Human Life is limited but i would like to live forever
Yukio Mishima
I come across Yukio Mishima by accident and fell in love with his writing, ideas and his life. A little bit of back story before we start so you can understand better, the author, Yukio Mishima believed in the code of ethics of bushido which is a samurai code of ethics. He wanted restore this code of ethics and also wanted to restore power to the emperor. Because of it you will see a lot of common theme throughout his novels which is being against the westernization of japan and the major cultural shift that happen, Mishima also likes to mix his fictional story with real life historical events that happen in Japan.
Despite Yukio Mishima being against the modernization of Japan, he still understood that in order for Japan to prosper they needed to borrow technology from the west, so he wanted Japan to take western technology but still keep their own ideology and culture and not be influenced by the west. Despite that Yukio Mishima did still take a lot of inspiration from western literature, and his tetralogy is the result of that. Yukio Mishima was also nominated for the Nobel prize 4 times but never won.
Spring Snow
Not gonna spoil a lot of the story, Spring Snow is the first of his tetralogy and follows the story of Kiyoaki Matsugae, this young and handsome man, who has a good future ahead of him. He is born into this used to be samurai family that became rich by embracing the cultural change during the meiji period. Problem is he is a bit childish, he falls in love with Satoko Ayakura, who came from a more aristocratic family that has a higher stature, the type of family the Matsugae family looks up to and aim to become. This causes confusion in Kiyoaki feeling towards Satoko. He actions become very spoiled, childish, and immature. In one moment he loves her and another moment he doesn’t, this goes back and forth for a while. Despite his actions, following his antics is very interesting. At one point he writes his letter to Satoko saying he has given up on her and lost all his faith on her, later on he meets some of his friends, and they ask him whether he have someone that he love and he describes Satoko which then he realizes that he has made a massive mistake and he needs to stop Satoko from reading his letter. He then calls Satoko and tells her to promise him to not read the letter. Later on he meets Satoko in a rickshaw ride and you follow his internal thoughts of whether she reads letter or did she kept her promise. This story may seems to have a lot of events that sounds trivial and uninteresting but there is a certain charm to it. It is not until Satoko is really out of Kiyoaki reach that he realizes he full love for her, thanks to his friend Honda, who is very loyal and trustworthy and will do anything for Kiyoaki, he helps him so that Kiyoaki can sneak out with Satoko and they can be together. The story gets more interesting from here but you have read it more yourself. Like many other works of Mishima they reflect certain themes for each characters. Having read this myself, i believe Kiyoaki represents the old Japan, trying to find its foot in this cultural shift, and the reason why he doesnt really know for sure his feelings for Satoko is because Satoko represents this new and old Japan, so sometimes he loves Satoko and sometimes he despises her, unsure of whether he is willing to accept change in himself. Satoko family represents new Japan who accepts the cultural shift. Kiyoaki sees his family later on in a bad light because they let go of their samurai roots.
My Japanese Language Journey 