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| The Entertainment Review |
| By: Christopher Ross Publisher: Da Capo Press |
Many authors and artists have to die in order to finally become famous. This has happened with a vast number of
now popular artists of all types. Yukio Mishima is perhaps one of the greatest authors of the twentieth century and is
perhaps unique in the fact that more has been written about the manner of his spectacular death than on the
literature that he wrote.
In 1970, Yukio Mishima committed seppuku or hara-kiri, that Japanese act of committing suicide by disembowelment.
Over the years there have been many speculations and theories on why Mishima did what he did, but there has been
no clear answer that has emerged. Now Christopher Ross sets out to try to learn to understand Mishima, his life and
his experiences. With “Mishima’s Sword: Travels in Search of a Samurai Legend,” author Ross may have shed a
little bit of light on the author’s infamous and sometimes mysterious death.
Ross explains that Nihilism was, for Mishima, a personal issue, an insight or even simply a nagging doubt that his life
had meaning, and a more general concern or manifestation of yukoku, a state of regret about the decline of
spirituality of Japan. In Mishima's view, nihilism was the inevitable result of abandoning the Emperor as a divinity, and
therefore is a centre of ultimate value, a source of immutable otherness or a focus of meaning in an otherwise
meaningless world of transitory things. Ross began to wonder whether Mishima hoped to stimulate a return to the
values of a Cultural Emperor by his own death.
Ross, a travel writer clearly fascinated and awed by Japanese tradition starts his quest for the metaphysical and
spiritual with the material and tangible, the sword that was used by Mishima’s assistant to decapitate him. In the
tradition of hara-kiri, the man disembowels himself while a follower cuts off the head in a single stroke.
This journey takes Ross from the temples of Buddhist and press archives in order to look for news clippings of the
suicide to museums and through history and the legacies of the Tokugawa Shogunate, the Meiji emperor, and the
fierce Samurai class. Scattered throughout the “Mishima’s Sword: Travels in Search of a Samurai Legend” are
stories of Ross' own childhood and his love for Eastern martial arts, as are investigations into Mishima's life, his
fragile health in his childhood, his homosexuality and his ultimate decision to end his life.
Ross does not find the sword very easily, and when he finally does find it, it is rusted and somewhat damaged. He is
a bit disillusioned until realizes that, as Ross puts it: “Mishima's sword, was, I realized, more real to me as an idea., an
archetype for some quixotic grasp at a fantasy part, and didn't seem to need to exist as two feet or so of decaying
edged steel.”
The last thing that Yukio Mishima wrote before leaving his home to commit suicide was a short note that read:
“Human life is limited, but I want to live forever.” Perhaps it is these words more than the sword that lays the true
answer to the mystery of his death.
now popular artists of all types. Yukio Mishima is perhaps one of the greatest authors of the twentieth century and is
perhaps unique in the fact that more has been written about the manner of his spectacular death than on the
literature that he wrote.
In 1970, Yukio Mishima committed seppuku or hara-kiri, that Japanese act of committing suicide by disembowelment.
Over the years there have been many speculations and theories on why Mishima did what he did, but there has been
no clear answer that has emerged. Now Christopher Ross sets out to try to learn to understand Mishima, his life and
his experiences. With “Mishima’s Sword: Travels in Search of a Samurai Legend,” author Ross may have shed a
little bit of light on the author’s infamous and sometimes mysterious death.
Ross explains that Nihilism was, for Mishima, a personal issue, an insight or even simply a nagging doubt that his life
had meaning, and a more general concern or manifestation of yukoku, a state of regret about the decline of
spirituality of Japan. In Mishima's view, nihilism was the inevitable result of abandoning the Emperor as a divinity, and
therefore is a centre of ultimate value, a source of immutable otherness or a focus of meaning in an otherwise
meaningless world of transitory things. Ross began to wonder whether Mishima hoped to stimulate a return to the
values of a Cultural Emperor by his own death.
Ross, a travel writer clearly fascinated and awed by Japanese tradition starts his quest for the metaphysical and
spiritual with the material and tangible, the sword that was used by Mishima’s assistant to decapitate him. In the
tradition of hara-kiri, the man disembowels himself while a follower cuts off the head in a single stroke.
This journey takes Ross from the temples of Buddhist and press archives in order to look for news clippings of the
suicide to museums and through history and the legacies of the Tokugawa Shogunate, the Meiji emperor, and the
fierce Samurai class. Scattered throughout the “Mishima’s Sword: Travels in Search of a Samurai Legend” are
stories of Ross' own childhood and his love for Eastern martial arts, as are investigations into Mishima's life, his
fragile health in his childhood, his homosexuality and his ultimate decision to end his life.
Ross does not find the sword very easily, and when he finally does find it, it is rusted and somewhat damaged. He is
a bit disillusioned until realizes that, as Ross puts it: “Mishima's sword, was, I realized, more real to me as an idea., an
archetype for some quixotic grasp at a fantasy part, and didn't seem to need to exist as two feet or so of decaying
edged steel.”
The last thing that Yukio Mishima wrote before leaving his home to commit suicide was a short note that read:
“Human life is limited, but I want to live forever.” Perhaps it is these words more than the sword that lays the true
answer to the mystery of his death.
