The attraction of a book like Mishima's Sun and Steel is that its confessional nature is the embodiment of a life that has won back meaning for itself from the meaninglessness and aimlessness of the course that this life has taken. The writer is aspired anew; his life is rejuvenated. Of course, the reader finds that his attraction to this kind of book must soon snuff itself out, as the price of the life contained within the confession-book, which has won back meaning for itself, is the deathly momentum which leads to death. A confession is a summary, and more properly an apology, that is: a justification. The reader can only kneel at the graveside for so long.
But that is precisely why for me art can only be appreciated in concert with experience, as a means of invigoration and stimulation. In place of a 'deathly momentum', there is life. But that was precisely Mishima's point - the contradiction between words and action, between talking about doing things and actually doing them. Better to try to incite Japan to right-wing revolt than criticise the right wing for moral failings. I'm sure it's all been said before... In Tolstoy...
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