Reviews
(4.88/5)August 16, 2024
January 6, 2022
No doubt the most challenging read i've reviewed, it's totally worth taking your time to get through this. Mishima dealing with his homosexuality and masculinity. Extended musings about him masturbating to a certain favorite painting of his. Realizing, denying, hiding, giving up on his sexuality... he's really philosophical about how he organizes certain thoughts he had throughout certain parts of his life, but him psychoanalyzing himself with that big old vocabulary of his is pretty chef's kiss
March 3, 2025
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In short I'd say it's a very self aware but also self indulgent book. As mishima himself admits:
ふつう、こういう考えは詩を書くのにはふさわしいが、小説を書くのには適しない。仮面の告白は、それを強引に、小説という形でやろうとしたのである
and even very early on I also had this sense that I'm reading something poetic, something like a drama or play. And I'm not saying this as a negative thing, just as an observation of the impression this book left on me. In a sense this book goes beyond the kind of thing you can rate with words like "good" or "bad" or a score like