Confessions of a Mask

Rating:
Summary: Harrowing, brutal
Review: --those words only begin to describe this claustrophobic, asphyxiating novel which is really an exercise in language as torture, prose as death sentence. Confessions of a Mask is a remarkable revelation of self and affirmation. It's hard to get a handle on Mishima's influence, but it's harder still to imagine very much of the grim and quite tedious prose coming from "the underground" today without bowing hard in Mishima's direcetion. Highly recommended.

Rating:
Summary: An obscure, never appropriate, hard-to-digest style...
Review: ...of writing stories. How disappointed ! The plot had everything to be somber and flamboyant. But Mishima's style was so heavy with far-fetched metaphors, look, it just spoiled everything. Well, he didn't prove very successful in building sound genuine characters with a psychological coherence either. Rather shadows or even frail paper puppets. For instance, there's a very important passage, in the first chapters, where the author has Yûichi bursting in the room of a total stranger, and confessing his homosexuality. If one decides to base his whole plot on such a hard-to-believe unlikelihood, then, one should be able to master the narrative difficulties it recquires. But Mishima handled it so awkwardly, it didn't seem the least bit psychologically sound to me. You know why I feel sorry ? Well, I really expected very much of such a plot. Something ardent. In the french translation I have, it is said Mishima wrote popular novels printed in largely circulated newspapers as well as refined literary works. Someone tell me to which one of these two sorts "Confessions of a mask" belongs so that I adjust my opinion, if it is needed. I don't know Mishima very well, and I do hope this was not Mishima at his best. Read between Kawabata (Howard Hibbett's translations at Vintage are wonderful)and Tanizaki, Mishima suffers from the comparison. There seems to be no end to my lament. Looks like I really hated it, eh ? One passage I liked was :"They unavoidably obliged him to admit that this society functionned upon the fundamental principle of heterosexuality, this boring, eternal principle of the voice of the majority." Aaaanyway, the singularity of the plot of "Confessions..." (it's all it has)may suffice if you're not too demanding a reader.

Rating:
Summary: Mishima's best
Review: Above all, I love Yukio Mishima's incredible storytelling voice. In Confessions of a Mask, he creates a character so rich and realistic you can feel him in the room with you. And the protagonist of Confessions is so wonderfully CANDID. He knows that he make mistakes but also score triumphs, he admits his guilty pleasures to us sheepishly, he feels shame and remorse. And he sees everything with a clear eye, and speaks with the voice of a man who has stepped so far away from his life that he know himself better but feels his own feelings less. Mishima's prose is menacing and fast-paced, but it's the creation of this unique personality, and the time he takes to let us get to know him, that makes this Confessions of a Mask Mishima's best.

Rating:
Summary: Magnificent
Review: As a student of the history of homosexuality, Yukio Mishima's Confessions of a Mask is one of the seminal pieces of twentieth century gay literature and a wonderful primary source for historians. It is also an easy read and incredibly insightful and powerful book. I highly recommend it.

Rating:
Summary: #20 of the 100 Best Gay & Lesbian Novels
Review: During World War 2, a young Japanese man slowly discovers himself to be different than his classmates and friends. He finds himself homosexual, and to survive he hides behind a mask of social propriety, while secretly learning what he can about homosexuals in the world. Like Christopher Isherwood stated, Mishima could be compared to André Gide for similarities in style, but there are differences as well. The story is spare and clear, with some moments of offbeat humor in the midst of painful situations. It's a bit challenging for modern American audiences, but well worth the time.

Rating:
Summary: the gay coming of age novel
Review: Here in Japan, a lot in life is kept behind closed sliding doors and emotions rarely surface in public. Private and public are clearly delineated. The narrator courageously allows us into his complex private world of tangled emotions. Complicated sexual desire, an artistic sensibility, wit and intelligence create a picture of a precocious teenager that will remind you of Salinger's and Joyce's jaded teens. The narrator is intensely introspective, sympathetic, and has an active imagination fixated on death, sex, and workingclass muscular male bodies. Gay and straight readers alike will find this novel engaging and full of meaning about growing up behind a mask.

Rating:
Summary: the gay coming of age novel
Review: Here in Japan, a lot in life is kept behind closed sliding doors and emotions rarely surface in public. Private and public are clearly delineated. The narrator courageously allows us into his complex private world of tangled emotions. Complicated sexual desire, an artistic sensibility, wit and intelligence create a picture of a precocious teenager that will remind you of Salinger's and Joyce's jaded teens. The narrator is intensely introspective, sympathetic, and has an active imagination fixated on death, sex, and workingclass muscular male bodies. Gay and straight readers alike will find this novel engaging and full of meaning about growing up behind a mask.

Rating:
Summary: Ideas concerning human existence...
Review: I waded carefully into this book, not knowing what the writing would be like. From the opening of the book the imagery and use of language were fantastic and captivating (some credit/blame may go to the translator).

The story itself - specifically the main voice, a young man (Mishima himself?) - never progresses. The same lack of form and function persists in the telling of the story, start to finish. Mishima muses and postulates about love and sexuality. The voice explores its secrets and thoughts carefully and meticulously. And while the explorations are clever for their language and style - they are not fresh and grow stale as they are reviewed cyclically.

Does he love a woman, does he not. Does he feel sexually attracted to women? No - but certainly aroused by men. But - nothing ever happens. His arousal for men is only truly brought to life in vivid fantasies of pain and suffering inflicted on the men in his mind.

And - still - at the close of the book - the character continues to avoid himself and chase after a girl he has used as his foil and who is now married to another man. He is the same person despite his years and experiences. This book has a potential for power - but feels sad and hollow.

Per Mishima, "It was like being given a gift of damp fireworks."

Rating:
Summary: hiding the true self
Review: I've never been much a reader of Mishima. The only books of his that I had red before this one were Death in Midsummer and The Sound of Waves, and although I enjoyed reading both of those books they did not impact me as much as say reading the works of Tanizaki. That however was until I read this book. Not having read one of Mishima's biographies but knowing that he had homosexual tendecies I can not say if this book is semi-autobiographical or not, however, if it is it gives the reader a glimpose at his internal demons. The book seems to be more of a memoir than anything else. The writer speaks of his early years and his emerging homosexuality. It is quite moving in some parts because he depicts his inner struggles in good detail. However, his desires are also quite disturbing because of the way he self gratifies himself. he does not think of intercourse, but of inflicting wounds. Criteria of fantasy include stomach muscles that would look good with blood flowing down them. an interesting book.

Rating:
Summary: a ritual of introspection
Review: If one is looking for a book with a mood for eerie rituals of introspection, this is a good stuff. If one has a knack for being buttonholed with confessions, this is a good stuff too. If one likes finding the so-called absolute answers between the real and unreal, Mishima can articulate this dichotomy with his charming details and weird allegories in this novel. However this book is a great deal of a burden of tedious repetitions of his tales of perversion and guilt, while the dialogues are poorly blended to suit the whole narrative fabric.

Mishima exotically expresses the surrealism of the feelings of a homosexual man, and his confessions of self-deception, and his obssession with blood, death, beauty and tragedy. Even when this novel is originally a Mishima version of one kind of love, his work is also a sort of an amalgam among aesthetes and sensualists like Oscar Wilde and Dostoevski as reflected by this sharp passage:

"I was one of those savage marauders who, not knowing how to express their love, mistakenly kill the persons they love. I would kiss the lips of those who had fallen to the ground and were still moving spasmodically."

This is the first Mishima tale I have experienced, yet I feel that this work reveals a lot of his personality hook line and sinker.