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The Temple of the Golden Pavilion

byYukio Mishima

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This is Mishima's novel about the pressure of living an idealised life. It tells a fictionalised account of real events - the lonely acolyte who destroyed a famous Kyoto temple.

Mizoguchi grows up a lonely boy in a poor family, a hopeless and frustrated stutterer. Only tales of the beauty of a famous temple in Kyoto, told by his dying father, sustain him. Taunted by his schoolmates, he eventually escapes to become an acolyte at the temple. But there, witness to acts of callous violence and terrified by the bombing of the war, Mizoguchi develops an all-consuming obsession with the temple's preservation - until the beauty of the place itself starts to feel like his deadliest enemy.

This powerful story of sacrifice and unattainable ideals brings together Mishima's preoccupations with violence, desire, religion and national history to dazzling effect.

'One of the outstanding writers of the world' New York Times

A dark vision...a beautiful, disturbing novel

Los Angeles Times

About Yukio Mishima

Yukio Mishima was born into a samurai family and imbued with the code of complete control over mind and body, and loyalty to the Emperor – the same code that produced the austerity and self-sacrifice of Zen. He wrote countless short stories and thirty-three plays, in some of which he acted. Several films have been made from his novels, including The Sound of Waves; Enjo, which was based on The Temple of the Golden Pavilion; and The Sailor Who Fell From Grace with the Sea. Among his other works are the novels Confessions of a Mask and Thirst For Love and the short-story collections Death in Midsummer and Acts of Worship.

The Sea of Fertility tetralogy, however, is his masterpiece. After Mishima conceived the idea of The Sea of Fertility in 1964, he frequently said he would die when it was completed. On November 25th, 1970, the day he completed The Decay of the Angel, the last novel of the cycle, Mishima committed seppuku (ritual suicide) at the age of forty-five.
Details
  • Imprint: Vintage Digital
  • ISBN: 9781407053882
  • Length: 256 pages
  • Price: £5.99
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