Päivän mietelause: "Invalidi joka ei halua parantua ei ole invalidi." (Yukio Mishima)

                           MISHIMA

                                   (...death, or the moment before death, is the only reality)

Syntyi 14.1.1925. Ensimmäinen nimi Kimitake Hiraoka. Kuoli nimellä Yukio Mishima rituaali-itsemurhaan yhdessä avustajansa kanssa 25.11.1970. Itsemurhapäivä oli kirjan deadline-päivä. Itsemurha ilmeisesti kirjan lopullinen päätepiste.

- Nobel-ehdokas kolme kertaa

- llmeisen eroottinen kiinnostus kuolemaa kohtaan. Veri oli hänelle "äärimmäisen eroottista". Kannibalismifantasioita nuorelta iältä.

- Teki suunnanmuutoksen 30-vuotiaana, "lopetti velttoilun"

- Harrasti kehonrakennusta vuodet 1955-1970. Ektomorfisesta, alun perin lähes aneemisesta olemuksesta huolimatta onnistui saavuttamaan suhteellisen kiinteän, jopa lihaksikkaan vartalon.

- Treenasi nyrkkeilyä 50-luvulla. Luontaisia lahjoja ei juuri lainkaan. Eräänkin harjoitussession aikana otti turpaan kaikilta yhdeksältä vastustajaltaan. Olo oli jälkeenpäin ilmeisen katarttinen.

- Vuonna 1958 oli niin vastenmielinen nuorten japanilaisnaisten mielestä, että yli puolet viikkolehden kysymykseen: "Jos Kruununprinssi ja Yukio Mishima olisivat ainoat maan päällä elossa olevat miehet, kumman kanssa menisit naimisiin?", vastanneista naisista tekisi mieluummin itsemurhan kuin valitsisi kumpaakaan.

- Epäurheilijamaisesta rakenteestaan huolimatta saavutti  kendossa yhdeksän vuoden harjoittelun jälkeen viidennen danin, mutta asiantuntijoiden mukaan lähinnä julkisuusarvonsa takia. Dan-arvojen kriteerit muutenkin Japanissa usein poikkeukselliset.

Omistautuminen treenaamiseen kuitenkin kovaa.

- Neurobiologisia poikkeavuuksia useissa lähisukulaisissa, poikansa ehkä hyvinkin todennäköisesti omaa/omasi ainakin ADHD:n, isoäiti sairasti neuralgiaa

- Perusti yksityisarmeijan vuonna 1966. Tavoitteena palauttaa yhteiskuntaan perinteiset japanilaiset arvot, vastusti yhteiskunnan materialistista kehitystä ja amerikkalaista kulttuuri-imperialismia. "Kukaan ei-japanilainen ei voi ymmärtää Japania. Ulkomaalaiset ovat ihastuneet japanilaisen kulttuurin kauniisiin puoliin, mutta hylkäävät Japanin pimeän puolen."

- Oli vaikuttunut bushidosta (soturin tiestä), ja ilmeisesti eli kuolemaansa läpi koko 60-luvun kuolemaansa saakka

kirjassa Mishima A Biography:

"In 1963 the editors of a new encyclopedia (Shogakkan) asked Mishima to pose for a photograph to appear beside the "bodybuild" entry. Mishima told his friend Kubo that this was one of the happiest moments in his life." (S.125)

Mishima in Sun And Steel: "When I realized that the perfect sense of existence that disintegrated the next moment could only be endorsed by muscle, and not by words, I was already personally enduring the fate of the apple. Admiddetly I could see my own muscles in the mirror. Yet seeing alone was not enough bring me into contact with the roots of my sense of existence, an immeasurable distance remained between me and the euphoric sense of true being...In other words, the self-awareness that I staked on muscles could not be satisfied with the darkness of the pallid flesh pressing about it as an endorsement of existence, but, like the blind core of the apple, was driven to crave certain proof of its existence so fiercely that it was bound, sooner or later, to destroy that existence...

That, precisely, is when the knife of the foe must come cutting into the flesh of the apple – or rather, of my own flesh. Blood flows, existence is destroyed, and the shattered senses give existence as a whole its first endorsement, closing the logical gap between seeing and existing. And this is death."

Otteita kirjasta The Life and Death of Yukio Mishima (kirjoittanut Henry Scott Stokes)

"Juan Eto, a scholar with an interest in the Roman-ha, summed up the ideals of the movement as follows: ´They believed in the value of destruction and ultimately in self-destruction. They valued "purity of sentiment", though they never defined this; and they called for "preservation of the nation" by purging selfish party politicians and zaibatsu (business) leaders. They believed that self-destruction would be followed by reincarnation, linked mysteriously with the benevolence of the Emporer. The Japanese, they considered, were superior to all other peoples.´" (s.83)

"The novels which he (Mishima) wrote shortly after his marriage, Kyoko no le (Kyoko´s House), exemplified this urge; he called the book his ´study of nihilism´: ´The characters run about in one direction or another as their personalities, their professions and their sexual tendencies command them, but in the end all roads, no matter how roundabout, flow back into nihilism´  In this novel Mishima represented himself by four "I´s": ´When I feel himquite close to my own thinking, but at other times I drive the same character away from myself and let him wander into independent action. The attitudes of the hero change convulsively, as the course of composition dictates. In Kyoko no le, in order to resolve this contradiction which has always appeared in my novels (and was most extreme in Forbidden Colours), I have avoided having a single hero, but have represented various aspects of myself through four different heroes´

    The four "heroes" are these:

   Shunkichi, a boxer. His principle is ´to think about nothing´. By ´disorderly´ and ´free´ anarchism he hopes to destroy the social order of post-war Japan. He believes in ´Might`, which he associates with beauty and death-not with justice and order. He envies his elder brother who died in the war; his brother had sped through life ´without fear of boredom and without thinking at all´. Shunkichi lives in a hateful epoch of ´normality´, and in an such an era he cannot maintain his ´purity´. Believing in ´Might` he sets about to make himself a boxing champion. However, his career ends after he has suffered a beating at the hands of thugs, who break the bones of his hands. Shunkichi believes that his future will be boring and insignificant; he joins an Uyoku (rightist) group ´in order to oppose the future´. In such a group he is ´close to death, even in this age of normality.´ In a street brawl Shunkichi meets his death.

   Osamu, a beautiful, narcissist actor, who practices body-building. Osamu is racked with anxiety: ´Do I really exist or not?´ He is constantly peering at himself in a mirror. He has a mistress, an elderly usurer, who has bought Osamu´s services. The woman loves Osamu, and expresses her love by torturing him. The handsome actor wonders whether the shedding of his blood will prove his existence. He desires to perform in ´a complete drama´. He and his mistress commit a bloody shinju (double love suicide).

   Natsuo, a traditional Japanese painter. Natsuo believes that he is an angel, whose pure and gentle existence is protected by a special deity. He has no troubles in life. However, on a trip to Mt Fuji he has a vision of the destruction of the world. He reflects on his situation; he is well-known and successful; but he is the subject of jealous gossip amongst his contemporaries. Talking to friends, he suggests that one should kill oneself, while one´s body is beautiful, with fine muscles. Natsuo is captured by a strange world of ´reality´ and ´nihility´. In the end he has an existential experience: ´what I see and I that see belong to one world.´ He is saved.

   Seiichiro, a capable businessman. He is a shoshain, a trading company executive. The world, he considers, is doomed; a total destruction is inenvitable. He is, however, outwardly cheerful and competent, and he is succesful at work. His motto is to play the role of ´somebody else´ and to lead a ´conventional life´. He marries the daughter of a senior director. His company later sends him to New York, where he continues as before. Seiichiro suffers from ´an incurable illness´-´healthness´. (s.133-134)

Yukio Mishima Ichiro Murakamille joulukuussa 1968: "One has to take responsibility for what one says-once one has said it. The same is true of the written word. If one writes: "I will die in November," then one has to die. If you make light of words once you will carry on doing so." (s.228)

"Certainly many of Mishima´s contemporaries did not accept a simple explanation for what had happened even months after the conclusin of The Decay of the Angel had been published. In the spring of 1971 the Japan Quarterly published an article by Junro Fukashiro entitled ´Post-mortem´ which summarized the popular theories about Mishima´s motives: ´The "insanity theorie", which needs no further explanation; the "aesthetic theory," which suggests that Mishima had written himself out in the course of almost thirty years of writing and had nothing left to look forward to but despair; the "love-suicide theory," which asserts that he was a homosexual who committed a shinju (double suicide for love) with (Morita) in pursuit of some ultimate eroticism; and, finally the "patriotism theory," which postulates that Mishima sought to incite members of the Jietai to carry out a coup d´éat which would realize Mishima´s personal ideal of Japan as a nationstate united under the Emperor." (s.245)