Life for Sale

by Yukio Mishima, Stephen Dodd (Translation)

“A propulsive, madcap story” ( The New York Times ) about a salaryman who decides to put his life up for sale in the classifieds section of a Tokyo newspaper after a botched suicide attempt. • "An outstanding writer not only of Japan, but of the world." — The Atlantic

After salaryman Hanio Yamada puts his life up for sale, interested parties quickly come calling with increasingly bizarre requests. What follows is a madcap comedy of errors, involving a jealous husband, a drug-addled heiress, poisoned carrots—even a vampire. For someone who just wants to die, Hanio can't seem to catch a break, as he finds himself enmeshed in a continent-wide conspiracy that puts him in the cross hairs of both his own government and a powerful organized-crime syndicate. By turns wildly inventive, darkly comedic, and deeply surreal, in Life for Sale Yukio Mishima stunningly uses satire to explore the same dark themes that preoccupied him throughout his lifetime.

Genres: Fiction, Japan, Japanese Literature, Classics, Asia, Novels, Literature

192 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1968

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

[Adam Dalva · Rating 4 out of 5]

Propulsive romp from Mishima, a major departure from anything I've seen by him. This is an intentionally campy, pulpy novel about a man who decides to sell his own life. A sequence of linked vignettes unspools - there are vampires, spies, rants about carrots, and a fairly ludicrous number of sex scenes. The book has low stakes, so Mishima's occasional turns toward the philosophical don't land, but this is a fun satire, and an interesting complication in his oeuvre.

[Tim · Rating 4 out of 5]

Years ago I read a little book called Pulp by Charles Bukowski in which he tried to write an absurdist comedic noir. There were aspects of it that I really enjoyed, but a lot that I felt was flawed. Now it's Mishima's turn to do the exact same thing.

The plot: Hanio Yamada wants to die. After a botched suicide attempt, he comes up with a new idea. He will put an ad out in the newspaper, putting his life for sale. Someone will pay and have him die in a way that will at least aid someone else. What follows is a series of misadventures in which each time he somehow manages to survive his client's seemingly deadly task.



Well... this is as absurd as noir gets. I can not stress this enough: this is one of the most bizarre books I have ever read. Tell me, what other book can you find botched suicide attempts, gangsters, conspiracies, a dinner conversation with a plush mouse, a vampire and carrots used in an espionage scheme? Oh, and I'm not even covering half of the batshit insane things in this novel... Each client's task becomes increasingly absurd, to such and extent that one can't help laugh.

Written at the same time as his most literary ambitious project, his Sea of Fertility series, and serialized in the magazine Weekly Playboy... this was obviously a commercial project written for the money. Yet, especially when one considers the depth of his other project at the time, it also seems like he wrote it for a break. This book is ridiculous. This is Mishima, well, having fun. It's silly, intentionally so (CARROTS), and I imagine after a while he had to be sitting there shaking his head in amazement that they were paying him to write this.

Is it a good book? Not really. It's an extremely fun send up of pulp noir but it's extremely flawed. A few plot lines are left dangling (one actually frustrating as it seemed to be something set up for later and disregarded). I honestly would say that many fans of Mishima will be incredibly disappointed reading it as he very clearly is not aiming at making a grand statement about the world (and when he does insert what could be a grand statement it comes off comedic as it's hard to take anything seriously here). I can't really recommend the book for everyone, but...

...

To hell with it, 4/5 stars, because honestly it's that damn fun.

[Matteo Fumagalli · Rating 5 out of 5]

Videorecensione: https://youtu.be/s_bOeZh-DXc

Mishima ha avuto una vita breve ma ha scritto tantissimo.
Ed è una gioia quando un suo libro inedito viene riesumato e pubblicato a sorpresa. Soprattutto perché la garanzia di qualità è sempre comprovata da un livello altissimo.
Ogni sua opera è diversa dalle altre, ma tutte compongono un discorso estremamente coerente dal punto di vista stilistico e tematico.
C'è il Mishima politico, quello introspettivo, quello sanguigno, quello frivolo e satirico.
E poi c'è quello di "Vita in vendita" che è esplosivo, divertentissimo, pulp, surreale.

Un romanzo ricco di inventiva e colpi da maestro.
Scritto benissimo, con la solita prosa del giapponese gloriosamente perfetta, ed estremamente coinvolgente. Si legge in un soffio, tra ribaltamenti e colpi di scena, con un protagonista irresistibile (Hanio, imperturbabile eroe pacco-polacco sempre munito di acidissimo sarcasmo).
A che conseguenze può portare mettere la propria vita in vendita? Può essere davvero il punto di svolta definitivo dopo che i caratteri stampati su un quotidiano scambiati per scarafaggi sono diventati movente lucidissima per un suicidio fallito?
"Vita in vendita" è un tour de force irresistibile che mischia in un frullatore impazzito spy story e commedia nera e dove anche i personaggi secondari rimangono indimenticabili.
Basti pensare alla mia preferita: una sommessa bibliotecaria che ruba dalla biblioteca in cui lavora una preziosissima (e pericolosissima) enciclopedia sulle specie di coleotteri che, tramite ipnosi, possono condurre chiunque al suicido.
Ma ci sono anche degli uomini/spia super-addestrati stroncati da carote avvelenate con il cianuro e vampire condannate dalla consapevolezza che una volta succhiato il sangue dalle arterie del loro amato, quello morirà.

Ma soprattutto c'è anche una bellissima riflessione, costante e sottotesto, sulle sfaccettature della solitudine e sull'impossibilità di accettare le grottesche regole che dominano i rapporti sociali.

PAZZESCO.

[Henk · Rating 3 out of 5]

A weird, almost Dali like book that reminds me of a lot of spy movies
To say that human life had no meaning is the easy part. But Hanio was struck all over again by the huge amount of energy required to live a life filled with so much meaninglessness.

Clear fascination with death, the meaninglessness of life, suicide, lots of beautiful women and violence come back in this trippy short book. Reads easily but left me rather underwhelmed, because like Hanio, the main character, you as reader also have a hard time taking everything serious.
Quite interesting how conspiracy theories and secret societies (the ACS, Asia Confidential Service) come back in the book, but unfortunately don't really lead to a pay-off.

It's a weird world Hanio ends up into, quite like the feeling some Haruki Murakami books bring with them. Interesting enough hippy culture is vilified in Life for Sale, but some of the thoughts of Hanio have psychedelic qualities, like: Or, you're playing with a cat, when suddenly deep in its wide meowing maw, reeking of fish, you see jet-blacked ruined streets stretching out before you, like the burnt-out remains of a city after a major air raid.

In the end, despite escapades with a vampire (and an amount of sex with random women James Bond would be jealous of) Hanio starts to see the value of life once more, but rather than uplifting this leads to quite some tension and concern: Come to think of it, he remembered something he had learnt long ago, but had subsequently forgotten - that living and worrying were one and the same thing

However society is not necessarily forgiving and the ACS turns out to be more real (perhaps) than expected, making the ending of the book more grim than I anticipated:
Are you saying that every person must have an address, a home, a wife and kids, and a job?
It’s not me that says it. It's society.
So anyone slightly different is human trash?
You said it.

[Han · Rating 1 out of 5]

This story could have been interesting if the female characters weren't written as either ugly and in love with the lame main character, a sex object, or a murderous psycho.

[Jenna ❤ ❀ ❤ · Rating 4 out of 5]

TW: suicide

This is an odd little book that is hard to categorize. Fun and strangely mesmerizing... but weird. It's about a young guy who, realizing that life ultimately has no meaning, tries to kill himself. He had no serious problems, no heartbreak or financial worries or illness, no mental anguish he couldn't live with anymore. He just decides there's no meaning, so why stay alive.

Hanio has this revelation and, "his spirits lifted" from the insight, trots off to a pharmacy to buy a bottle of sedatives. He then heads off to the movies, watches a triple feature, and goes to a bar to have a drink. He tries to impress a girl by telling her he's going to kill himself and is disappointed that she's not affected by the information.

Perhaps if he'd managed to elicit more of a reaction from her he wouldn't have gone through with it? I don't know, but then there wouldn't have been a book so she has to not care. Hanio leaves the bar and boards a train. Once seated, he swallows the sedatives.

I found this implausible and was annoyed by it -- suicide isn't an action people do lightly. It takes a lot of courage, pain, and hopelessness to propel one to make the most final (if successful) of actions. 

Someone who is going to kill themself doesn't go and tell strangers what they're planning. They don't tell anyone. This guy obviously didn't want to end his life or 1) he wouldn't have told anyone, and 2) he wouldn't have taken the pills in a public place where someone would find and save him.

Unlikely as it is, that's what happens. Hanio, upon regaining consciousness in hospital, decides that he's going to put the burden of taking his life on someone else and writes up an ad for his life.

This all happens in the first seven pages of the book and it's where the story takes off. I stopped caring how improbable it was at that point and just went along for the ride. 

Various people with various reasons pay Hanio for his life. They hire him to undertake assignments that imperil his life and might kill him.

This was reminiscent of a Haruki Murakami novel: weird and surrealistic and dreamy. I haven't read enough Japanese authors to say if this is characteristic of Japanese fiction but I was surprised by the similarities to Murakami. 

It was a fun trip to take with quirky characters and an entertaining storyline. It's unlikeliness ended up adding to its charm.

[Tom · Rating 4 out of 5]

Failed suicide?
Cockroaches?
Gangsters?
Vampires?
Syphilis?
Spies?
Secret organizations?
LSD?
I'm sold.

[Hanneke · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was quite a very strange but delightful novel to read. How to best kill yourself if you do not wish to commit suicide yourself but let any interested person who desires to perform that act have the freedom to do this to her/his best wishes. I enjoyed to read about all the failed attempts, often resulting in the worst circumstances for the people who took the challenge. Great stories, often very hilarious. I did enjoy this exceptional novel.

[Meike · Rating 4 out of 5]

English: Life for Sale
Mishima wrote many very serious novels that revolve around suicide and those who know about his untimely death 50 years ago (he ritually disemboweled himself after a failed military coup) are aware that this topic is central to understanding Mishima's work and personality. But this author also had a wicked sense of humor - and this unruly novella proves it once more. 27-year-old Hanio (young, male, beautiful, successful, ergo: a typical Mishima character) is fed up with the boring mundaness of life and tries to kill himself - but he fails. Now he's even more annoyed and decides to sell his life, and not to the highest bidder, but to everyone who shows up at his door and suggests a price.

And then the book turns into an entertaining, bizarre romp that reads like Mishima is laughing about his own obsessions: The buyers offer lots of money and all missions Hanio is payed to perform fail to kill him. He meets various characters from different walks of life (and death) and his adventures start to gain a Don Quixotesque quality, the windmill he is fighting being his own inability to perish. Will he change his mind or persist in his dark quest?

"Life for Sale" is funny Mishima, twisting Western existentialist writing, espionage drama and novel of ideas into an evil amalgamation, a joyful explosion of wild storytelling. One day I'll be a Mishima completist.

[Flo · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was the most 'fun' Mishima yet, which doesn't make any sense if you read the synopsis. Probably because it is more genre fiction than literary fiction. It was also the first time that a Mishima gave me Murakami vibes. It remains mediocre in his bibliography, but at least it's different.

[Carlos · Rating 4 out of 5]

In her famous essay Mishima ou La vision du vide, Marguerite Yourcenar compares the Japanese novelist with a Samurai who opposes in his mind two seminal ideas: the sinister ease of dying against the heroic struggle of living. The intrinsic sense of a dichotomy that has been present in Japan throughout its history and is very much a part of his literary legacy. And Yourcenar goes even further, by considering Yukio Mishima’s ritual suicide in 1970, as “the act of a hero” and his ultimate masterpiece.

Life for Sale is a pulp novel written in 1968. It was published in installments in the magazine Weekly Playboy from May to October of that year. In Japan it is not unusual for a novel to appear in a newspaper or magazine. Junichiro Tanizaki, for example, published his most famous novel The Makioka Sisters in serialized form over two years in the literary magazine Chūōkōron in the nineteen forties, and Eiji Yoshikawa’s celebrated epic novel Musashi appeared in the newspaper Asahi Shimbun between 1935 and 1939.

So I would assume that Life for Sale was a commission for which Mishima was very well payed. And this answers in part the questions that arose when I was reading the first pages. Why would Mishima venture in such a literary genre? Why would he embark in a project so removed from the rest of his work? This question is particularly relevant since he was working at the time in his last masterpiece, the monumental tetralogy The Sea of Fertility. Why invest the time to write such a light novel? And also, why does the English translation appear now, more than fifty year later? The last question is probably answered or explained by the fact that the novel was re-released in 2015 in Japan, and it became a "surprise best-seller" (from an article in The Japan Times, in August, 2019) that was turned into a TV series three years later. The English translation, which reads quite fluently, is by Stephen Dodd.

Suicide had been in Mishima’s mind for most of his life. To decide when and how one dies is considered a luxurious choice in Japan and as Yourcenar points out, a heroic act. In Life for Sale, the protagonist is Hanio Yamada, a 27-year-old office worker unsatisfied with his life, who no longer finds the will or desire to continue living.

“Why are people so desperate to live? Isn’t it unnatural that people who have not even been exposed to the danger of death should feel a desire to live?” (Chapter 49)

In the opening chapter, we find Hanio regaining consciousness after a failed suicide attempt. He had consumed “a large amount of sedative on the last overground train that evening”. But as he realizes he did not succeed, he decides to place an ad in the Classified section of the local newspaper with the enigmatic title “Life for sale”. And thus, the novel takes off in the form of a detective story, with Hanio’s clients feeding chapter after chapter of incredible stories, some of them so bizarre that one wonders how Mishima’s impeccable writing could embrace such an absurd plot.

Things take a little time to sink in, and once we realize that it is precisely this type of narrative (the extravagant taking over the realistic), that fits exactly the needs of the pulp magazine style, that we let go and enjoy the ride. Mishima puts his prodigious talent to work and the result is a very funny and entertaining novel, filled with Kafkaesque situations over fifty short chapters.

Just then, his eyes encountered something hideous. On top of the fallen paper was a cockroach, absolutely still. At the very moment he stretched out his hand, the glossy mahogany-colored insect scurried away with extraordinary vitality and lost itself among the printed words.
He picked up the paper nevertheless, placed the page he had been reading on the table and cast his eyes over it again. Suddenly, all the letters he was trying to make out turned into cockroaches. His eyes pursued the letters as they made their escape, their disgustingly shiny dark-red backs in full view.
“So the world boils down to nothing more than this.”
It was a sudden revelation. And it was this insight that led to an overwhelming desire to die.

One last thought. As I was reading the novel, Haruki Murakami came to mind. I have always thought that Mishima and Murakami are completely different writers. Here, however, they seem to meet in an unexpected way, since they both feed their narrative with Western elements. The idea of course has to do with the light character of this novel, and that is as far as the resemblance goes. Murakami’s world seems to be nourished by the fantastic and the unreal (the metaphysical, some would say); Mishima on the other hand, feeds his fiction with the heroic and the spiritual, representing the deepest Japanese ideals. He is the creator of a unique style of narrative that is deeply rooted in the immense literary tradition of Japan (and as I already mentioned, with Western influence as well), and Murakami, although a good storyteller, seems to be a chameleon that changes from book to book, borrowing from others and struggling constantly to find a convincing voice. In other words, in the hands of Murakami, the present novel would end up being only a mediocre attempt.

Life for sale along with The Frolic of the Beasts and the novella Star, are the three works of Mishima that have been published recently in English.

[L.S. Popovich · Rating 4 out of 5]

Was Mishima embarrassed by this decidedly quirky, goofy little book? Worlds away from his other fiction, this posthumous novel reads like a mystery thriller, with a light-hearted tone, dark themes, and represents a gray-area exploration of the human psyche. Is the main character dissatisfied, or simply mad? Are the oddballs he gets entangled with justified, selfish, or reprehensible?

I am no expert in Mishima's work, but I have read enough of it to notice a preoccupation with death, particularly suicide. This fascination flows through much of his writing, it seems to me, and stems from the fact that he wrote with a purpose, and wished to apply this purpose to his life, to live with meaning, and to stir change in the hearts of people. Death takes on presence in life, stakes a claim, gathers the toil and accumulation of our struggles in order to quantify and weigh our existence. Surely, this is one of the least traditional of his works. Inhabiting the land of Kobo Abe, having departed the safer fictional waters of Tanizaki and Soseki. It was nonetheless an elegant, absurd, enjoyable novel, fanciful in the extreme, dreamlike and memorable. It suffers from deus ex machina and complete randomness at parts, but also acquires quite a bit of charm upon reflection.

The concept of a 'life for sale' may never have been taken so literally as in this work. Hanio creates the advertisement and is met with a surprising amount of success in his venture. But what he learns from his experiment differs from his original goal. Formulaic though it is, the episodic nature of the novel is by turns melodramatic and psychedelic, gruesome and pulpy, cheesy, cartoonish, yet always morally significant.

Scholars may be at a loss to explain how imperative Life for Sale is in World Literature, but it will not fail to entertain.

[Deniz Balcı · Rating 5 out of 5]

Bir Yukio Mişima kitabı ile burdayım, şükürler olsun! O kadar seviyorum ki Mişima'yı ve edebiyatını, tutkulu kişiliği ve benzersiz karakterini... Ondan yeni bir kitap okumayı beklemediğim bir anda 'Satılık Hayat' sürpriz bir şekilde karşıma çıkınca bir tık kendimden geçtiğimi söylemem lazım. Mişima'nın cesur hayat öyküsü, herkesten farklı olması, radikal düşünme biçimi her zaman ilham kaynağım olmuştur. Keşke bu dünyadan ayrılmayı tercih etmeseydi ve daha uzun süreler yazmış olsaydı, keşke.

'Satılık Hayat'a gelecek olursak, bu roman yazarın destansı serisi 'Bereket Denizi Dörtlemesi'nden önce; 1968 senesinin mayıs ve ekim ayları arasında bir dergiye tefrika olarak yazdığı, aynı yılın aralık ayında da kitap olarak basılan sıradışı eseridir. Gerçi Mişima'nın bütün metinleri sıradışıdır ama buradaki kastım, yazarın genel edebiyatından çok uzakta duran ve onun bibliyografisi içinde farklılaşan bir eser olarak öne çıkmasıdır. Mişima, bu romandan sonra efsane dörtlemesini kaleme alıp, sansasyonel bir şekilde -seppuku ile- hayatına son verince gözler ağır top eserlerine ve onun hayatı algılama şeklini gösteren kitaplarına yönelmiştir. Zannımca o arada biraz kaynamış 'Satılık Hayat'. Fakat son yıllarda keşfedilen bu kitap, güncel okur tarafından sahiplenilmiş; hatta 2018'de Japonya'da tvye bir de dizi olarak uyarlaması yapılmış.

'Satılık Hayat'ta Hanio isimli başkarakterimizin reklam şirketindeki işinden istifa edip, kendi hayatını satmaya karar vermesi sonrası gelişen olayları okuyoruz. Son derece aksiyonlu, yer yer Amerikan filmlerinin senaryolarını anımsatan bir taslak şeklinde ilerleyen fakat tüm ucuzluğuna rağmen satır aralarında Mişima'nın kendine has benzersiz sesini duyabildiğimiz bir metin olarak Mişima'nın şimdiye kadar okuduğumuz bütün eserlerinden farklı bir yerde konumlanıyor 'Satılık Hayat'. Bu yüzden eserin bir 'pulp fiction' olarak pazarlanmasına şaşmamak gerek. Hayatı sürekli alınılıp, ölümlerden dönen karakterimiz Hanio ile büyük bir aksiyonun içerisinde buluruz kendimizi. Son derece çılgın ve alışık olduğumuz Japonya imgelemelerinin dışında bir evren sunar bize Mişima burada. Vampir de çıkar karşımıza, ajanlar da, gizli servisler de, hippiler de... Günümüz Japon Edebiyatında sıkça karşımıza çıkan tarzda ve izleklerde bir romanı Mişima'ya 1968'de yazdıran motivasyon neydi, benim en çok merak ettiğim şey bu oldu roman boyunca. Sayfa 184'teki şu cümleler ise merakıma verilmiş şahane bir cevap gibiydi: "Ne sıkıcı, ne sıkıcı! Şöyle eğlenceli bir şeyler yok mu? diyordu on milyon insan göz göze geldiklerinde selamlaşmak yerine. Bir büyük kentin muazzam hüsranı, tatminsizliği, früstrasyonu işlemişti bu sözlere. Orada burada planktonlar misali kaynaşan gecenin gençleri. Hayatın, yani insan hayatının anlamsızlığı. Tutkuların tükenmişliği... Çiğnerken tatları bir anda yok olup gidince tüh diye tükürüp yolun kenarına attığımız sakızlar misali güvenilmezlikleri sevinçlerimiz ve zevklerimizin...Baştan çıkarmanın bolca olduğu fakat tatminin olmadığı şu büyük kent..." Ne kadar Mişimaca bir söylenme, şikayetlenme hali değil mi? O yüzden onun edebiyatını yaparken boş atmadığını, muazzam bir hiciv ortaya koyduğunu gözden kaçırmamak lazım.

Geleneksel Japonya'nın erdemleri, onurlu savaşçılar, etik sahibi bireyler, modernite ile mücadele veren özgür ruhlar yok bu romanda. Modernitenin yozlaştırdığı bir toplumun içinde, hayatının değersizliğini bir şova dönüştüren başına buyruk bir bireyin, bir isyancının eğlenceli ama düşündürten, Amerikanca bir öyküsü var. Sayfa 233'te bir taşra polisinin ağzına yerleştirdiği şu cümleler farklı ve bu modern dünya içerisinde kendine bir yer bulamayan aşkın ruhlara genel geçer bakışı çok güzel özetliyor. Şöyle diyor o cümlelerde Mişima polisin ağzından: "Hayatını satmak sana kalmış. Ceza kanununda yasaklanmış bir fiil değil sonuçta. İşbu halde suçlu olarak görülecek şahış birinin hayatını satın alan ve ondan kendi hain emelleri doğrultusunda istifade eden kişidir. Hayatını satan lavuk suçlu falan değildir. Sadece bir insan müsveddesidir, yeri de çöp tenekesidir. Olay bu kadar basit." İnsan müsveddesi tanımlaması benzersiz, dikkat çekerim.

Yorumu bitirmeden çeviriden de bahsetmek istiyorum. Devrim Çetin Güven o kadar güzel bir çeviri armağan etmiş ki bize, nasıl teşekkür etsek, nasıl saygılarımızı sunsak bilmiyorum. Kobo Abe'nin yine Devrim Çetin tarafından Türkçeleştirilen, Sel Yayıncılık'tan çıkan 'Kutu Adam'ı olağanüstü bir çeviridir. Keza Tanizaki'nin 'Bazıları Isırgan Sever' çevirisi de hayranlık uyandırıcıdır. Bu çeviriler gibi 'Satılık Hayat' da hakikaten okurken keyif veren kusursuzlukta karşımızda. Çevirinin ve çevirmenin önemini gösteren nitelikte bir örnek olmuş, teşekkürler Sevgili Devrim Çetin Güven. Mutlaka hepsine yer açın.

Demem o ki Mişima yine bildiğimiz Mişima ama bu sefer bambaşka bir biçim ve içerikte derdini anlatıyor. İyi ki de anlatıyor, oh dedim be, oh... Darısı çevrilmeyen diğer kitaplarının başına diyelim. İnsan müsveddelerine selam olsun.

[George Ilsley · Rating 5 out of 5]

Yukio Mishima was famously (and astonishingly) prolific. This novel was originally published in 1968 — that is, just before the publication of Mishima's tetralogy, and only 2 years before his spectacular death in 1970. With the benefit of hindsight, one must look at this short satirical novel (about a failed suicide) in view of the tetralogy to come (which is much too full of young men killing themselves) and then Mishima's own ritualized self-annihilation.

Most of Mishima's work is still not available in English. However, in the last few years, three novels that I know of have been translated, and this is the third I have read (the other two are "Star" and "The Frolic of the Beasts").

"Life For Sale" is at this moment my favourite of the three. It is funny, satirical, wacky, and only a little philosophical about living, the desire for life, and the impulse to destroy oneself. I looked at it as a kind of key to unlock meaning from the subsequent novels. There is an emerald in this novel, a fake jewel, which is used to decode encrypted telegrams at the Embassy for "Country A". This novel is like that fake emerald, a kind of prism through which one can view the coded mysteries of the final years of Mishima's life.

Five stars because I laughed out loud.

[Tosh · Rating 5 out of 5]

I think I read everything that is translated into English by Yukio Mishima. Recently three more works came out, which means the Mishima estate is allowing more translations of his excellent writing. "Life for Sale" is very much a pulp-style story. It reminds me in of parts of the books by Edogawa Rampo. Not in its violence, but its pulp-style of prose writing. And this is very much a page-turner, with some absurdity attached to the narrative. Mishima wrote this book in 1968, almost exactly two years before he committed suicide. There are great lightness and humor, but there are substantial traces of the Mishima aesthetic throughout the novel.

The book takes place during the student riots in Shinjuku, and the 'spring' of the counter-culture in Japan. Mishima was very much the opposite of those students, yet, I suspect he admired them as well. The same with the Hippies taking LSD. Anything going against convention was the sugar in Mishima's tea. In 1968, this was the height of his right-wing stance, as well as having his private army. On the other hand, Terayama, the great writer, filmmaker, and playwright, was making his mark in Japan as a combination of Artaud and Fellini.

The story is about a man who tried to commit suicide for no real reason; he survives. He then decides to sell his life to whoever comes to his apartment. Money is not an issue, but a lot comes his way. I will say no more because of the fun of reading this book are the twists and turns. I think some will think of "Life for Sale" as a minor work, but for me, it's my favorite Mishima.

[Matthew Ted · Rating 3 out of 5]

126th book of 2020.

It was very hot yesterday here in England, which, on the whole, we are not very used to. I was at my friend's flat with another friend, both of whom I had lived with at University. We had not seen each other in a long while. As one of my friends played some bizarre video game where you play as a naughty goose terrorising a town I picked up this book, which he had brought down for me to borrow. In the next three and a half hours it took him to complete the said goose game, I had read all but thirty pages of this. It would have been far nicer to have read the whole thing and handed it right back to him to take home, though.

This novel is Mishima just stretching his creative legs. It's a pulp novel, and it is completely different from anything else he has written. The writing is, for Mishima, poor and sloppy and the plot is as bizarre as the goose game. Because it was originally serialised 21 times in Japan's Weekly Playboy you can sense the issues it must have gone through; the novel is essentially made up of episodes or vignettes, almost like adventures within the main story. The episodic structure makes for a repetitive read, though the plot is certainly different, with vampires, LSD, secret organisations, rants about carrots, suicide and sex. It is a hodgepodge of Camus' The Stranger and a Raymond Chandler novel. The slight glimmers of philosophy that come through the ridiculous narrative seem forced and misplaced. Compared to something like Mishima's Spring Snow or The Temple of the Golden Pavilion, this book is weak. It's a mediocre fun read though, and suitable for reading with any form of goose-terrorising game in the background.

[emily · Rating 5 out of 5]

‘He simply could not fathom why people got married and ended up trapped for life, or became company employees working at the beck and call of others. Better to spend all his money. If he found himself penniless, suicide was always there as an option.’

4.5 – but I’m in the mood to round that off to a 5. Vampires and LSD??? Why wasn’t that in the blurbs? I would have read it immediately. I was surprised by how ‘modern’ this novel felt compared to his more famous ones, so I looked it up. This was written/published(?) only a few years before his death – which this was very possibly set in the 60s? The only reason I felt hesitant to give it a full 5-star rating was because of the ending, but after letting it all sit and settle for a while – I’m starting to really appreciate the unsatisfying end – it makes so much sense now why Mishima would do that. It complements the whole story as a whole. But even so, I’ve got a feeling that more hardcore Mishima fans will not find this particular Mishima novel appealing. I’ve not read his tetralogy so I can’t compare, but it’s definitely nothing like The Temple of the Golden Pavilion.

So far, I’ve read 3 (very different) Mishima novels, and I still don’t know which I like best. The three of them are like three separate grand love affairs – and it would make them so much less legendary if one could easily prefer one over the other. Mishima is a fucking fantastic writer. I thought Dazai was my kind of lad, but reading this novel reminded me a lot of Dazai’s No Longer Human, except I enjoyed this one so much more. So much dark comedy in Mishima’s. And I’m always weak for that sort of writing. A proper amount of dialogues that reek of ‘absurdism’ – and I just love. I’ve also realised that Mishima is a very meticulous writer. Every chapter felt so ‘neat’ and well-structured – the transition is always so smooth – which adds to the animated, vibrant, cinematic quality that his novels possess. So much to talk/write about. Will post a big review later.

‘There is just one crumb of comfort, however. Shinjuku may have become her Saturday night haunt and she might not breeze back home until the morning, but she’s always alone when she returns. For some reason, she can’t get close to anyone, and as a result she’s never brought a single low-life friend to the house. We are eternally grateful for that.’

‘As I grew up, whenever I found myself having to eat a beef stew or some such dish that contained carrots, I would be overcome with disgust—it was worse than peering into the depths of a toilet bowl. And if I came across that novel Poil de carotte—Carrot Head—by Jules Renard on the shelves of a bookshop, the author’s insensitivity would astonish me.’

‘The thought that his own life was about to cease cleansed his heart, the way peppermint cleanses the mouth.’

[P.E. · Rating 3 out of 5]

One-Armed Bandit

This short novel is all about Hanio, the main character, a capable publicist who no longer finds meaning in the mundanity of life and botches his suicide attempt. As a result, understandably chagrined by what he takes as another proof of the meaninglessness of life, Hanio decides to put his life on sale in classified ads.

What follows is a cascade of encounters with oddballs, blending twisted existential novel and faux spy novel, sprinkled with campy jokes and absurd situations. A couple of moments come out, such as: the time when Hanio decodes confidential messages from an embassy equipped with... carrots! or his life contract with the son of a vampiress. You would think yourself in between the pages of The book without name, A Confederacy of Dunces or a novel by Arto Paasilinna, with a few extra short philosophical capsules, parodying themselves! During his curious journey, being constantly exposed to death (and many a weirdo), Hanio finds value in certain aspects of life and begins to question his initial project.

Published in 1968, initially in weekly installments for Weekly Playboy, – at the heyday of national protests, notably in universities, and uncoincidentally of nihilist, existentialist and humanist inspiration, themes more or less at the heart of Life on Sale – this novel is a true medley of the questions of its day, but adressed in a humorous and derisive manner throughout.

The campy humour is my jam more often than not, and I'm elated to discover a whole new facet of this unparalleled writer, who allows himeself to write the most comically far-fetched happenings this time – this book features a dinner conversation with a straightjacketed rat plush. Let that Ratatouillesque notion brew a bit :D Unfortunately, plot-wise, this fragmented novel leaves sizeable loose threads, while its moments of mock philosophical insight about personal responsibility, the existence of individual freedom and its true value as regards life, do not amount to much, as they are constantly contradicted by aimless Hanio, and increasingly rivalled by the spy-novel elements of this wobbly jumble of a book. A mostly funny, if not memorable read!

A musical piece curiously mentioned in Life for Sale, La Cathédrale Engloutie - Claude Debussy

[Tom · Rating 2 out of 5]

2.5 Stars

I picked this up on a whim, only having read the back and looked at the cover (I may have a bad tendency to judge by covers). The set up fascinated me, a man fails to kill himself so he puts his life up for sale, letting fate do what it will. I saw it as an endless world of opportunities for strange stories, and I can't deny that's what I got.

I also can't deny that I didn't care for them.

The portrayal of women is pretty crap, each woman he encounters falls in love with him for no discernible reason. He himself is I guess supposed to be some sort of suave, smooth talker, but judging from his dialogue... no he's not. I feel I've read somewhere that it's a trope for these charismatic male protagonists to be average everyday men, and if so it's not one I enjoy - especially in this book - considering the lengths these women go for 'some guy'.
It was at this point that I saw it was a serialised pulp fiction in Playboy Japan, which shed a lot of light on these weird relationships, but didn't change my opinion at all.

The author biography also stated how political Mishima was, having lead his own failed political coup. This is evident in the book in a clearly self-insert scenario in which he rants to ambassador of Country A that he's stupid for overthinking and making things complex when they really are quite straightforward - mixing it with a story on how he doesn't like carrots.

Finally there's the ending, I won't spoil anything but... its disappointing. Some lovely lines, really nicely written lines. And then it ends and I think, oh what that's it? The whole 11th hour twist made me somewhat more optimistic for a entire tonal shift in the book, and then it ends with so little consequence.

[Queralt✨ · Rating 1 out of 5]

Y’know how every time I meet a dude who likes Yukio Mishima I’m like “red flag but ok.” WELL. That thought came from reading his short stories. This is my first full length novel by Mishima and what a fucking joke.

This is an whole book about masculinity and purity that goes out of its way to box women into either being sexually frigid or sexually addicted psychos. And regardless if you’re frigid or a psycho (or literal bloodsuckers), every woman becomes happy once they find their life purpose (spoiler: sex).

The premise (a guy fails at committing suicide so he puts his life for sale) is interesting, and the book’s satire and absurd episodes in which he deals with “buyers” work well for the purpose of criticizing the (idk) spiritual emptiness of capitalism in post-imperial Japan. But it was repetitive, superficial, and I was just mad at the book all the time. Guess the sexually repressed, broody fascist samurai vibe didn’t work for me.

I suggest this book to anyone who likes Andrew Tate. Also therapy.

[Repellent Boy · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5. Al descubrir la publicación en España de este libro de Mishima, me emocioné muchísimo. Desconocía del todo su existencia. Y necesité hacerme con él enseguida. Lo curioso es que aún teniendo una de las tramas más interesantes, ha acabado siendo el más flojito de los que he leído de él, por ahora. Flojo no quiere decir malo, porque de hecho me ha gustado, pero en menor medida.

La historia nos narra la vida de Hanio, que tras un intento fallido de suicidio, decide poner su vida en venta. Los diferentes personajes que pasaran por la vida de Hanio tratando de adquirir su vida(un anciano celoso, una vampira, un jefe de una embajada,...) le pondrán en una serie de situaciones que lo llevarán a empezar a apreciar la vida otra vez. O más bien recuperará ese miedo por la muerte.

Lo interesante es que bajo la trama sencilla y divertida, Mishima nos habla de muchas cosas recurrentes dentro de sus obras. La curiosidad por la muerte, la sexualidad, la obsesión por el cuerpo, el desprecio a la sociedad de su época, el rechazo a costumbres occidentales. De alguna manera, permite ver con más claridad que otras veces esas inseguridades y problemas que tenía el autor con su orientación sexual y con el mundo que le rodeaba.

Otra cosa interesante es la narración, mucho más ligera que en la mayoría de sus libros. Se lee de un tirón y es bastante divertida. Es una rareza dentro de la obra de Mishima. Quizás el problema principal es que se queda un poco descafeinada a mitad y de ahí que no haya llegado a las 4 estrellas.

Pero es innegable que Mishima es un genio y que sus novelas siempre tienen un trasfondo interesantísimo.

[Kusaimamekirai · Rating 4 out of 5]

“A dead body reminds me a bit of a bottle of whisky. If you drop the bottle and it cracks, what’s inside pours out. It’s only natural.”

“When ten million people come together, they voice not pleasantries but profound frustration with this great city. Youngsters of the night wriggle in their multitudes like swathes of plankton. The insignificance of human life. Passion extinguished. The flavor of pleasure and anticipation lost, like gum when you chew it to death. What else can you do in the end but spit it onto the roadside?”

When one starts “Life for Sale” by Mishima Yukio, it is entirely understandable to be taken aback by its seemingly incongruent plot and style (perhaps less so if you have seen photos of Mishima’s outlandish home with its French renaissance chairs, rococo furnishings, and 60’s modern trappings).
With its seedy overseas gangsters, tawdry sex, drug addicts and vampires(!), it is easy to think you’ve somehow taken a wrong turn into a Raymond Chandler trying his hand at an Ann Rice story, rather than the somewhat rarified air and prose of a Mishima novel.
You would however be mistaken.
For under all the lunacy and dime store detective tropes Mishima trots out here, underneath it all lies many of the same themes that populate all of Mishima stories. Loneliness, meditations on death, and the purpose of one’s existence.
Yes, the story of our narrator taking out an ad in the newspaper to sell his life to somehow who can dispose of it as they choose, is insane and implausible. However Mishima asks, is it any more insane to believe that you have syphilis without ever having had sex, or that you are a vampire, than to live the lives we construct for ourselves?
Marriage, children, unsatisfying jobs, all of these are self constructed prisons in which we sell off pieces of our lives with each new brick in its wall. Taking the agency to sell your life as our narrator does is an acknowledgement that is the only act in which we have some agency. Yes, there is a high probability he will die, but he will die on his terms and is that really any worse than waiting for the slow creeping death of our daily existence?
That our narrator after surviving several near death experiences begins to appreciate life however doesn’t mean he appreciates all life. Rather he, and by extension Mishima, is contemptuous of people who live safe existences where their safety is never threatened. In short, one cannot appreciate life until you have experienced the possibility of death.
This last concept is the quintessential Mishima theme. When our narrator thinks to himself:

“The world he inhabited lacked all sadness or joy, nothing was clearly defined in it. A kind of meaninglessness infused his life both day and night, like the soft glow from indirect light.”

“Until now, it had never occurred to him that his own actions were linked together like a series of interconnected rings. He saw those times that he put his life on sale as a succession of one-off events: like throwing one bunch of flowers after another into the river. The flowers might be carried away in the water, they might sink, they might float all the way down to the sea. He never dreamt they would be gathered up and end up on display together in some vase.”

Mishima is reflecting on having seen Japan unite as a nation with single minded purpose and meaning behind the emperor, and by extensions the nation, during the war. Japan was the vase and his countrymen the flowers. With the end of the war, this sense of higher purpose was lost and as the flowers scattered, Japan began a slow descent into consumerism and aimlessness. Mishima would spend the last 25 years of his life lamenting this, and in an attempt to avert this slide, advocated a return to militarism (even constructing his own private army of teenage boys, a discussion for another day) to fill what he perceived as Japan’s spiritual vacuum.
While Mishima and I differ on the value of death as a motivator of life, particularly in a military context, there is much to be said for the idea that living without purpose is not really living at all. Thinking you are a vampire may be insane, but unlike large segments of the public, you at least have a pretty well defined raison d'être.

[None Ofyourbusiness Loves Israel · Rating 4 out of 5]

Hanio Yamada, who, after failing at his own suicide, cheekily advertises his life for hire with the line, “Life for Sale. Use me as you wish.” Mishima transforms this whimsical premise into a series of darkly humorous escapades as Hanio attracts an odd clientele, each with uniquely risky requests. The novel reveals its absurdity with sharp wit, echoing the sentiment that in a transactional world, even one's life can be bartered.

In one of Hanio's bizarre adventures, he is employed to impersonate a deceased man, resulting in a cascade of macabre yet comically entertaining mishaps. Hanio's reflection, “It’s amazing what people believe when they desperately want to,” captures the essence of the book’s satire. Other interesting creations answer his offer, among them a romantic, a lonely desperate sucidal woman, a vampire, a barterer of souls, a painter of death, spies, and the representation of absurd bureaucracy - the Japanese police. Each scenario paints a picture of society's often ridiculous valuation of life and its elements.

Mishima, an illustrious figure in Japanese literature, connects elements of post-war disillusionment and individual escapades, making "Life for Sale" a compelling exploration of modern life's superficiality. His portrayal of societal norms through Hanio's eccentric journey underscores the novel’s importance as a critique of commodification. Mishima's own demise makes reading this book especially haunting.

[Hulyacln · Rating 3 out of 5]

Hanio Yamada bir gazeteye iş bulma amacıyla şöyle bir ilan verir :
‘Satılık Hayat
Hayatımı satıyorum. Benden dilediğiniz amaç için gönlünüzce istifade edebilirsiniz. 27 yaşında bir erkeğim. Mahremiyetinizin ve kişisel bilgilerinizin korunması teminatım altındadır.’
Bir müşterinin gelmesi hayatının kaybı demek olan bu işte Hanio’nun başına beklenmedik şeyler gelir. Vazgeçtiği hayatının onu bırakası yoktur belki de..
.
Yukio Mişima’nın 21 Mayıs-8 Ekim 1968’de Weekly Playboy dergisinde tefrika edilen eseri Satılık Hayat. Bildiğimiz Mişimalar’dan oldukça farklı bir dili ve kurguya sahip bu hikayede, Hanio karakterinin ölüme yakınlığı ve uzaklığını okurken, arka planda İkinci Dünya Savaşı sonrası değişen Japonya’yı görüyoruz. Amerika’nın gerek dile gerek günlük pratiklere etkisini, ekonomideki köklü değişiklikleri, Japonya’nın giderek dışa açılmasını satır aralarından yakalıyoruz.
.
Kara mizah, kovalama, hiciv bir arada. Kitap kapağında Mişima yazmasa şüpheye düşmek de mümkün:) Kobo Abe’yi anımsadığım yerler de oldu.. Satılık Hayat’taki ölüm arzusu ve hayattan kaçamayış, güzel olana düşkünlük ise Mişima imzalarından~
.
Devrim Çetin Güven çevirisi (dipnotlar çok iyi olmasına rağmen, ‘ayol/..ya’ kimi kelimelerin fazlalığı göze çarpıyor), Hasui Kawase kapak görseliyle ~

[Nancy Oakes · Rating 4 out of 5]

for now (with more to come, hopefully tomorrow) --just initial thoughts:

1) don't be put off by the absurdity, because in large part the book looks at the fallout from the main character wondering how it is possible to live with the absurdities of life in a meaningless, modern world and

2) as much as it deviates from the author's usual norm, it is still Mishima -- nihilism, unspoken masks, and all

Now, if someone would only translate Kyoko's House ... sigh

more soon.

[Shey · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book presents an insanely dark comedic lens on the obsession with suicide and death.
Life for Sale follows a man who is convinced his life is worthless and too apathetic to change it, quits his job and offers his life for sale. The narrative unfolds through a series of darkly humorous and unsuccessful attempts to end his life - each marked by crazy circumstances.
I'm glad this book is meant to be entertaining because if it weren’t, the protagonist's level of ungratefulness toward his life would be truly infuriating.
I enjoyed it. It was absurd and wild. I was thoroughly entertained.

[itselv · Rating 1 out of 5]

I wish he had died in the first paragraph

[David · Rating 4 out of 5]

To say that human life had no meaning was the easy part. But Hanio was struck all over again by the huge amount of energy required to live a life filled with so much meaninglessness.

Here's some straight-up serious / delirious nonsense for ya, courtesy of the 'madcap' Yukio Mishima (significantly aided by Stephen Dodd's playfully infectious translation). 

If you're at all familiar with Mishima's work, you may scratch your head quite often as you 'contemplate' how this particular work fits into the author's overall output. In a way, it's a sort of detour. But then again it's not. 

It could be safe to say that, with Mishima, one should expect the unexpected. But at least it's a departure in the sense that it serves up a visually vibrant, comic-book display of paranoiac fireworks. Mishima may be one of the very few writers who can exploit the freeing nature of nihilism. When you basically believe in nothing (or have learned to do so), you can sort of gleefully take a scalpel to the society you view as morally bankrupt. 

You can then extract the 'fun' from fungus. 

Whether he's having dinner with a toy mouse - to the BGM of Debussy's 'La Cathédrale engloutie' - or recovering from a sexually charged, all-night romp with a vampire...

"I must say, she seemed a very caring woman. And so gorgeous and healthy-looking too. It was just like she'd sucked all the energy out of you!"

protagonist Hanio Yamada finds any opportunity to embrace the absurdities that life has to offer. Yet he's not seeking capricious diversion. 

What he seeks is death. He thinks he has dreamed up the perfect way to end it all: by selling himself, advertising himself for hire in order to achieve a more splendid (I suppose) type of suicide. 

There's just one catch: he keeps trying to clinch the deal - as the novel makes its episodic way - but he can't seem to get himself killed. Far from it. Instead, he becomes a pawn in an endless cycle of conspiracy perpetrated by various types governed by life's senselessness:

People who ascribed meaning to their actions ended up staring meaninglessness in the face, in a state of frustration and hopelessness. Such people were nothing more than sentimentalists--the sort that couldn't let go of life.

Alas, what easily passes muster as delicious satire is not here adequately resolved; Mishima can't seem to ultimately settle the accounts he sets in motion. 

But then, that matters little; he still makes his point in crazed ways that crystallize his blackly comic (and ironic) intent. Who knew that staring into the abyss could ricochet with a new lease on life?  

[nathan · Rating 3 out of 5]

Pulp noir camp at best. What do you do when you don't want to live anymore but need the body to linger for LSD and lust? What does existence mean? Does it have any meaning left or is there room for meaning?

Seedy and comedic with twists and turns in directionless directions. We meet so many cartoonish characters that confront us with the question of why. Why am I here? Am I fighting to live or living to fight? Where do I belong on the battlefield?

I think suicide and purpose have always combatted Mishima's life. This is him humoring himself, not thinking of the question too seriously. Simply, this is Mishima having fun.

[Inês Sousa · Rating 4 out of 5]

Bom mas com uma parte final um bocado meh. 😐