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Runaway Horses: The Sea of Fertility, 2 (Vintage International) Kindle Edition
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In 1932, Shigeuki Honda has become a judge in Osaka. Convinced that a young rightist revolutionary, Isao, is the reincarnation of his friend Kiyoaki, Honda commits himself to saving the youth from an untimely death. Isao, driven to patriotic fanaticism by a father who instilled in him the ethos of the ancient samurai, organizes a violent plot against the new industrialists who he believes are usurping the Emperor’s rightful power and threatening the very integrity of the nation. Runaway Horses is the chronicle of a conspiracy — a novel about the roots and nature of Japanese fanaticism in the years that led to war.
- LanguageEnglish
- PublisherVintage
- Publication dateApril 9 2013
- File size1434 KB
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Product description
Review
—The Baltimore Sun
“Mishima is like Stendhal in his precise psychological analyses, like Dostoevsky in his explorations of darkly destructive personalities.”
—Christian Science Monitor --This text refers to the paperback edition.
From the Back Cover
About the Author
From the Inside Flap
Product details
- ASIN : B00C0AM0X8
- Publisher : Vintage; Reissue edition (April 9 2013)
- Language : English
- File size : 1434 KB
- Text-to-Speech : Enabled
- Screen Reader : Supported
- Enhanced typesetting : Enabled
- X-Ray : Not Enabled
- Word Wise : Enabled
- Sticky notes : On Kindle Scribe
- Print length : 429 pages
- Page numbers source ISBN : 0099282895
- Best Sellers Rank: #371,808 in Kindle Store (See Top 100 in Kindle Store)
- #242 in Japanese Literature
- #587 in Classic American Literature
- #10,226 in Literary Fiction eBooks
- Customer Reviews:
About the author

Yukio Mishima (三島 由紀夫 Mishima Yukio?) is the pen name of Kimitake Hiraoka (平岡 公威 Hiraoka Kimitake?, January 14, 1925 – November 25, 1970), a Japanese author, poet, playwright, actor, and film director. Mishima is considered one of the most important Japanese authors of the 20th century. He was considered for the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1968 but the award went to his fellow countryman Yasunari Kawabata. His works include the novels Confessions of a Mask and The Temple of the Golden Pavilion, and the autobiographical essay Sun and Steel. His avant-garde work displayed a blending of modern and traditional aesthetics that broke cultural boundaries, with a focus on sexuality, death, and political change. Mishima was active as a nationalist and founded his own right-wing militia. He is remembered for his ritual suicide by seppuku after a failed coup d'état attempt, known as the "Mishima Incident".
The Mishima Prize was established in 1988 to honor his life and works.
Bio from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. Photo by Shirou Aoyama (http://www.bungakukan.or.jp/) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.
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Set 20 years after the tragic events ending the last novel, this volume opens gloomily with Honda as a judge. The story progresses through a series of occurrences that will leave Honda to doubt his initial composed, rational understanding of the world as he encounters young Isao Iinuma, none other than the sun of Kyioaki's previous tutor, Iinuma.
The story juxtaposes love and reason, passion and tranquility, as Honda learns to heed mysterious signs connecting Iinuma to the long-gone Kyioaki. In a struggle to redeem himself after feeling he had let down his friend two decades ago, Honda abandons his career as a judge to serve young Iinuma in a fight for freedom.
Freedom from corruption, freedom from greed, from all worldly desires, are synonymous to complete loyalty to the Emperor in Iinuma's heart.
Isao's speech during his hearing reverberates the pure spirit of Japan, led by an Emperor descendent from the Goddess of the Sun, to whom the people, his children, will forever pledge allegiance. In his monologue, Isao explains how we would like to tear down the clouds that harm the pure rays of sun emitted by His Majesty -- in other words, he aims to destroy the corruption that eroded the purity of the Japanese spirit and that separated the Emperor from his disciples. Isao sees the rising zaibatsu, modern firms that in their restlessness for money impoverished Japan, as the source of all evil. They are to blame for having viciously corrupted the politicians who should have been the force behind the Imperial Will and acted as intermediaries between the Emperor and his children, the people of Japan.
Striking these conglomerates, in Isao's view, will restore Japan's health and sanity. Following the path of the activist Wang Yang-ming, Isao believes that "To know and not to act is not to know." This comes at a cost, despoiling the doers of their virtue, of their purity, like a luminous vase crumbling under countless cracks furrowed all over its surface. The price to pay is seppuku. Only then will the corrupt and those pure who soiled their hands with corrupt blood -- an allegory explained by Isao to Prince Toin as a present of rice offered to the Emperor which, one way or the other, must lead to the death of the person who bestowed the gift -- be purified and rise to heaven in full glory. Only then can the sun shine freely beyond the clouds and reach the destitute people of Japan, and embellish them with its pure rays of eternal light.



The sea of Fertility is nothing short of a masterpiece. Mishima crucified himself in his work (SOF), and then did the same in real life.
If you have not read Spring Snow yet, read that first before reading this book...If you have read Spring Snow, then why in the hell are you reading reviews of this book!? Get it, continue the journey!