4 out of 5]

I enjoyed most of these short stories, even if it took me a while to get through the book. Some of these stories are breathtaking, maintaining an appropriately precise scope, beautiful prose and a surprising degree of depth — while other stories seem lost on me due to cultural ignorance, translation — and while I don't hate any of the stories, there were a few stories that I didn't particularly enjoy.

My favourite stories were the following, in no particular order:
- The Flower Hat
- Cars
- Tickets
- The Peacocks
- True Love At Dawn
- The Strange Tale of Shimmering Moon Villa
- From the Wilderness
- Voices of the Fallen Heroes
- The Dragon Flute

The other stories, particularly 'Companions' I did not enjoy. Some of these stories may require a better understanding of Japanese culture, language because certain terms were lost on me.

The stories that struck me as most meaningful and pertinent to Mishima's beliefs, passions, obsessions are the following:
- The Peacocks
- From the Wilderness
- Voices of the Fallen Heroes
- True Love At Dawn

Overall, many beautiful, enjoyable short stories that seem to be translated very well, considering how smooth the reading experience was. Some stories have a surprising degree of depth; other stories seem unfinished, brimming with lost potential; the author of the introduction is correct to state that these stories appear to have been written in a few sessions in an attempt to maintain whatever occupied Mishima's mind at the time — writing in a frenzy to preserve the memory or thought of the moment.

[Alan M · Rating 5 out of 5]

'I'm speaking of the vast wilderness surrounding the metropolis of my being. Unmistakably it's a part of me, but it is an unexplored, barren area that doesn't appear on my map. It is a region of desolation as far as the eye can see, no verdant trees or flowering plants, only a biting wind that dusts the top of jutting rocks with sand and then blows it away'

Mishima was, without a doubt, one of the most extraordinary literary figures of the 2oth century, and this new collection brings together fourteen short stories written in the 1960s. With his death in 1970, these represent a final frenzy of output, and for anyone familiar with his work they will come as no surprise in terms of their themes: beauty and decay, death, tradition (often with motifs drawn from Noh plays), nationalism and history. Two stories in particular - the titular 'Voices of the Fallen Heroes' and 'The Dragon Flute' - with their militaristic themes mean that the shadow of Mishima's death, and his whole world order, looms large over the book.

But there is so much more: strange obsessions, murder, beauty. Many of the stories take place near to the sea, another recurring motif in Mishima's works, and that just adds to the many levels of experience in these stories. The various translators do a remarkable job in capturing Mishima's style and motifs.

Perhaps because these are later works, new readers to Mishima may be put off, so some of his earlier work may be a better starting point. But each of these stories, and the collection itself, deserves to be read by anyone interested in this extraordinary writer. Uncomfortable at times it may be, these obsessions with beauty, death and decay, but the prose is sublime, lyrical and haunting. Mishima cuts to the very essence of the human soul and lays bare our darkest thoughts. In 'True Love at Dawn' a man is asked why he murdered a married couple:

'Because they were beautiful and real. That's it. That's why. I didn't have a single other reason to kill them.'

5 stars for definite.

[Gary Duckworth · Rating 5 out of 5]

The title story is the longest. The first time I read it I stopped half way through, and then started again. This time to the end. The last part is extremely powerful. I read the last part again this morning. Oh my goodness. The perspective here is entirely new to me. The thoughts very powerful. The sentiment too. I was very disturbed by it. Affected. Its implications. I thought, what if England had lost the war and there was an occupying force there. “Keep Calm and Carry on”.. was the standby campaign that never had to be used. The world changed. The changed world. Not a deity, a human.

Ah, the driving school. All British, Hillman, cars in the Japanese driving school, and all wanted MGs, and followed Lotus. The changed world. The immiseration of Britain since the 1960s.

The smoking child in London like a frog in the fog. Easy and gentle after the emotional shell shock of the ending of Fallen Heroes. Why did he water the bed? There’s a lot left unsaid throughout these stories. For me Katherine Mansfield’s short stories are better told. But I liked to think of Mishima writing these, at places where he was researching his long form fiction. Freeing his mind. The better To tell us of the firebombing of Tokyo.

[Alec Piergiorgi · Rating 4 out of 5]

Note: 3.5/5

I thought that, overall, this provided a good insight into the life and work of the late Yukio Mishima, as well as themes that pervaded his entire literary life. Not every story is a hit, but at the same time, none of these were bad or felt pointless; the worst any of them were, were just that they seemed a little underdeveloped.

In the introduction of my edition, the writer explained that these were written very late in Mishima's life and that he was nearly always writing, with most of these finished in only one or two sessions. You certainly do get that sense with some of these, as they just seem not, not polished per se, but not as fleshed out as they could've been. "Moon" was the biggest example of this, and I thought this one was so close to being something special, but kind of fell just short with its ending.

My favorites of this collection happened to be one after another: "Tickets," "The Peakcocks," "True Love at Dawn," and "The Strange Tale of the Shivering Moon Villa." There's a magical realism that pervades all of these stories, though Mishima would maybe refer to this more so as the innate spirituality of the Japanese homeland and people.

[Francis · Rating 4 out of 5]

Strawberry 4/5, The Flower Hat 3/5, Moon 2/5, Cars 4/5, Poor Papa 3/5, Tickets 4/5, The Peacocks 5/5, True Love at Dawn 4/5, The Strange Tale of Shimmering Moon Villa 5/5, From the Wildnerss 4/5, Voices of the Fallen Heroes 3/5, Companions 1/5, Clock 4/5, The Dragon Flute 2/5

An interesting set of short stories from Mishima's late career, in the years leading up to his suicide and coup attempt. The stories; as most of Mishima's novels mix War, Eros, Death, and Nietzschean Will. Some work more than others, his attitude for the West seems mixed with his Western Philosophy and love of the Greeks contrasting with his own need for the Divinity of the Emperor, and love of pre-war Japan. I think he's at his best when he deals with Romance as it provides a curtaling from self-reflection and provides the cherishing of life with Amor Fati.

[Ann (Inky Labyrinth) · Rating 2 out of 5]

Tickets, The Peacocks, and the title story Voices of the Fallen Heroes were the best three stories, coincidentally those were the three with a bit of a supernatural twist or surprise ending. It felt like Mishima was most in his groove there.

I don't think there was a single female character (besides his own wife and mother in From the Wilderness) who didn't have a description featuring their breasts. The better stories just didn't have women in them at all.

This was an interesting introduction to Mishima's vast body of work. I can't say if I'll read more from him, but I appreciate what I learned about Japan's history and literary canon.

Thank you Vintage for the gifted review copy.

[Matthew Zhao · Rating 4 out of 5]

After the weariness of creation, the invention of all manner of living things possessing purpose and utility, the peacock had no doubt come into being to manifest the idea of superlative futility.

Yukio Mishima is weird. These stories are strange, funny (not in a "haha" way but in a "pshft" way), and sometimes suggestive, and many have twists that are shocking or, in some ways, anticlimactic (but surprising all the same). The story in the title was my least favorite to be honest, but may also have been because I was ready to read something else and it was the last story.

[Hunter · Rating 4 out of 5]

This collection of short stories contains a few gems that I will continue to think about for a long while yet. Some stories fell a bit flat for me but never would I have considered skipping one.

Mishima writes so well the feelings of the enraptured, those driven to ecstasy and obsession, often focusing his stories around an event that becomes emotionally transcendent for the characters.

In addition to fiction many of these stories are autobiographical, describing his feelings during real event that occurred in his life.

I have not been a fan so far of his long form fiction, this collection did show me that in short story form I can love this authors work.