The Sailor That Fell From Grace With The Sea

This image is slightly related to the below post. It is a picture of a dead squished frog. It had flies on it. This reminds me the time when I was in Cambodia (the Angkor Wat specifically) with Jit Wei and Arjun and Jit spotted a dead sparrow and pointed it out. Arjun groaned and went "Oh no don't tell her!" because he knew I'd go take a picture of it. I did, but the picture was out of focus on the Diana, so it never saw the light of day.

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I have not actually finished reading the captioned book by Yukio Mishima yet. This is because for a novella of 181 pages, it's contents are disturbingly hard to stomach. Plus I feel such revulsion towards the main character, 13 year old Noboru who is a wannabe sociopath that believes he's always right and that everything is a lie that I need to surpress my want to strangle the kid to death and throttle him.

Initially I couldn't stop laughing at him (I laughed at Ryuji and his romantic idealism of himself and the sea too), it seemed such a mockery that he believed he was the most mature person by discovering the greatest teenage angsty 'truth' ever: everything is a lie (I might like The Arcade Fire's Rebellion (Lies) but this is a bit too much for me). Now I'm just throughly disgusted at this character with absolutely no redeeming qualities. He spies on his mother having sex with another man and enjoys it, then he describes in vivid detail how he killed a baby kitten to become a 'man' and then he acts like he's the greatest know-it-all every. If there ever was someone who should be strung out on lithium and placed in a straight jacket, it's this kid.

And to top it off, I have no idea what Yukio Mishima's ideas were to include his character as a foil to Ryuji. Everything is written so seriously without the slightest hint of mockery (for any mockery detected could be my own reaction to the characterisation of the characters) or inclination of intent that I am torn between declaring Mishima the most disgusting and deluded fool ever or deciding that he gives an insightful view to the human character. AND, I haven't even finished the book yet. Gosh.

Anyway for the grand total of one person left reading this, here's an interesting review I read while reading up on the book on Friday that might have shaped my idea of Mishima and the book.