joseph’s Reviews > Spring Snow > Status Update

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!

“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.