Ablaze With Death

On This Day In History
1970: Japanese author Yukio Mishima dies by ritual suicide

Quote Of The Day
"The instant that the blade tore open his flesh, the bright disc of the sun soared up and exploded behind his eyes."
(Yukio Mishima)

I generally try not to cover the same On This Day In History more than once in this journal but, since I am reading Yukio Mishima's Beautiful Star at the moment, I decided to make an exception.

It's a curious thing about Mishima; I get an awkward kind of pleasure reading his novels. I find his books extremely uncomfortable, especially his fascination with death and violence. He seems to find them both quite beautiful and magnificent, but I know from experience that they most certainly are not; they are grim, ugly and miserable. He finds love and kindness tame and insipid; again, the opposite is very much true. Beautiful people are usually cold and heartless in Mishima's books. However, it is the fact that his world view is so different from mine that makes me enjoy trying to fathom it. That said, I'm sure he would have been a rather difficult person to like, despite his immense talent as a wordsmith.

Poetry Written With A Splash Of Blood