Thirst for Love

Rating:
Summary: .
Review: Mishima is a fascinating and intoxicating author to me, but I felt a little disappointed with Thirst for Love after having read the Sailor Who Fell From Grace With the Sea. It seems less focused somehow; I found certain segments a bit dull and the end somewhat dissatisfying (not just because it wasn't "happy.") But, those are just the cons -- I still think this is quite a book. Etsuko's psychology is fascinating, and there are some great moments. Quality, unconventional stuff.

Rating:
Summary: thirst for love
Review: the guy below doesnt know what he is talking about, he didnt understand anything

Rating:
Summary: Unsatisfying early effort from Mishima.
Review: Thirst For Love was only Mishima's second novel, and it shows. It could probably have been made into something great, but the author was either too hasty to finish it or simply didn't know what to do. Despite its great title, it's somewhat of a disappointment. I figure it was an attempt at writing an anti-romance, some kind of complete inversion of the concept of the love story. Well, it wasn't a success. The first half of the book is mired in scenes that don't go anywhere (such as the grotesque flashback where Etsuko's husband dies - did we really need that? why was it included?), and this makes the developments of the second half a bit of a shock. It seemed rather sudden how Etsuko's mild interest in the gardener Saburo turned into complete obsession. Certain aspects of the book sorely needed more attention from the author - Yakichi's attitude toward Etsuko could have been turned into something involving, but ends up being a mere tangent, a check mark on the laundry list of plot points. Had Mishima further developed the backstory of the family, we might have understood what lay behind the enmity between its various members, but it went almost completely unexplained, and said members end up coming across as spiteful for no reason. On the other hand, there are plot lines that are completely pointless and blatantly fabricated and yet are for some reason drawn out to great length - namely, the utterly inane subplot with the socks Etsuko buys.

Admittedly, the bit about the festival conveys the appropriate feeling of frenzy. Also, Mishima does a fine job of showing the dichotomy between the overly sensitive, wounded Etsuko and the utterly uncaring, "light man" Saburo. But these are small parts; the whole just isn't all that good. And let's not even get started on the deliberately "shocking" ending, which goes completely against what little character development Mishima bothered to put in. I got the feeling that he simply didn't know how to end the story, and so took the first way out that occurred to him; it would have been better if he had given it a little more thought. In fact, that can be said of just about everything in this book apart from the title. Feel free to skip it and go straight to the masterpiece The Sound Of Waves.