The Temple of the Golden Pavilion

My nature, which already tended to be dreamy, became all the more so, and thanks to the war, ordinary life receded even farther from me. For us boys, war was a dreamlike sort of experience lacking any real substance, something like an isolation ward in which one is cut off from the meaning of life.

The Temple of the Golden Pavillion is many things, but above all I was surprised how deeply and, as becomes Mishima, succinctly it described the war, not through presence but absence: for our narrator, Mizoguchi, the war is about staying behind, being pushed into a kind of surreal state of alternate existence.

Naturally, this sense of otherness and not belonging pervades the whole narrative on all levels, and it most certainly is Mishima's forte, something Murakami has, as well. The anxiety of existential meaninglessness, the strong feeling of guilt, freedom through an act of violence, either literal or metaphorical, and life, ultimately, a never-ending, alternating movement of these dark themes.

Rewarding yet demanding, making one poor before making one abundantly rich.

17 November,
2014

“Each dead day had its charm.”

Maybe I'm too dumb for this book, but it never really took off for me the way it clearly did for other people. I'm no stranger to Japanese literature, and some of the writing about beauty, conformity, and how the meaning of words/actions can become twisted if taken the wrong way was really wonderful, but...being honest, it was a chore to get through.

This was based on an actual real-life event (which was an interesting rabbit hole), and is from the point of view of the arson, Mizoguchi. We follow him as he grows up and joins the temple just like his father, but a lack of confidence, a stutter, and a belief that anything beautiful is cursed leads him down a dark path. It was an interesting read through the eyes of an unreliable narrator, but it also felt really repetitive. The same motives, the same themes, the same philosophical points are hammered home again and again, and I felt myself skimming a bit near the end to get to some new thought instead of rehashing old ones.

There's clearly something here and I'm definitely in the minority, but I just didn't enjoy this one.