About a group of adolescent boys who reject conventional morality and view the world of adults as sentimental, frivolous, and pathetic. One of the boys, Noboru, discovers a hole in the wall in his bedroom adjoining his mother’s, and uses it to spy on her throughout her new relationship with a sailor named Ryuji. At first the boys idolize Ryuji, thinking that he is the only adult who isn’t a ā€œselloutā€ marred by the problems of the adult world, and Noboru comes to feel that the ocean is the only meaningful thing in the universe and is the only real connection he has. Eventually, the boys lose faith in Ryuji and come to see him as just as fraudulent as all other adults, and decide to do something as a group to assert their place in a world they can’t abide. ā€œAssembled there were the moon and a feverish wind, the incited, naked flesh of a man and a woman, sweat, perfume, the scars of a life at sea, the dim memory of ports around the world, a cramped breathless peephole, a young boy’s iron heart — but these cards from a gypsy deck were scattered, prophesying nothing. The universal order at last achieved, thanks to the sudden, screaming horn, had revealed an ineluctable circle of life — the cards had paired: Noboru and mother — mother and man — man and sea — sea and Noboruā€¦ā€
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mishima was a total weirdo but damn could he write a novel
10h ago
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Mishima is so great. I read Sun & Steel last year and that got me to start lifting. I really want to read Runaway Horses soon
6d ago
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šŸ˜
6d ago
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