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Yukio Mishima's Runaway Horses is the second novel in his masterful tetralogy, The Sea of Fertility. Again we encounter Shigekuni Honda, who narrates this epic tale of what he believes are the successive reincarnations of his childhood friend Kiyoaki Matsugae. In 1932, Shigeuki Honda has become a judge in Osaka. Convinced that a young rightist revolutionary, Isao, is the reincarnation of his friend Kiyoaki, Honda commits himself to saving the youth from an untimely death. Isao, driven to patriotic fanaticism by a father who instilled in him the ethos of the ancient samurai, organizes a violent plot against the new industrialists who he believes are usurping the Emperor's rightful power and threatening the very integrity of the nation. Runaway Horses is the chronicle of a conspiracy -- a novel about the roots and nature of Japanese fanaticism in the years that led to war.… (more)
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We begin with Shigekuni Honda, Kiyo’s best friend from last time, now all grown up, career in law, Apollonian yet desiccated, never had a real spontaneous feeling in his life (or so he thinks himself—I think the idea that passion has to burn burn burn you up is a holdover from when we died at thirty of tb and suchlike). “'Once again he (Honda) found himself believing that, just as he had never contracted venereal disease, neither had he ever experienced emotional arousal.”
Honda meets-by-chance Isao Iinuma, the son of Kiyo’s old teacher, and just as Iinuma senior (now a prominent uyoku or “right-wing personality,” a kind of Japanese protoversion of Glenn Beck or somebody who runs something called the “Academy of Patriotism” and is entirely corrupted) loved Kiyo, Honda sees young kendo stud Isao bathing under a waterfall and not only loses whatever papery thing passes for his heart but also, based on Kiyo’s ravings on his deathbed two decades before and a distinctive pattern of moles shared by the boys, decides that Isao is Kiyo reborn, with his degenerate tendencies burned away.
So the boy with murder in his heart, his dad the boss thug, the lawyer groping toward true life, a backing cast each eager to prove themselves pure too in this purity-obsessed time. A powderkeg! It feels like it could explode and the spirit world could burst in on us at any moment, which is kind of a cheap feeling when it actually is gonna burst in, but a hard one to maintain when it isn't, which I take to be the case here.
Isao gives Honda his favourite book, about the Shinpuuren rebellion of the Meiji era (reproduced in full), as a testament to his ethic. (He loves himself more than the Emperor, if only he realized it.) Honda enters into a kind of gay ghost marriage with the boy, but only in his heart, because telling people things is not H.’s style. It’s perverse. It’s especially perverse how rational he stays even as he descends into quiet, reasonable madness. Let me pause to quote one of the cadets in the Shield Society founded by Mishima: “Mishima-sensei climbed down the ladder of reason to be with us.” (He committed seppuku after failing to inspire a rising similar to the one that is the focus of Isao and his friends here. He wishes he was an Isao. He hates whatever part of him is a Honda, whatever part a Sawa.)
How bout some more? “by the time the work is completed I will have to resign myself to the eternal impossibility of a gorgeous, heroic end. To give up becoming a hero or to abandon a masterpiece—this decision is drawing near and the prospect fills me with anxiety. […]
“I can hear the people say: "But you are dwelling in the past. Attempts to become the kind of active hero you speak of are futile after thirty at the latest and you are forty-five. Why not stop playing the old maid who hides behind thick make-up, give up life and action and concentrate on literature?"
“Yet I am still as strong and energetic as a young man, at forty-two, still just young enough to become a hero. Takamori Saigo (a nineteenth century fanatic who committed seppuku) died a hero's death at fifty. ... If I act now I am still in time. On the other hand there is still important work. ...
Just want to give you a sense of what kind of psychosexual aesthetic sense we’re dealing with here. There are much cool scenes of Isao wrapping the other young devotees around his finger, and of this crafty, ugly middle-ager, Sawa, forcing himself in with the dishonourable yet effective tactics of the older man. I was glad Sawa got his way. He’s like the balding art space owner who goes to all the hipster parties and hits on the young girls. You're older and smarter and by most measures much more interesting and impressive, and yet somehow they have all the power. And he doesn't even have some death of the ego thing to fall back on, because that's way too Buddhist and he chose to be an extreme Shinto nationalist and obsessed with his beautiful parabola. I thought he’d be the one to make murder happen if any, but I underestimated Isao’s will to power. It’s weird reading a fascist book by a fascist writer with this kind of deep, subtle sense of human sentiment. You always get tricked into thinking he’s not ultimately on Isao’s side.
Like, here are some moments of crystalline rightness: "'We'll do it! We'll do it!' (Serikawa) shouted, kicking about and scattering the shells that littered the floor. He gripped Isao's hand firmly and shook it. As usual, he was on the verge of tears. This young man affected Isao like a match girl who uses blatant emotional appeal to force a sale. It was a manifestation he had little need for at the moment."
"Dreams somehow turn one into a slovenly figure. A soiled collar, the back of the shirt wrinkled as though slept in, trousers baggy--something similar overtakes the garment of the spirit." Isao starts dreaming soon after, of course.
"She did not grumble. She did not wear a sad expression. Nor did she punish him by putting on a brave cheerfulness."
"Since (Toin's) hatred had its root in fear, it kept growing."
Mishima's "purity thing" has its roots in fear too, and its compelling power keeps growing.
In 1932, nearly twenty years after the death of his beloved friend Kiyoaki, Shigekuni Honda is now an established and respected judge at the Osaka Court of Appeals. While attending a kendo tournament he meets an intense young man by the name of Isao Iinuma, a promising and skilled athlete who also happens to be the son of Kiyoaki's former tutor Shigeyuki Iinuma. As the book progresses, Honda becomes more and more convinced that Isao is actually the reincarnation of his friend Kiyoaki. But Isao is definitely his own man. A student at his father's Academy of Patriotism, his ideals and fervor extend far beyond his indoctrination at school. Inspired by The League of the Divine Wind (a pamphlet recounting the Shimpūren Rebellion), Isao is determined to initiate the return of honor and purity to Japan and in doing so sacrifice his own life.
It is not absolutely necessary to have read Spring Snow before reading Runaway Horses although it will certainly enhance the experience. The books, just like Kiyoaki and Isao, are very different while somehow still retaining a sense of commonality at their core. Each book's style captures the personalities of their respective protagonists remarkably well; where Spring Snow is rather romantic, Runaway Horses is much more aggressive in its approach. The portrayal of Isao, a passionate young man who is also a violent extremist, is exceptional--terrifying and even inspiring despite his naïveté. I certainly don't necessarily agree with him or his methods, but the devotion to his ideals and his charismatic nature shines through and makes for quite an impact.
Runaway Horses was somewhat slow to start, but by the end of the book I was completely invested. The emotional intensity and its buildup is tremendous. Like Spring Snow the book feels ominous from the very beginning; something tragic is going to happen and there is nothing to do but watch how the story plays out. Even expecting this, Mishima is able to throw in some painful twists as peoples' motivations and actions are made clear. Runaway Horses stands pretty well on its own although certain scenes, particularly the dream sequences, serve mostly to lead into the next book, The Temple of Dawn. It is interesting to note that while reincarnation is important to the tetralogy overall, and to Honda in particular, it isn't central to Isao's story who is mostly unaware of it. I was unaccountably thrilled that the son of Kiyoaki's tutor Iinuma was the character chosen as his reincarnation--it just seems so perfectly appropriate to me. And I won't hesitate to admit that I am very much looking forward to reading The Temple of Dawn.
Experiments in Reading
Isao, the hero in this novel, believes that the only way to restore the Emperor to his rightful place and to purge the evil that has permeated society, is to follow the steps of the League -- eliminate the corrupt business leaders and the sacrificing of lives of pure instruments, young men as himself whose purity of purpose and single-minded devotion to the Emperor were without peer. Isao is characterized almost as divine in his utter simplicity of belief and determination to achieve perfection through seppuku. On the other hand, these, combined with his naiveté made for a dangerous and volatile mix.
This is my first Mishima, and i find his writing superb, masterly. The tetralogy is composed of different stories about the several reincarnations of one person, each time with a focus on a different theme. Each book, though, is stand-alone. The presence of certain personalities and subtle layers of interrelationships between people and between events provide the link to the different phases/stories, and give context to the overall story and character development. How Mishima adeptly interweaves all these is simply first-rate.
This novel immensely fascinated me because it mirrors Mishima's ideology and the events he instigated along the course of his adult life, highlighting in a coup attempt he led aimed at restoring the powers of the Emperor, which ended in his own long dreamed-of seppuku. It was, for him, the most fitting last act to a life devoted to mythifying himself.
Spring Snow succeeds for me only for its painting of a lost period in Japan - of the privileged and their privileges. In other ways it fails - the obsession
Runaway Horses moves forward 20 years, to a second incarnation of the principal of these stories. Again fails to to convince as the source and power of the obsessions (Japan-ness. ritual suicide etc). At the end, we know they exist, but not why.
The Temple of Dawn is the weakest of the four books with turgid page after turgid page of Buddhist and other religious exposition. Is this a cheap cure for writer's block? The reincarnation this time is as Thai princess. Remarkably, the main character, Honda, becomes a hardcore voyeur halfway through this volume. The voyeuristic writing is good - it is almost as if Mishima wanted to get this writing out, and Honda was the available character!
The Decay of the Angel is the shortest volume (running out of things to say?) and again fails to deliver. The latest incarnation is Angel-like(!). Spare me. The most remarkable aspect is Mishima's ritual suicide on the day he finished writing this last volume. If he was aiming for immortality, all he achieved was a quirky footnote to literary history.
I read Spring Snow some time ago and I see now that the tetralogy as a whole is going to be much more than the sum of its parts. I would highly recommend reading them all, and definitely in order. Not only do the characters and plot flow from one book to the next, but the shifts in the culture is what the books are really about-- and you have to read them all too see this. (I'm taking a break but will read the next in a couple of months).
An odd note: If you get a chance to see or read Patriotism (short story and short film by Mishima) I think it provides some good insights into seppuku which is essential to Runaway Horses. I still cannot understand this form of honor but I did walk away knowing that it's real.
In this installment, Honda comes to believe his late friend Kiyoaki has returned as Isao, a youngster who plans to commit
I enjoyed this installment just a little bit less than the first ("Spring Snow") mainly because I wasn't quite as struck by the beauty of the language. (This may have been a translation issue, however.) It took a long while for the story to build, but I had a hard time putting the book down once I reached the halfway point.
Looking forward to reading the third installment soon.
Mishima was a wonderful writer and I thoroughly enjoyed Runaway Horses. That being said, the series as a whole reminds me a little now of Tolstoy. In a massive work like War and Peace, Tolstoy took his time to tell love stories, fight battles, and express his views on history and politics. For Mishima, Spring Snow was the love story; Runaway Horses was the political rant. On its own, Runaway Horses delves too much into political discourse to keep the plot interesting, but within the series as a whole, it makes sense. In comparison to the first book, Runaway Horses is dry and somewhat flat; but as an addendum or companion to Spring Snow, it is a brilliant follow up. I look forward to the third novel in the series.
I think I know where David Mitchell got his reincarnation idea from for the Ghostwritten/number9dream/Cloud Atlas story arcs, though.
This book, much more than the previous one in the series, challenged my perspective of a woman with fairly leftist views, treasuring life above all in 2017, when ideals for which individuals are ready to die for all seem a bit blurry, twisted by the contemporary politics and post/wild-capitalist reality. The glorification of seppuku is hard to understand for an outsider to Japanese culture. The ideas of honor and glory are dangerous to play with, as they often lead to extremism, and in my opinion, personal sacrifice is rarely, if ever acceptable in their name. The ideals of patriotism, cultural purity and nationalism are even more problematic, given the history of the 19th/20th century. Somehow, in popular culture, when it comes to Japan, there is a larger tolerance, than when the same comes from e.g. German culture, maybe given the romanticism of the whole samurai mythos as it is portrayed in the West.
The novel is so typically Japanese, and if that means, in Mishima's words, that it is marked by elegance and brutality, I have to say the latter is a tad more overpowering.
Elegance was much more palpable in Spring Snow. It was not a very well constructed novel. Some parts were tedious to read, and some asked a lot of mental investment from the reader that did not really pay off.
What I loved was how the connection of this novel to the previous and the following in the series shone through, those little details that were mystical and surprising. I found Honda strangely refreshing, too. An interesting, but difficult read.