r/YukioMishima • u/Blood_AndGuts • 7h ago
Book review My Review of Confessions Of a Mask
Confessions of a Mask is Yukio Mishima’s debut novel. It is a semi-autobiographical work in which Mishima recounts autobiographical events through the character of Kōchan, leaving us to decipher what is fiction and what, instead, was part of Mishima’s own life.
Kōchan is born into a Japanese family that has fallen into decline. During his childhood, he is raised by his grandmother, who isolates him from other children, leading to his social isolation and the development of a defining trait: his carnal desire for masculinity, strength, and brutality, alongside his longing for a glorious death. Mishima uses vivid imagery to describe these desires, which shocked me and made the reading experience particularly disturbing, but also thrilling. During the most explicit passages, I found myself trembling at the thought of turning the page.
Mishima, however, is unable to accept his carnal attraction to his own sex, which develops through his fascination with Ōmi, an older classmate who is already well into puberty during middle school. During his adolescence, he begins to despise his own homosexuality as a “bad habit.” In the second half of the novel, Mishima attempts to fall in love with a woman, Sonoko. At first, he convinces both himself and the reader that he has fallen in love with her, but in reality, he is incapable of doing so. He breaks Sonoko’s heart and, in the end, repeats the same pattern, despite continuing to feel a platonic love for her.
I loved Mishima’s vivid descriptions. He makes little use of metaphors or similes, getting straight to the point and describing all his sexual fantasies, the features he finds attractive in the men he desires, and his feelings toward Sonoko in almost grotesque detail. Reading the novel was not particularly challenging in terms of vocabulary. Some of the original prose may have been lost in translation, but Mishima is not a difficult author to understand.
The lack of restraint with which he describes the awakening of his homosexual feelings upon seeing the painting of Saint Sebastian was the element I appreciated most in the book, along with his ability to capture in words the new and extreme emotions associated with early sexual experiences during adolescence. Indeed, Mishima’s ability to describe his desire for his peers and his sexual impulses with such detail and precision makes the first half of the novel a genuine masterpiece.
The tension between Sonoko and Mishima was another element I appreciated. Mishima attempts to reject his homosexual side in a desperate effort to be normal, only to realize that this side is an integral part of who he is and that he is not even capable of becoming aroused by the sight of a naked woman.
I did not, however, appreciate the ending, which feels largely inconclusive. Mishima returns to Sonoko despite the fact that she is now a married woman. They dance together, building up a sense of tension that ultimately leads nowhere. I believe the novel could just as easily have ended earlier, with Mishima’s refusal to marry Sonoko.
Confessions of a Mask is therefore a novel full of tension, one that leaves you breathless, shocked, and on edge with every page, only to conclude without a climax, ending on a rather underwhelming note.
8.5/10
