The Life and Death of Yukio Mishima (49 page)

1962

The pattern of Mishima's life in the first half of the 1960's becomes apparent. He concentrates on writing plays and does not tackle a major
novel;
Utsukushii Hoshi
(“Beautiful Star”) is an SF novel. “Within two or three years,” Mishima states, “I must make a plan for life.”

1963

Quarrel with the Bungakuza, the theatrical company with which Mishima has been associated for a decade. Mishima leaves the Bungakuza and charges the members with hypocrisy. Poses for the photo album
Torture by Roses
.

1964

The year of the Tokyo Olympics. Mishima reports on the events with gusto and writes about his kendo (fencing) experiences. He still has not found his “plan for life.”

1965

Death of the older novelist Junichirō Tanizaki. Mishima mentioned as a candidate for the Nobel Prize in news-agency dispatches from Stockholm. Has embarked on the first volume of his tetralogy
The Sea of Fertility
and has begun an autobiographical essay
Sun and Steel
.

1966

Makes his only speech to the foreign press in Japan. He completes
Spring Snow
and starts
Runaway Horses
, the second volume of
The Sea of Fertility
. He approaches the Jieitai, the Self-Defense Forces, for permission to train at army bases. Mishima poses for the photo of himself as St. Sebastian.

1967

Trains at Jieitai bases. Has a meeting with students from Waseda University with a view to attracting them to join what is to be his private army, the Tatenokai. He fails; inaugurates the private army at a blood-oath ceremony in Tokyo. Pays a visit to India with Yōko, at the invitation of the government; travels to Benares, Ajan ta, and Calcutta.

1968

Completes
Runaway Horses
and embarks on the third and most difficult volume of the tetralogy,
The Temple of Dawn
. He announces the formation of the Tatenokai. In October the Nobel Prize for Literature is awarded to Yasunari Kawabata; Mishima has been considered a strong contender for the prize, but his age is against him.

1969

Is in some doubt about the Tatenokai. He cannot find a role for his private army. Ignored in Japan. Following publication of
Eirei no Koe
(“The
Voices of the Heroic Dead”) in 1966, he has acquired a reputation for right-wing views and has lost popularity in the Bundan, the literary establishment. The creation of the Tatenokai is regarded as a foolish gesture by his friends and ignored by others. The Tatenokai members dispute among themselves.

1970

Early in the year Mishima resolves to die when he completes
The Sea of Fertility
. He is not sure by what method he shall die; he decides to use the Tatenokai as a vehicle for his death. After completing
The Temple of Dawn
, the third book in his tetralogy, he secretly organizes a small group within the Tatenokai and discusses with them the possibility of staging a coup d'état. The youths are naïve and do not understand Mishima's character. Masakatsu Morita, the student leader of the Tatenokai under Mishima, encourages Mishima to take action; his support strengthens Mishima's resolve. About June, Mishima decides to commit hara-kiri and fixes the basic plan for the suicide. Two months later he completes the last scene of
The Sea of Fertility
, which he holds for the publishers. On November 25, he hands over the last installment of the book and commits suicide with Morita.

Acknowledgments and Sources

Many people assisted me in the preparation of this work and I would like to mention the special aid and comfort given to me by Gilbert de Botton of Zurich. He encouraged me to start the book, advised me on the manuscript at all stages, found me a publisher, and also put me up when I had the misfortune to be thrown out of my Zurich apartment.

A number of eminent scholars helped me with the book. There is very little literature on Mishima in existence in the English language; and I was dependent on the leading scholars in the field when I began to do research. Professor Ivan Morris encouraged me to direct my studies toward Mishima's aesthetic, and by doing so saved me what might have been a long detour into his “politics.” Professor Donald Keene advised me at various stages of this work and, like Ivan Morris, read a first draft in 1971; he was helpful on the subject of the authenticity of
Confessions of a Mask
, enabling me to determine which parts of that seminal work I might rely upon as autobiography and what segments I must ignore. I have also received invaluable assistance from the Japanese police and from the Jieitai. The former saved me much time by killing some of the wild rumors which circulated in Tokyo after Mishima's suicide; and the latter gave me access to the room in which that suicide took place.

In Japan the person who helped me most was Nobutoshi Hagiwara, the eminent historian and journalist; he has been a critic of this work, a first draft of which he read. I would also like to thank Junrō Fukashiro of the
Asahi Shimbun
, who encouraged me to carry on with the book over a period of three years. I would also thank my staff in Tokyo, especially Michiko Shimizu, who carried out research for me; Kanji Takamasu joined me at a late hour in the research effort and translated difficult passages from Mishima's works, and also criticized the seven drafts through which the book passed; Michiko Murasugi studied Mishima's theater career on my behalf. Finally, I would like to thank Mrs. Yōko
Mishima, who took an objective view of my project from the beginning and offered me advice on the dangers which faced one who chose to write about a Japanese novelist without being a master of the language.

In addition, I would like to thank my friends among the foreign correspondents in Tokyo, especially Bernard Krisher of
Newsweek
, who originally intended to do the book with me, and also Samuel Jameson of the
Los Angeles Times
, who telephoned me when he heard the news on the radio on November 25, 1970. One other person has followed this project from the beginning: Takao Tokuoka of the
Sunday Mainichi
, also a friend of Mishima's and probably the man who knows most about this work, bar myself.

My editor at Farrar, Straus and Giroux, Bill Weatherby, helped me a great deal in the final stages of the preparation of the manuscript. I would also like to thank Mr. Robert Giroux, who obtained permission from Mishima's publishers for me to quote from some of his works, and I am grateful for their generosity in this matter to Alfred A. Knopf, New Directions, and Kōdansha International. I am particularly appreciative of Knopf's kindness in providing uncorrected proofs of the translation by Edward Seidensticker of
The Decay of the Angel
, so that I could quote certain key passages. Many other people assisted me with this book: especially Akiko Sugiyama, Paolo Carosone, and Jason Roussos. I would like to thank also
The
(London)
Times
, for permission to quote an article; Georges Borchardt, my agent in New York, and his assistant, Becky Kapell; the Swire Group and Phillips & Drew, for finance; and my father and two of my sisters, Susan and Charity, for guidance.

In addition, I would like to point out a source problem. The first chapter of this book contains plentiful dialogue. No one knows, however, exactly what the participants in the drama at Ichigaya on November 25, 1970, said to one another; to some extent, I had the choice of excluding dialogue from my account or inventing it. So far as was possible, I based my dialogue on a reading of official documents, especially papers furnished by the police (to the prosecution at the trial of the three Tatenokai youths who survived the day), notably the so-called
Bōtō Chinjutsu
. I also took note of the evidence given at the trial by the participants in the drama: General Kanetoshi Mashita; the three Tatenokai students; and senior Jieitai officers. In addition, I interviewed police and Jieitai personnel with access to confidential records of the affair. A second source problem may be mentioned: in writing up my diaries and notes for the prologue I was dependent, to some extent, on my trained memory; though I took extensive notes on my meetings with Yukio Mishima, there were gaps at some points. I made a very full record of my visit to Camp Fuji to
participate in the abortive all-night exercise to which Yukio Mishima summoned me in March 1969. I utilized this in the preparation of my long account of that exercise. My principal sources for this book have been, however, the works of Yukio Mishima. On the whole I avoided conducting interviews. There is enough published material to occupy a rapid reader of Japanese for at least several years, and to provide for a host of books on Mishima (thirty-three have been published in Japanese already).

Finally, I would like to thank certain Japanese publishers for permission to quote from untranslated works by Mishima: Shinchōsha Publishing Company, for
Niniroku Jiken to Watakushi
and “Isu”; Kōdansha Publishing Company, for
Watakushi no Henreki Jidai
; the Tōbu Department Store, for extracts from its catalogue to the Mishima Exhibition. For other works, I would like to thank the following:
Shokun
and
Bungei
magazines, for recollections of Mishima;
Asahi Shimbun
, for extracts from articles, interviews, and letters;
Mainichi Shimbun
, for extracts from articles and interviews; and
Pacific Community
for extracts from Edward Seidens ticker's article on Mishima from their April 1971 issue. In certain cases, I have slightly
condensed
material from hitherto untranslated sources, without so indicating in the text.

As regards the new
Epilogue (1995–99)
, I would like to express my particular thanks to my editor Ethan Nosowsky of Farrar, Straus and Giroux for his exercise of taste, discretion, and timely pressure. Without his patience there would have been no considerable result.

Bibliography

This list of Yukio Mishima's books was prepared with the help of Donald Keene. A few of the titles could not be translated satisfactorily, and so I have left them untranslated. The bibliography includes the
Collected Works
being published by Shinchōsha in thirty-six volumes and excludes all other collected-works editions. Mishima wrote many of his books for commercial reasons; he considered these to be worthless as literature and I do not discuss them in my book, although they appear in the bibliography.