joseph > Recent Status Updates

“Although everything had one single message for him—be it every hour, every morning, every noon and night, or the sky, the trees, the clouds and wind all telling him to give her up—he was still tormented by uncertainty.”

what the fawk did i just read mate

so so so so good, just gets better and better and better, like tom cruise

“I’ve known supreme happiness, and I’m not greedy enough to want what I have to go on forever. Every dream ends. Wouldn’t it be foolish, knowing that nothing lasts forever, to insist that one has a right to do something that does? I’ve nothing in common with these ‘new women’. But… if eternity existed, it would be this moment.”

i love reading… ?

“once passion was set in motion according to its own laws, then it was irresistible. this was a theory that would never be accepted by modern law, which took it as self-evident that conscience and reason ruled man.”

randomly turned into a courtroom drama, and of course, it was enthralling

very… detailed…

“something sounded within kiyoaki like a trumpet call: i love satoko.”

lost his wife because of his emotional immaturity #fairs

“as he lay with his head on his pillow, his head was a whirling mass of images. he was faced with the stark realization that from now on he would be alone.”

from the most romantic chapter of all time to the most philosophical i’ve ever read, Mishima just different.

“kiyoaki now realized that a fanatical insistence on total independence was a disease, not of the flesh but of the mind.”

a line of poetry written with a splash of blood!

“Iinuma had plenty of time to reflect later, but very often a man’s whole life alters course because of a moment’s hesitation. that instant is like a fold made down the middle of a sheet of paper. in it, the underside becomes upmost, and what was once visible is hidden forever.”

“how long must this age of the effete and the contemptible endure? or is the worst still to come? men think only of money and women. men have forgotten everything that should be becoming to a man.”

“once we are even marginally separated from what we can touch, the object is sanctified; it acquires the beauty of the unattainable, the quality of the miraculous. everything, really, has this quality of sacredness, but we can desecrate it at a touch. how strange man is! his touch defiles and yet he contains the source of miracles.”

best chapter yet, some talk of golden temples #sickreferencebro

very good stuff so far, typically engaging Mishima, nice to see him lean more into romanticism as opposed to his usual themes, we still have the sensitive young man as our main character though

couldn’t decide where to go next in my reading journey, but i ultimately have come back to Mishima. not sure if i’ll read all four parts uninterrupted but i’ve been excited about this tetralogy for quite some time.

almost done sadly

he starts ranting, and he doesn’t stop, the girl even tells him he sounds like a book, but that doesn’t stop him from speaking his truth!

this guy’s so embarrassing man, i like him

“it’s perfectly clear to me that it was i who, owing to my boundless vanity, and hence also my exactingness towards myself, very often looked upon myself with furious dissatisfaction, reaching the point of loathing, and therefore mentally attributed my view to everyone else.”