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The Temple of Dawn: The Sea of Fertility, 3 (Vintage International) by [Yukio Mishima, E. Dale Saunders, Cecilia Segawa Seigle]

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Name: The Temple of Dawn: The Sea of Fertility, 3 (Vintage International) eBook : Mishima, Yukio, E. Dale Saunders, Cecilia Segawa Seigle: Amazon.ca: Kindle Store
Rating: 4.6 (268 reviews)

Yukio Mishima

The Temple of Dawn: The Sea of Fertility, 3 (Vintage International) Kindle Edition

by Yukio Mishima (Author), E. Dale Saunders (Translator), Cecilia Segawa Seigle (Translator) Format: Kindle Edition

4.6 268 ratings

Book 3 of 4: The Sea of Fertility

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Yukio Mishima’s The Temple of Dawn is the third novel in his masterful tetralogy, The Sea of Fertility. Here, Shigekuni Honda continues his pursuit of the successive reincarnations of Kiyoaki Matsugae, his childhood friend.

Travelling in Thailand in the early 1940s, Shigekuni Honda, now a brilliant lawyer, is granted an audience with a young Thai princess—an encounter that radically alters the course of his life. In spite of all reason, he is convinced she is the reincarnated spirit of his friend Kiyoaki. As Honda goes to great lengths to discover for certain if his theory is correct, The Temple of Dawn becomesthe story of one man’s obsessive pursuit of a beautiful woman and his equally passionate search for enlightenment.

Book 3 of 4

The Sea of Fertility
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338 pages
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English
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Vintage
Publication date

April 9 2013
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1396 KB
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“Surpassingly chilling, subtle and original.”
—The New York Times

“[Mishima’s] Sea of Fertility tetralogy. . . shines ever more obviously as one of the great works of the last century.”
—William Vollman --This text refers to the paperback edition.

About the Author

Yukio Mishima was born in Tokyo in 1925. He graduated from Tokyo Imperial University’s School of Jurisprudence in 1947. His first published book, The Forest in Full Bloom, appeared in 1944 and he established himself as a major author with Confessions of a Mask (1949). From then until his death he continued to publish novels, short stories, and plays each year. His crowning achievement, The Sea of Fertility tetralogy—which contains the novels Spring Snow (1969), Runaway Horses (1969), The Temple of Dawn (1970), and The Decay of the Angel (1971)—is considered one of the definitive works of twentieth century Japanese fiction. In 1970, at the age of 45 and the day after completing the last novel in the Fertility series, Mishima committed seppuku (ritual suicide)—a spectacular death that attracted worldwide attention. --This text refers to the paperback edition.

Product details

ASIN ‏ : ‎ B00C0ALYB2
Publisher ‏ : ‎ Vintage; 1st edition (April 9 2013)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
File size ‏ : ‎ 1396 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 ‏ : ‎ 338 pages

Best Sellers Rank: #395,930 in Kindle Store (See Top 100 in Kindle Store)
- #258 in Japanese Literature
- #600 in Classic American Literature
- #10,780 in Literary Fiction eBooks

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4.6 268 ratings

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Yukio Mishima

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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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4.6 out of 5

268 global ratings

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jamesas@sympatico.ca

I am happy to own and display on my shelf - Thanks

Reviewed in Canada 🇨🇦 on June 7, 2017

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A lovely well maintained edition. In mint condition . I am happy to own and display on my shelf - Thanks !

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Angry Mofo

Amazing.........amazing.

Reviewed in Canada 🇨🇦 on October 27, 2002

Now here's one of those books which one tries to review, but can only come up with disembodied cries and wild gesticulations due to sheer awe when one sits down to do it. I'll admit, I was a bit skeptical when approaching this: Runaway Horses, the second novel in the Sea of Fertility cycle, seemed to me to be a kind of regression after the incredibly beautiful Spring Snow. But now it occurs to me that I very well may have treated it unfairly, since I've read The Temple of Dawn and was blown away all over again.
I'll grant you, this is a more difficult read than Spring Snow, which is probably why people don't talk about it as much. Why so? Well, first of all, it's split into parts. The first part isn't very heavy on plot - most of it is comprised of Mishima explaining various aspects of Buddhism. You might not be too keen on this; I wasn't, and frankly I don't think Mishima was either - it's a bit too dry to have been written by someone who was passionate about the subject. If this turns you off, however, I advise you to persevere - the ending will make it more than worth it.
Secondly, there's an abrupt shift in focus. The first two books centered around their young protagonists Kiyoaki and Isao; Shigekuni Honda was present in both as a sort of way to link the two, but was often out of the picture. Further, both of those books seemed to paint a broader picture of Japan, if the depictions of court intrigue in Spring Snow and conspiracy organization in Runaway Horses are any indication. Indeed, both of those books reflect just how well Mishima could understand the world when he had a mind to. The Temple of Dawn, however, takes a new course that is then followed all the way to the end of The Sea of Fertility - it takes place almost entirely in Honda's head. Other characters are still present, certainly, but now everything is filtered through his eyes. This explains why you never meet the new incarnation of Kiyoaki, Ying Chan, in person - all you know of her comes from Honda's obsessive thoughts.
In taking this course, Mishima has created just about the most poignant portrayal of loneliness and ennui I've ever seen. Reduced to Honda's perspective, the world of the novel becomes much more insular. This really culminates in the last novel (The Decay of the Angel), but it's more than evident here. Here we have Honda, a man whose life has been a brilliant success by all standards, and yet who can't say he has ever lived. Does that sound like a cliche? Well, now that I look over that sentence, it kind of does. But this will be soon forgotten when you read about his lonely dreams and his increasing burning desire to be someone he isn't. And in this light, it's no surprise that his quest for Ying Chan becomes the one and only quest of his life. It could have been no other way - it's one of those brilliant Mishima touches to have made the third incarnation a woman; not the first or the second, mind you, but the third, when Honda is already slipping into old age, which Mishima equated with the loss of one's soul. Only this way could the intense yearning that permeates the pages of this book have been created.
The writing itself shows Mishima to be in full mastery of his art. One of the reasons why I found Runaway Horses a bit underwhelming was the lack of the absolutely mindblowingly sensuous descriptions that filled Spring Snow. Well, in The Temple of Dawn, they're back with a vengeance. I won't tell you any of the plot or how this relates to it since I don't want to ruin it for you. I will, however, say that the ending is just about one of the most brilliant things I've ever read. For a time, I was wondering where Mishima was going with these new developments and puzzling over how they could end. And then came the ending. In hindsight, it was the most obvious conclusion ever, and yet, since Mishima is familiar with things such as "subtlety," I was taken completely off guard by it. It's quite possibly the apex of this author's literary career, and it took the wind right out of me; when trying to imagine how it was written, I can only envision a fevered Mishima furiously tossing off page after page with a sort of maniacal frantic gleam in his eyes. And to this day, I get the oddest sinking feeling whenever I recall it.
Why am I writing this incoherence? If you've started The Sea of Fertility, you'll certainly finish it, and if not, you should be reading Spring Snow. But I implore you not to forget to read The Temple of Dawn. Don't listen to anything anyone else says about it - the truth is that it's another unqualified masterpiece from a man whose career was blessed with them.

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Yaojung Yang

Please do not "See just the trees, but not the forest"

Reviewed in Canada 🇨🇦 on January 7, 2003

"See just the trees, but not the forest" is an old Chinese saying, meaning to comprehend, and thus evaluate, things only from partial angles and views. To assess/critic, even compare any one of the 4 "Sea of Fertility" novels is to do just that. The 4 novels are all part of a grand design in a way very much like 4 movements from a symphony. Yes each novel stands on its own as a great literature accomplishment, but so does each movement of any symphony by Beethoven or Mahler. Now, I am not a write or a literature critic in any shape or form, but I have read the complete "Sea of Fertility" twice before, and am onto "Runaway Horses" for the third time now. Just want to remind every one that, these novels are not meant to be read individually.

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Amazon Customer

Good but with some reservations about translation

Reviewed in Canada 🇨🇦 on May 13, 2000

This is the third installment of the SEA OF FERTILITY tetralogy.
Seeing the development of Honda's life throughout the "Sea of Fertility" series has been a fascinating journey that I'm sure will be taken to extreme in part IV (The Decay of the Angel.) Knowing a bit about Mishima's biography is particularly helpful in understanding his works (more so than with many other authors.)
As Honda (who is the link in all the books) gets older, he gets jaded and disenchanted with life, he get's wrapped up in sexual fantasy with a girl over 30 years younger, ignores his wife, and is still searching for some sort of religious truth in Buddhism, although his outlook becomes more nihilistic all the time.
This is a good story, although not as good as "Spring Snow" or "Runaway Horses." The writing is a bit more clouded than before...but its probably because there's a different translater in this volume. "Spring Snow" and "Runaway Horses" were both translated by Michael Gallagher who did a brilliant job. This volume uses two translators and the words just don't flow as well...its more awkward. (By the way I'm reading the series put out on Vintage International.)
In addition to just being a wonderful piece of fiction, its interesting to see how the characters reflect different aspects of 20th century Japanese society, and the conflicts that arise when a nation embraces aspects of different cultures and straddles two distinctly different ideaologies.
I strongly recommend reading the book if you've read the previous two, because Honda's character is ever evolving and Mishima is a grand storyteller, but I can't rate this one as high due to the sometimes dry translation.

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George Campbell

Good not Great

Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on September 17, 2018

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As great as Mishima was, his penultimate novel reveals the decline of his literary powers. In my opinion this book is slightly ponderous in exposition and the reincarnation plot premise (which works well over the first two books of the series) becomes laboured. Worth a read for Mishima enthusiasts, although if you are buying Mishima for the first time I would recommend one of his earlier masterpieces such as The Temple of The Golden Pavilion, Forbidden Colours, or his preceding novel Runaway Horses.

One person found this helpful

Miketang

The Temple of Dawn

Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on August 12, 2017

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Somewhat heavy going at times, elliptical in places, the writing on Hindu/Buddhist philosophy is interesting but becomes rather tedious. Yet at its best shows the poetic lyricism and deep thought so characteristic of Mishima's genius.

Jim W.-

Satisfied

Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on June 21, 2018

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I’m very satisfied

Sahil Sood

The Temple of Dawn

Reviewed in India 🇮🇳 on September 21, 2020

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Building on the theme of reincarnation, Mishima's third installment in "The Sea of Fertility" tetralogy, set during the early years of American occupation and post-war Japan (1941-1967), begins with Honda, who, while on a work trip to Thailand, is luckily granted an audience with a young Thai princess. Convinced that the princess is a reincarnation of his childhood friend Kiyoaki, Honda sets off on obsessive, philosophical quest to understand the true nature of transmigration of souls, a journey which takes him to sacred Hindu and Buddhist religious sites in India, where he devotes himself to studying myths, legends, and ritualistic ceremonies of Kings and warriors. However, in the post-war Japanese society, reeling under poverty and destruction, Honda becomes an unexpected beneficiary of sudden wealth, and we slowly see a subtle shift in his characterization. Whereas earlier he was shown as the man of reason, resolutely wary of vagaries of emotions and fleeting passions, we now see him grapple with uncertainty and meaninglessness of life. The man who, in his extreme youth chastised Kiyoaki for his hedonistic spirit, now becomes a rich voyeur whose obsession with beauty and sensuous pleasures of the flesh of the young Thai princess leads him to a despairing end. In “The Temple of Dawn”, Mishima uses Honda’s metamorphosis and suffering to highlight Japan’s decadence in the aftermath of American occupation and its longing to achieve unity and semblance in a deeply ruptured society.

3 people found this helpful

Mary Whipple

"How alike were the voices of pleasure and death! When one is summoned, all work at once becomes unimportant."

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on April 23, 2014

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In this third novel of the Sea of Fertility tetralogy by Yukio Mishima, main character Shigekuni Honda is forty-six years old. It is now 1940, and Honda has matured into a successful lawyer and judge in the years since 1912 - 1914, when he was first introduced as the schoolboy friend of Kiyoake Matsugae, the son of a samurai family. Kiyoake, however, died at a young age in Spring Snow, and his death has haunted Honda for the rest of his life. Runaway Horses, the second novel of the tetralogy, takes place during the economic crisis in Japan of 1932 - 1933. In that novel, Honda sees Isao Iinuma, the nineteen-year-old son of Kiyoaki's former tutor, as the physical reincarnation of Kiyoaki.

The Temple of Dawn opens in 1940, immediately preceding World War II. Honda is still trying to develop his own beliefs about life, death, love, the transmigration of souls, and reincarnation. War is imminent now, as Japan, Germany, and Italy have signed a treaty against the Americans. On a business trip to Bangkok, where he also hopes to meet Prince Pattanadid and Prince Krisada, former school friends from his youth, he discovers that the Thai royal family has gone to Switzerland. Only a "mad princess," age seven, lives in the palace - a virtual prisoner - claiming publicly that "I'm not really a Siamese princess. I'm the reincarnation of a Japanese, and my real home is in Japan."

Detailed discussions of Buddhism and its offshoots pervade the beginning of the novel and continue as Honda decides to travel to Calcutta, Benares, and the Ajanta caves in India, where he continues his exploration of reality, death, love, transmutation, and reincarnation.

Part II, takes place twelve years later, in 1952, on Honda's fifty-seventh birthday and continues to 1967. Honda, now living in a house facing the magnificence of Mount Fuji, is retired, still pursuing his philosophical inquiries. The relationship of sex and death become more personal as Honda becomes infatuated with a seventeen-year-old teenager whom he now believes is the next incarnation of Kiyoaki and Isao. Ying Chan, also known as Princess Chantrapa II, is the "mad princess" he met formerly in Bangkok when she was only seven. Now seventeen, she is studying in Japan.

Set as it is in the period before and after World War II, but completely skipping over the war itself, the novel has more detailed philosophical analysis than it does narrative action, and some readers of Spring Snow and Runaway Horses may weary of these detailed philosophical discussions. Mishima himself seems to be trying to work out his own ideals and reconcile himself to a different life in postwar Japan. A believer in the old samurai traditions, Mishima despaired of the growing western influence and he never forgave the emperor for denying his divinity when he signed the treaty ending the war. Just after Mishima finished the final novel in this "Sea of Fertility" tetralogy, the Decay of the Angel on November 25, 1970, he disemboweled himself in a gruesome ritual suicide--seppuku--committed in the presence of four members of his private army. He was then beheaded, in accordance with ritual.

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The Temple of Dawn: The Sea of Fertility, 3 (Vintage International) Kindle Edition

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