알라딘: [전자책] 봄눈 미시마 유키오 Spring Snow 1 by Yukio Mishima

알라딘: [전자책] 봄눈



[eBook] 봄눈
미시마 유키오 (지은이),윤상인,손혜경 (옮긴이)
민음사2020-10-28 원제 : 春の雪




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책소개


일본 문학 애호가들 사이에서 전설로 회자되는 소설, 미시마 유키오의 '풍요의 바다' 시리즈 첫 번째 권. '풍요의 바다' 4부작은 메이지 시대 말기부터 1975년까지를 아우르는, 원고지 약 6000매 분량의 대작이다. 작가는 이 시리즈에서 환생을 거듭하는 한 영혼과 그를 추적하는 인식자의 궤적을 통해 20세기 일본의 파노라마를 펼쳐 냈다.


메이지 시대가 종언을 고하고 다이쇼 시대가 시작된 1912년. 마쓰가에 후작가의 후계자 기요아키는 빼어난 미모로 주위의 선망을 받지만 오로지 자기 자신 외에는 그 누구에게도 관심이 없는 탐미적 몽상가이다. 그는 아야쿠라 백작의 딸 사토코가 자신을 사랑한다는 사실을 알면서도 냉담하게 반응한다. 그러나 사토코와 황족의 결혼이 결정되자 기요아키는 뒤늦게 자신의 마음을 깨닫고 사토코를 유혹해 금지된 관계에 빠져든다.


기요아키와 반대로 냉철하고 이지적인 그의 친구 혼다는 배후에서 은밀히 그들을 돕지만, 두 사람의 사랑이 깊어질수록 현실의 압박이 더해 간다. 마침내 기요아키와 사토코가 막다른 곳에 몰렸을 때 폭발하듯 파국이 닥쳐오고, 이루지 못한 생의 집념은 다음 생을 향해 나아가며, 혼다는 그 모든 것의 목격자로 남겨진다.




목차
봄눈 7


작품 해설 507
작가 연보 529


책속에서
P. 31~32
자신을 사랑해 주는 인간을 깔보고, 깔볼 뿐 아니라 냉혹하게 취급하는 기요아키의 좋지 않은 성향을 혼다만큼 오래전부터 꿰뚫어본 친구는 없을 테다. 이러한 종류의 오만함은 열세 살의 기요아키가 자신의 아름다움에 보내는 사람들의 갈채를 알게 된 때부터 마음 깊은 곳에서 은밀하게 길러 온 곰팡이 같은 감정일 거라고 혼다는 추측했다. 닿으면 방울 소리를 낼 듯한 은백색의 곰팡이 꽃. 접기
P. 124
눈송이 하나가 날아 들어와 기요아키의 눈썹에 머물렀다. 사토코가 알아채고는 '어머.' 하고 말한 순간, 엉겁결에 사토코를 향해 얼굴을 돌린 기요아키는 눈꺼풀에 전해 오는 차가움을 느꼈다. 사토코가 갑자기 눈을 감았다. 눈을 감은 그 얼굴이 기요아키의 눈앞에 있었다. (...) 기요아키의 가슴은 세차게 고동쳤다. 교복에 높직이 달린 옷깃이 목을 죄어 오는 것을 또렷이 느꼈다. 눈을 감은 사토코의 고요한 흰 얼굴만큼 난해한 것은 없었다. 접기
P. 305~306
'그럼 누군가가 죽은 후에도 그 사람의 사상이나 정신이 사람들에게 전해지는 건 어떻게 설명할 건가요?' 하고 차오 피는 차분히 응수했다.
혼다는 머리 좋은 청년다운 혈기로 얼마쯤 얕보듯이 단정했다.
'그건 환생과는 다른 문제입니다.'
'왜 다르지?' 하고 차오 피는 온화하게 물었다. '하나의 사상이 다른 개체 속으로 시간을 뛰어넘어 계승되어 간다는 건 그대도 인정하겠지요. 그렇다면 같은 개체가 각기 다른 사상 속으로 시간을 뛰어넘어 이어지는 일도 가능하지 않을까요?' 접기
P. 359
그날 밤 기요아키의 마음은 소란스러웠다. 그는 마침내 자신의 사랑에 감겨 오기 시작한 쇠사슬이 바닥에 질질 끌리며 다가오는 음울한 쇳소리를 들었다. 그러나 칙허가 내렸을 때 그를 휘몰았던 쾌청한 힘은 이제 이곳에 없었다. 그를 그렇게나 고무시켰던 '절대적인 불가능'이라는 백자(白磁) 같은 개념 한 면에는, 이미 미세한 금이 가 있었다. 결의가 낳은 격렬한 환희가 있던 자리에는 계절의 끝자락을 바라보는 자의 슬픔이 있었다. 접기
P. 24
기요아키는 이미 자신을 군살로 투박해진 가문의 손가락을 찌른, 독이 든 작은 가시처럼 여기고 있었다. 그도 그럴 것이 그는 우아함을 배우고 말았기 때문이다. 불과 오십 년 전만 해도 소박, 근면하고 여유롭지 않았던 지방 무사 가문이 짧은 시간에 흥성했다. 그러나 기요아키가 성장함에 따라 그 가계에 처음으로 우아함의 한 조각이 잠입... 더보기 - LAYLA
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저자 및 역자소개
미시마 유키오 (三島由紀夫) (지은이)


본명 히라오카 기미타케 平岡公威. 전후 일본문학을 대표하는 탐미주의 작가 미시마 유키오는 1925년 도쿄에서 고위 공무원의 아들로 태어났다. 1944년 가쿠슈인 고등학교를 수석으로 졸업하고 엘리트 관료 출신인 아버지의 권유로 도쿄대학 법학부에 입학했다. 열세 살 때부터 필명을 만들어 창작활동을 했으며 가와바타 야스나리의 추천으로 문예지 《인간》에 단편소설 〈담배〉가 실리면서 문단에 정식으로 데뷔했다. 1949년 대학을 졸업한 뒤 대장성 금융국에서 근무하다 일 년 만에 사표를 내고 전업작가의 길로 들어섰으며 그 무렵 쓴 장편소설 《가면의 고백》으로 일본의 주요 작가 반열에 올랐다. 화려한 문장과 독자적으로 구축한 미의식을 바탕으로 《사랑의 갈증》, 《푸른 시절》, 《금색》 등 뛰어난 작품을 잇달아 발표했으며, 서른한 살에 쓴 《금각사》로 작가로서 절정기를 맞이한다. 이후 희곡 《리쓰메이칸》, 《사드 후작부인》 등을 무대에 올려 극작가로서도 주목받았다. 1961년에는 2·26 쿠데타 사건을 소설화한 단편 〈우국〉을 발표해 세간의 화제를 모았다. 1970년, 불후의 명작으로 꼽히는 4부작 장편소설 《풍요의 바다》 마지막 편을 출판사에 넘긴 미시마는 일본 자위대 주둔지에 난입해 자위대의 궐기를 촉구하는 연설을 한 후 할복한다. 그의 나이 마흔다섯 살이었다. 미시마의 죽음은 일본뿐만 아니라 전 세계에 큰 충격을 안겨주었다. 접기
최근작 : <금색>,<문장독본>,<봄눈> … 총 197종 (모두보기)




윤상인 (옮긴이)
저자파일

신간알리미 신청
서강대학교 국어국문학과를 졸업하고 일본 도쿄 대학교에서 비교문학 전공으로 석사 및 박사 학위를 받았다. 런던 대학교 객원 연구원과 한양대학교 일본언어문화학과 교수를 거쳐 현재 서울대학교 아시아언어문명학부 교수로 재직 중이다. 저서로 『문학의 근대와 일본』, 『일본의 발명과 근대』(공저) 등이 있고 역서로 나쓰메 소세키의 『그 후』를 비롯해 『문학, 어떻게 읽을까』, 『오에 겐자부로, 작가 자신을 말하다』(공역) 등이 있다. 이와나미쇼텐(岩波書店)에서 출간한 『세기말과 나쓰메 소세키(世紀末と漱石)』로 일본 산토리 학예상을 수상했다.
최근작 : <문화적 텍스트로서의 한국과 일본의 현대 오페라>,<동서양 문학고전 산책>,<고전 강연 6> … 총 21종 (모두보기)
손혜경 (옮긴이)
서울대학교 영어교육과와 국어국문학과를 졸업하고 같은 대학원에서 국어국문학과 박사 과정을 수료했다.






출판사 제공 책소개


국내 초역으로 베일을 벗는 미시마 유키오 최고의 걸작
초월을 꿈꾸며 명멸하는 인간들의 군상과
20세기라는 시대의 화려한 파노라마


사랑의 아름다움과 잔혹함을 찬란한 문장으로 그려 낸,
'풍요의 바다' 시리즈 첫 번째 이야기


일본 문학 애호가들 사이에서 전설로 회자되는 소설, 미시마 유키오의 '풍요의 바다' 시리즈 첫 번째 권 『봄눈』이 국내 최초로 출간되었다. 국내 초역으로 베일을 벗는 '풍요의 바다'는 그간 분량의 방대함과 일본어의 가능성을 극한까지 밀어붙인 미문 때문에 번역하기 까다로운 소설로 여겨졌다. 이번에 출간된 『봄눈』은 원문의 극히 섬세한 뉘앙스까지 포착해 정확하고 유려한 문장으로 옮겼으며, 작가의 생애와 사상적 궤적에 대한 충실한 해석으로 독자들의 이해를 돕는다.


'풍요의 바다' 4부작은 메이지 시대 말기부터 1975년까지를 아우르는, 원고지 약 6000매 분량의 대작이다. 작가는 이 시리즈에서 환생을 거듭하는 한 영혼과 그를 추적하는 인식자의 궤적을 통해 20세기 일본의 파노라마를 펼쳐 냈다.
화려하고 정교한 문장과 치밀한 인간 묘사, 허무주의적 우주관에 녹여 넣은 작가로서의 자기 비평은 왜 미시마 유키오가 전후 일본 문단에서 가장 주목받는 작가가 되었는지 여실히 보여 준다. 특히 첫 번째 이야기인 『봄눈』은 고전적인 우아함과 『로미오와 줄리엣』을 연상시키는 드라마틱한 스토리로 인해 영화, 무대극, 드라마 등으로 제작되었다. 민음사에서는 『봄눈』을 시작으로 '풍요의 바다' 시리즈 2권인 『달리는 말』, 3권 『새벽의 사원』, 4권 『천인오쇠』를 차례로 출간할 예정이다.


▶내가 삶과 세계에 대해 느끼고 생각해 온 모든 것을 여기에 담았다. -미시마 유키오


전후 일본의 가장 문제적인 작가가
자신의 모든 것을 쏟아 부어 완성한 혼신의 대작


1970년 11월 25일, 미시마 유키오는 오랫동안 매달렸던 소설을 마침내 탈고했다. 그가 출판사에 건넨 원고의 마지막 줄에는 '『천인오쇠』 끝. 1970년 11월 25일'이라는 부기가 달려 있었다. 이 날짜가 가리키는 것은 소설이 완결된 날이자 작가 자신의 기일이 된 날이었다. 향년 45세의 일이었다.
미시마가 자신의 생과 함께 마감한 작품은 '풍요의 바다' 4부작의 마지막 권이었다. 1965년 『봄눈』 연재를 개시해 1970년 『천인오쇠』로 마침표를 찍을 때까지 5년간 그는 이 소설에 모든 것을 쏟아 부었다. '풍요의 바다' 시리즈의 배경은 메이지 시대 말기부터 1975년까지로, 미시마의 생애(1925~1970)는 그 한복판에 정확히 걸쳐져 있다. 그가 자신의 시대 위에 소설 속 시대를 겹쳐 올리며 묘출하고자 한 것은 무엇이었을까.
'풍요의 바다' 시리즈는 11세기 일본 산문 문학인 『하마마쓰 중납언 이야기』(浜松中納言物語)를 모티프로 한 연작 소설이다. 윤회 전생을 소재로 한 '모노가타리'의 구성을 순문학 장편에 도입한 것은 당시 파격적인 시도였다. '풍요의 바다' 1권의 주인공은 2권, 3권, 4권에서 각기 다른 모습으로 환생해 다른 시대를 저마다의 방식으로 살아간다. 시리즈 전체에 모두 등장하는 인물 혼다 시게쿠니는 후작가의 후계자, 정치에 빠져든 열혈 청년, 타이의 공주, 사악한 고아라는 네 개의 환생한 자아를 연결하는 고리로, 이들 모두를 가까이에서 지켜본다.
미시마 유키오는 이 네 자아에 자신의 정체성을 나누어 녹여내고, 궁극적으로는 인식자 혼다를 통해 자신을 대변하고자 했다. 시리즈 마지막 권에서 노인이 된 혼다는 그간의 모든 일들이 실재가 아니었을지도 모른다는 궁극의 허무에 도달한다. '아무것도 없는 곳에 이르렀다.' 혼다의 이 깨달음을 최후의 문학적 전언으로 남기고 미시마 유키오는 목숨을 끊었다. 어쩌면 이것이야말로, 그가 연출해 보인 정치적 쇼보다 더 그의 진실에 가까운 것이 아니었을까.


금기를 통해 비로소 완벽해지는 불가능한 사랑의 이야기
지고의 아름다움 속에서 허망하게 스러지는 젊음의 환영, 『봄눈』


메이지 시대가 종언을 고하고 다이쇼 시대가 시작된 1912년. 마쓰가에 후작가의 후계자 기요아키는 빼어난 미모로 주위의 선망을 받지만 오로지 자기 자신 외에는 그 누구에게도 관심이 없는 탐미적 몽상가이다. 그는 아야쿠라 백작의 딸 사토코가 자신을 사랑한다는 사실을 알면서도 냉담하게 반응한다. 그러나 사토코와 황족의 결혼이 결정되자 기요아키는 뒤늦게 자신의 마음을 깨닫고 사토코를 유혹해 금지된 관계에 빠져든다.
기요아키와 반대로 냉철하고 이지적인 그의 친구 혼다는 배후에서 은밀히 그들을 돕지만, 두 사람의 사랑이 깊어질수록 현실의 압박이 더해 간다. 마침내 기요아키와 사토코가 막다른 곳에 몰렸을 때 폭발하듯 파국이 닥쳐오고, 이루지 못한 생의 집념은 다음 생을 향해 나아가며, 혼다는 그 모든 것의 목격자로 남겨진다.
'풍요의 바다' 1권 『봄눈』은 왕조풍 로맨스의 분위기를 차용한 고전적 드라마이다. 주인공 기요아키와 사토코를 비롯해 주요 인물들은 전부 지체 높은 신분으로 설정되었고, 시간적·공간적 배경 모두 실제보다 이상화되어 꿈처럼 현란하고 몽롱한 분위기를 띤다. 사토코의 연심을 외면하던 기요아키는 사토코가 황족의 약혼자가 되어 범해서는 안 될 금기가 되자 비로소 열렬한 사랑에 빠진다. 이 무모한 사랑은 황가에 대한 반역으로서, 부모 세대에 대한 반항으로서, 자신들의 시대에 대한 각오로서 질주하다 예정된 최후를 맞아 봄눈처럼 스러진다.
아름다운 젊은이들의 비극적 사랑, 우아하고 정교한 구성과 스타일로 『봄눈』은 시리즈에서 제일가는 인기를 누리는 소설이 되었다. TV 드라마와 무대극 등으로 각색되고 특히 2005년에는 다케우치 유코, 쓰마부키 사토시 주연으로 영화화되어 국내 상영되기도 했다. '사랑'에 초점을 맞춘 만큼 이야기 자체도 매우 재미있지만, 곳곳에 후속권들을 암시하는 장치가 숨어 있어 이어질 독서의 즐거움을 예고한다. '풍요의 바다' 시리즈가 오랜 구상과 기획을 거쳐 치밀하게 세워진 예술품임을 알게 하는 책이다.


'소문의 벽'에 갇힌 작가 미시마 유키오
이제 그의 실(實)과 허(虛)를 진지하게 들여다볼 때


2020년은 미시마 유키오 사후 50년이 되는 해이다. 한국에서 미시마 유키오는 우익 작가라는 이미지 때문에 불온한 이름으로 여겨져 왔다. 그 탓인지 『파도 소리』, 『가면의 고백』, 『금각사』 같은 극히 일부의 작품 외에는 거의 소개되지 않았다. 이는 미시마의 정치 이념에 대한 비판을 늦추지 않으면서도 1970년부터 2000년까지 그의 거의 모든 소설을 출판한 중국의 상황과도 다르다.
노벨 문학상 후보에 수차례 오르며 일본을 대표하는 작가로 세계적 주목을 받은 이 작가의 정치적 행보뿐 아니라 실제 그가 이룬 문학적 성취에 대해 국내에서도 더욱 면밀한 논의가 필요하다. '풍요의 바다'를 우리말로 옮긴 역자 중 한 사람인 서울대학교 윤상인 교수는 미시마 유키오가 가와바타 야스나리, 다니자키 준이치로와 더불어 "그들의 작품 속에 '일본다운 일본'이 투영되어 있다고 판단한 미국의 몇몇 일본 문학 번역자와 출판 편집자들에 의해 취사 선택된 미적 타자"였다고 말한다.
미시마에게는 기회이자 한계였을 이러한 틀 속에서 그가 무엇을 모색하고 어디에 도달했는지, 그것이 실제 삶과는 어떻게 연결되었는지 확인하는 것은 지금 우리에게도 의미가 있다. 작가 자신이 "나의 모든 것을 여기에 담았다."라고 선언한 이 작품의 번역, 출간이 미시마 유키오라는 작가와 20세기 일본 문학 전반을 이해하기 위해 반드시 필요한 이유이다. 접기


평점 분포 8.6

구매자 (7)

한장 한장 읽다가 탐복하며 끄적이게 만드는 ‘봄눈‘


‘너는 뭐라도 운동을 시작하면 좋을 텐데 말이야. 책을 그다지 많이 읽는 것도 아닌데 책 만권은 읽고 지친듯한 얼굴이네.‘ 혼다는 거침 없이 말했다.기요아키는 말없이 미소 지었다. 그러고 보면 책은 읽지 않는다. 그러나 꿈은 빈번히 꾼다. 밤마다 꾸는 꿈의 엄청난 가짓수란 만권의 책을 능가할정도여서 사실 그는 읽다 지쳐 버린것이다.


앞장서 오솔길을 걷던 사토코는 아직 피어 있는 용담을 재빠르게 발견해 땄다. 기요아키의 눈에는 말라붙기 시작한 들국화 밖에 비치지 않았다. 아무렇지 않게 허리를 굽혀 꽃을 꺾자 사토코의 물빛 기모노 자락이 부풀어 가녀린 몸에 어울리지 않게 허리가 풍만해보였다. 물을 휘저으면 물밑 모래가 일어 오르듯이 자신의 투명하고 고독한 머리가 탁해지는 것을 기요아키는 불쾌 하게 느꼈다.


달은 부박할만큼 눈부시게 아름다웠다. 그는 사토코가 입고 있던 기모노 그 차가운 비단의 광택을 떠올렸다. 그리고 그 달에서 너무나 가까이서 본 사토코의 크고 아름다운 눈을 여실히 보았다. 바람은 이미 멎은 후였다.마침 달이 깊이 들이 비치는 왼쪽 옆구리 부근은 가슴의 고동을 전하는 살의 은미한 움직임으로 눈이 부실 정도로 하얀 살결이 두드러졌다. 그곳에 눈에 잘띄지 않는 작은 점이 있다. 지극히 작은 점 세걔가 흡사 오리온자리 중앙의 삼형제 별처럼 달에 씻겨 형체를 잃어버렸다. 구매
scott 2020-09-17 공감 (27) 댓글 (0)
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공감

뒤늦게나마 미시마 유키오의 대표작을 읽어볼 수 있어 다행이다. 번역은 자못 유려한 편. 구매
hi,keiss 2020-09-12 공감 (27) 댓글 (0)
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공감

미시마 유키오. 좋아할 수 없는, 좀 혐오감이 드는 작가인데도 작품은 계속 읽을 수밖에 없다. 진짜 이 인간 붓에 신이라도 달린 게 아닐까? 어쩌면 이런 표현, 이런 문장을 쓰는지! 좋아하거나 동의할 수 없는 내용인데도 결국 아름답다는 생각을 떨칠 수가 없다. ‘풍요의 바다’ 4부작도 다 읽겠지.
잠자냥 2021-03-06 공감 (25) 댓글 (4)
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공감

와 세상 좋아졌네. 미시마의 풍요의 바다 4부작이 번역되다니. <금색>도 번역해주세요. 구매
oasisuk 2020-09-12 공감 (10) 댓글 (0)
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공감

문체의 가치를 후하게 평해주더라도 이것은 일남의 문학. 찌질함과 비겁함을 우아함이란 포장지로 싸는 기교를 장장 500페이지에 걸쳐 볼 수 있다. 구매
LAYLA 2021-06-28 공감 (2) 댓글 (2)
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공감순

불멸의 삶을 꿈꾸는 인간들의 군상 새창으로 보기 구매
학교에서 러일 전쟁 이야기가 나왔을 때 마쓰가에 기요아키는 가장 친한 친구 혼다 시게쿠니에게 그때가 잘 기억나느냐고 물어봤지만, 시게쿠니의 기억도 가물가물해서 제등 행렬을 보러 문 앞까지 따라 나간 일을 어렴풋이 기억할 따름이었다.


그 전쟁이 끝나던 해 둘 다 열 한 살 이었으니 좀 더 선명히 기억할 법도 하다고 기요아키는 생각했다.


의기양양하게 그때를 떠벌리는 급우는 아마도 어른들에게 얻어 들은 것을 고스란히 받아 옮겨서는 저에게는 있는 둥 마는 둥 한 기억을 꾸며 내고 있을 뿐이었다.






마쓰가에 가문에서 기요아키의 두명의 숙부가 러일 전쟁떄 전사했다.


열여덟 살의 기요아키의 마음을 파고든 것은 1904년 6월 26일에 찍힌 '득리사 부근 전사자 위령제' 라는 이름이 붙은 사진






시부야 언덕배기에 자리잡은 넓은 저택에서 후작 작위를 받은 아버지, 막부 말기 시절 아무것도 내세울 것이 없었던 가문, 어린 아들 기요아키를 황실과 연결된 아야쿠라 가문에 맡겨버렸다.






5월말, 조부의 기일날이면 온 집안 사람들이 이 저택 등나무 꽃 아래에 모인다.


화려하게 차려 입은 여자들의 흰 얼굴에 비춰진 연 보랏 빛 등나무 꽃 그늘,기요아키 눈에는 죽음의 그림자로 비춰진다.


마츠가에 가문의 유일한 후계자인 기요아키는 점점 자신을 둘러싼 환경 속에 고립되어 가고 있다는 생각에 사로 잡혀 있다.


가쿠슈인 학교에서 유일한 친구인 동급생 혼다 시게쿠니와 친하게 지낼뿐이다.


기요아키의 유일한 친구인 혼다는 지나칠정도로 평범한 외모에 제 나이보다 늙어보이는 풍모를 갖고 있다.


법률가 아버지에 영향으로 혼다는 겉으로 드러내지 않는 예리한 직관력을 숨기고 있다. 반면에 기요아키는 자신의 품고 있는 생각을 거침없이 드러내 보이며 동년배들의 거친 혈기를 좋아하지 않는다.






그의 우아함은 가시 였다. 더구나 조잡함을 꺼리고 세련됨을 기꺼워하는 자신이 실로 부질 없고 뿌리 내리지 않은 부초와 같다는 것까지도 기요아키는 잘 알고 있었다.


좀먹겠다는 마음을 먹고 좀먹는 것이 아니다. 어기려고 어기는 것이 아니다. 그의 독은 가문에게는 진정한 독임에 틀림없었으나 동시에 완전히 무익한 독이었다.


말하자면 그 무익함이 자신이 태어난 의미라고 이 미소년은 생각했다.


자신의 존재 이유를 일종의 정치적 독에서 찾는 것은 열여덟 살의 오만과 단단히 이어져 있었다.


그는 자신의 희고 고운 손을 평생 더럽히지 않겠노라 물집 하나 잡히게 하지 않겠노라 결심했다. 깃발이 그러하듯 바람만으로 살아가는 일, 자신이 단 하나의 진실이라 생각하는것, 즉 밑도 끝도 없이 무의미하며 죽는가 하면 되살아나고 꺼지는가 싶으며 다시 불붙는 방향도 없거니와 귀결도 없는 '감정'만을 위해 살아가는 일...










기요아키는 밤마다 꿈을 꾸고 있다.






그는 어젯밤 맨나무로 짠 자신의 관을 꿈속에서 보았다. 넓은 창 말고는 아무것도 없는 방 한가운데에 놓여 있다. 창밖은 짙은 자줏빛을 띤 어둑한 새벽녁, 새의 지저귐이 어둠을 가득 채우고 있다.


방에는 향대신 무르익은 과실 같은 서양 향수 내음이 감돌고 있다.






기요아키는 공중에서 그 광경을 내려다보며 관 속에 자신의 유해가 누워 있다고 확신한다.


기요아키는 자신을 사랑해주는 인간을 깔보고 냉혹하게 취급한다.


마츠가에 가문의 고상함을 채우기 위해 기요아키는 학교에 들어가기 전까지 아야쿠라 가문에 맡겨졌다.


두살 위의 아야쿠리 사토코는 기요아키의 유일한 오누이였고 친구 였다.


스물살이 된 사토코 , 일부러 자신과 눈을 마주치지 않으려는 기요아키를 바라보기만 할뿐이다.






'내가 만약 갑자기 사라져 버린다면 기요 님은 어떡하실 거예요?'






기요아키는 사토코를 사랑하면서도 그 감정을 깨닫지 못하고 먼저 마음을 먼저 드러낸 사토코를 매몰차게 대하며 소식 까지 끓어버린다.


아야쿠라 가문은 천황으로부터 하루노리 왕자와 백작 아야쿠라 가문의 장녀 사토코의 혼인 칙허를 받게 된다.






이 소식은 기요아키의 귀에까지 들어간다.






뒤늦게 기요아키는 사토코를 향한 감정이 사랑이였음을 깨닫고 격렬하게 사토코를 갈구한다.










어린 시절의 미련이 육년 후인 오늘에서야 녹아 사라졌음을 느꼈다. 무엇보다 간절히 바라 왔던 그 순간에 비로소 들어선 것이었다.


기요아키를 향한 사랑을 접으려고 결심했지만 결국 그의 사랑을 받아들이고 마는 사토코.


가문과 아버지에게 짓눌려 지내던 기요아키의 반항이 한 여자에 인생을 뒤흔들어 놓는다.






창밖에서 날카로운 호각 소리가 울렸다. 사토코는 자리에서 일어섰다. 기요아키는 사토코가 얼마나 졀연히, 혼신의 힘을 다해 일어 섰는지 알 수 있었다.


기요아키는 쫓기듯 기차에서 내렸다.


기요아키는 마음속으로 사토코의 이름을 부르고 또 불렀다.






기요아키는 두 갈래 길이 난 숲 속에서 덜 밟은 길을 택하는데 그 길이 자신의 운명을 바꾸어 버리고 후에 자신이 원하는 것이 무엇인지 알게 되지만 그때는 이미 때가 늦었다.














상실이 주는 안도감이 기요아키를 위로했다. 그의 마음은 언제나 그런 식으로 움직였다.


잃어버릴지모른다는 공포보다도 실제로 잃어버렸음을 아는 편이 훨씬 견디기 쉬웠기 때문이다.


추운 겨울이 지나간 뒤 내리는 봄눈, 손끝에 닿기 전에 덧없이 녹아버리는 순간, 기요아키의 청춘을 활활 불태워버렸던 사랑 사토코 ,기요아키 품속에 녹아내린 눈, 봄눈이였다.





검은 장막 틈으로 아렴 풋이 눈송이가 날아 들었다.


사토코와 단둘이서 인력거로 눈 속을 달리던 지난해의 추억을 맞닥뜨리자 그의 가슴은 죄어들 듯 아파 왔다.






마음의 병이 깊어진 친구 기요아키를 위해 혼다는 사토코가 은신 하고 있는 월수사로 향한다.






계절은 오른편에 그려진 봄의 정원에서부터 시작된다. 흰 매화나무와 소나무가 있는 정원을 유람하는 당상관들과 금색 떼구름에 가려 반쯤 드러난 울타리 안쪽의 호화로운 저택이 보인다. 왼쪽으로 옮겨 가면 갖가지 색깔의 말들이 봄의 뜰 위를 뛰어놀고 못은 어느새 논으로 변해 모내기에 힘쓰는 처녀들이 보인다. 황금빛 구름 안쪽에서 부터 소용돌이 치며 떨어지는 2단 폭포와 못가에 돋은 푸른 풀들이 여름을 알린다.


음력 6월 그믐날의 액막이를 위해 당상관들은 흰 종이를 들고 못가에 몰려들고 잡역부와 주홍색 옷을 입은 심부름꾼들이 시중을 들고 있다. 빨간 도리이를 지나 사슴이 뛰노는 신사의 경내에서 흰말이 끌려 나오고 활을 든 무관들이 제사 준비를 서두른다. 순식간에 단풍으로 물든 못은 쓸쓸한 겨울 경치에 한발짝씩 다가가고 금빛으로 흩뿌리는 눈속에서 매사냥이 시작된다. 대밭에도 눈이 내리고 대나무 사이사이로 금박 같은 하늘이 빛난다. 목덜미가 불그스레한 꿩한마리가 화살처럼 겨울 하늘을 가로지르고 마른 참억 새 틈새에서 하얀 개한마리가 꿩을 보고 으르렁댄다. 사람의 손에 앉은 매는 위엄 있는 눈초리로 꿩이 멀어져 간 쪽을 가만히 응시한다....






집으로 돌아가는 기차 안에서 가슴 통증을 호소하던 기요아키는 친구 혼다에게 어머니에게 전해 달라며 편지지에 휘갈겨 쓴 쪽지를 부탁하고 잠이 든다.






잠이 든 기요아키의 고통스러운 표정이 이세의 끝에서 보아서는 안될 것을 본 자의 환희에 찬 표정은 아닐까 의심했다.




잠깐 잠에 빠진 듯 했던 기요아키, 갑자기 눈을 뜨고 혼다의 손을 꼭 쥐며 이렇게 말한다.






'방금 꿈을 꿨어. 또 만날거야. 분명히 만나게 돼. 폭포 밑에서.'






도쿄로 돌아오고 이틀이 지난 후 스무살이 된 마쓰가에 기요아키는 눈을 감는다.






'봄눈'에 마지막 장 말미의 부기에 '풍요의 바다'는 '하마마쓰 중납언이야기'를 전거로 삼은 꿈과 전생을 다룬 이야기라고 적혀 있다.






'하마마쓰 중납언이야기'는 헤이안 시대 스가와라노 다카에의 딸이라는 여류작가의 작품으로 11세기말 윤회 전생담에 관한 이야기에서 미시마 유키오는 '풍요의 바다' 4부작에 전체 구성을 가져왔다.






작가 미시마 유키오는 문예 월간지 ' 신초'에 '풍요의 바다' 연재를 1965년부터 시작해서 1971년에 최종 원고를 실었다. 4부작을 완결 하는데 5년 정도에 시간이 걸렸고 원고 용지 총 6000장을 넘긴 대작이다.






첫번째 이야기에서 스물살의 나이에 세상을 뜨는 주인공이 그 다음번 시대에는 다른 모습으로 동일한 신체 특징을 갖고 시대를 초월하며 다른 인물로 살아간다.


메이지 시대가 막을 내리고 다이쇼 시대가 시작된 1912년 부터 1975년여름까지 주인공은 각기 다른 모습으로 환생하며 일본 근현대사의 모습을 병풍처럼 펼쳐보인다.


후작 가문의 후계자, 정치에 빠져든 열혈 청년, 타이의 공주, 사악한 고아라는 네명의 모습으로 환생한 자아


마지막 4부작은 1970년 시대를 다룬 '천인오쇠'天人五衰)는 천인이 죽을 때쯤 나타나는 다섯 가지 쇠하여지는 모양(模樣)을 의미 하는데 첫째 몸에 빛깔이 흐려지고, 둘째 나쁜 냄새가 나며, 셋째. 겨드랑이에 땀이 나고, 넷째 화만이 마르며, 다섯번째 스스로에 자리가 즐겁지 않게 된다.


시대와 가문의 혈통을 초월하며 영원 불멸의 삶을 꿈꾸는 인간들의 군상들이 지구상 어떤 생명체도 벗어날 수 없는 시간의 침식,쇠퇴,죽음을 영원히 피해갈 수 없다 것을.....






이런 인공적인 설정 속에 불교의 윤회설이 투영된 모노가타리(작가의 식견이나 상상을 기반으로 일관된 스토리로 풀어나가는 산문 문학 장르) 서사구조에 근대 소설 기법으로 장대한 구성 속에 작가에 절망적인 세계관을 투영시켰다.






'하나의 사상이 다른 개체 속으로 시간을 뛰어넘어 계승되어 간다는 건 그대도 인정 하겠지요.


그렇다면 같은 개체가 각기 다른 사상 속으로 시간을 뛰어넘어 이어지는 일도 가능하지 않을까요?'






미시마 유키오가 1970년에 할복 자살한 후 마지막 '천인오쇠'는 1971년 1월에 실렸다.










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봄눈처럼 덧없는 찰나의 아름다움 새창으로 보기
미시마 유키오는 나에게 불량식품 같은 작가이다. 굳이 먹지 않아도 되고, 먹어서 좋을 것도 없는데 너무나 맛있어서 자꾸만 손이 가는 그런 불량식품. 먹을 땐 그 맛에 탐닉하느라 아무런 생각도 들지 않지만, 먹고 나면 어쩐지 공허한 기분이 드는 그런 불량식품. 그럼에도 다음에 또 먹고야 마는, 아니 기어이 먹을 수밖에 없는 그런 불량식품. <금각사>를 비롯해 <가면의 고백>, <파도 소리> 등 잘 알려진 작품은 물론, <사랑의 갈증>, <비틀거리는 여인> 등 덜 유명한 작품까지 국내에 출간된 미시마 유키오 작품은 다 읽었다. 그러고도 부족해서 미시마 유키오의 다른 작품이 출간되기를 늘 바랐다. 이렇게 매혹적인 불량식품이 또 있을까. 그런 중 <봄눈>, 그러니까 ‘풍요의 바다’ 1부에 해당하는 이 작품의 출간 소식은 가슴을 설레게 할 정도였다.


미시마 유키오는 일찍이 “‘풍요의 바다’를 읽으면 나에 대한 모든 것을 알 수 있다.”라고 말했다. 게다가 그는 ‘풍요의 바다’ 마지막 권인 <천인오쇠(天人五衰)>를 탈고한 날, 그 유명한 할복자살로 삶을 마감했다. 여러 가지로 궁금한 작품이 아닐 수 없다. ‘풍요의 바다’ 4부작은 <봄눈>을 시작으로 <달리는 말>, <새벽의 사원>, <천인오쇠(天人五衰)>로 이어지는데 저마다 시대 배경과 공간을 달리하는 독립된 이야기로, <봄눈> 말미에 미시마 유키오는 “‘풍요의 바다’는 <하마마쓰 중납언 이야기>를 전거로 삼아 꿈과 전생을 다룬 이야기”라고 쓰고 있다. 대략 이 4부작의 배경이 되는 시기는 메이지 시대 말기인 1910년에서 미시마 유키오의 죽음(1970) 이후인 1975년까지를 그리고 있다. 작가 스스로 ‘나에 대한 모든 것을 알 수 있다’ 이야기한 이 대작은 과연 무엇을 말하고자 하는 것일까.


<봄눈>의 줄거리는 어찌 보면 간단하다. 메이지 시대가 끝나고 다이쇼 시대가 시작된 1912년, 14만평에 이르는 대저택의 주인인 마쓰가에 후작의 외아들 기요아키와 아야쿠라 백작의 딸 사토코와의 ‘이룰 수 없는’ 사랑을 그리고 있다. 그런데 ‘이 이룰 수 없는 사랑’이라는 설정이 조금 특이하다. 처음부터 불가능한 사랑이 아니라 기요아키 스스로 금기를 설정하고 그 금기에 제 한 몸을 불사르는 이야기이기 때문이다. 여기에는 기요아키의 특이한 성정도 한몫한다. ‘아름다운 용모, 우아함, 우유부단한 성격, 소박함의 결여, 노력의 방기, 몽상가다운 심성, 근사한 외양, 유연한 젊음, 상처받기 쉬운 피부, 꿈꾸는 듯한 긴 속눈썹’ 등등 빼어난 미모로 주위의 선망을 받는 기요아키는 모든 것에 무관심하다. 자기 외에는 그 누구에게도 관심을 두지 않는 탐미적 몽상가로, 어린 시절 함께 자란 사토코가 자기를 사랑한다는 사실을 알면서도 외면한다. 그 이유는 오직 하나, 사토코가 자기를 사랑하기 때문이다.


기요아키는 ‘자신을 사랑해 주는 인간을 깔보고, 깔볼 뿐 아니라 냉혹하게 취급하는’ 좋지 않은 성향을 지녔는데, 기요아키의 유일한 친구인 혼다는 그의 ‘이러한 종류의 오만함은 열세 살의 기요아키가 자신의 아름다움에 보내는 사람들의 갈채를 알게 된 때부터 마음 깊은 곳에서 은밀하게 길러 온 곰팡이 같은 감정’일 거라고 추측한다. 기요아키의 열세 살 때의 남다른 경험은 이 작품에서 아주 중요한 역할을 하는데, 그 무렵 궁중 신년 축하연에서 시동으로 불려나가 황족 여성들의 옷자락 시중을 들던 어린 기요아키는 서른 살 안팎의 아름다운 가스가노미야 비(妃)의 새하얀 목덜미가 도드라진 옆얼굴이 한순간 눈에 들어오자 가벼운 현기증을 일으키며 걸음을 비틀거리는 실수를 한다. 그때 그것이야말로 눈이 멀 듯한 여인의 아름다움에 동경을 품은 그의 첫 번째 기억이며, 이 금기의 대상에 대한 강렬한 동경의 체험은 <봄눈>에서의 기요아키 전 생애를 지배하게 된다.


기요아키는 손쉽게 사토코를 자기 사람으로 둘 수도 있었다. 집안에서도 백작의 딸인 사토코를 좋게 보고 있었으며 당사자인 사토코 또한 기요아키를 사랑하지 않았는가. 그런데 그렇게 평범하고 손쉬운 것은 그에게는 아무런 매력의 대상이 되지 못한다. ‘기요아키의 자유분방한 기질은, 자신을 좀먹는 불안을 스스로 증식시키는 성향도 함께 갖고’ 있었고 그렇기에 그는 ‘아름다운 꽃보다는 가시투성이의 음침한 꽃씨에 기꺼이 덤벼’들기를 선택한다. ‘기요아키는 어느새 그 씨앗에 물을 주고 싹을 틔워 마침내는 자기 안 가득히 그것이 번성하기를 기다리는 일 외에는 모든 관심을 잃어’버리고 ‘한눈도 팔지 않고 불안을’(43쪽) 키워나간다. 사토코가 천황이 칙허를 내린 황가의 정혼자가 되자(금기가 만들어지자) 기요아키는 사토코를 유혹해 금지된 관계에 빠져 들어가는 것이다. 이런 기요아키의 모습은 저 먼 옛날 <겐지모노가타리>의 겐지를 떠올리게 하기도 한다. 금기의 대상에 빠져들기를 멈추지 못하는, 아니 오히려 그러기를 기꺼이 선택하고 거기로 자신을 몰아가는 그들.






기요아키에게 환희를 안긴 것은 불가능이라는 관념이었다. 절대적 불가능. 사토코와 자신을 잇는 실이 예리한 날붙이로 끊어버린 거문고의 줄처럼, 솟구치는 단현(斷絃)의 비명을 지르며 칙허라는 빛나는 칼에 베여 버린 것이다. 그가 어린 시절 이후 오래도록 되풀이해 온 우유부단함 속에서 비밀스레 꿈꾸고 남몰래 바라 온 사태는 이런 것이었다. 옷자락일 들며 올려다본 봄의 흰 잔설 같던 비전하의 목덜미, 우뚝 솟은 채 접근을 거부하던 비길 데 없는 그 아름다움은 그가 품은 꿈의 발원지, 그가 지닌 바람의 성취를 똑똑히 예언하고 있었다. 절대적인 불가능성. 이것이야말로 더없이 뒤틀린 자신의 감정에 변함없이 충실해 온 기요아키가 스스로 초래한 사태였다. (235쪽)




스스로 금기를 만들어 그 금기를 범하고 도리를 어기는 기요아키. 그 우미(優美)한 손을 흙, 피, 땀 그 어떤 것으로도 더럽히지 않고 지켜내, 오직 감정만을 위해 쓰인 손을 지닌 기요아키. 무엇에든 유보적이며 그게 뭔지는 몰라도 “뭔가 결정적인 것”을 꿈꾸는 기요아키. ‘모독의 쾌락’을 즐기며 ‘쇠운’이라는 말과 ‘죽음’, 그것도 젊을 때의 죽음을 꿈꾸는 기요아키. 자신에게 단 하나 진실한 것, 방향도 귀결도 없는 오직 ‘감정’만을 위해 살아가는 일에 기꺼이 몸을 던진 기요아키. 권력으로도 돈으로도 상대가 안 되는 불가능한 상대를 고르고, 불가능하기 때문에 끌렸던 기요아키. 그런 불가능한 비극을 향해 맹렬히 나아가는 기요아키를 지켜보며 혼다는 ‘그건 아름다운 일이지. 하지만 창가를 스쳐 지나가는 새 그림자 같은 찰나의 아름다움을 위해, 인생이란 희생물을 바치도록 내버려 둬도 되는 걸까.’(268쪽)하고 생각한다. 그러나 이 기요아키의 모습에서 미시마 유키오가 생각하는 아름다움의 모든 것을 엿볼 수 있다.






그는 바다의 조수와 기나긴 시간의 이행, 그리고 자신도 머지않아 늙으리라는 생각에 돌연 숨이 막혔다. 노년의 지혜 따위는 이제껏 한 번도 바란 적 없었다. 어떻게 하면 아직 젊을 때 죽을 수 있을까, 그것도 되도록 괴롭지 않게. 탁자 위에 아무렇게나 벗어 던져 둔 화려한 비단 기모노가 어느 틈에 어두운 바닥으로 흘러 떨어지는 것 같은, 그처럼 우아한 죽음. (162쪽)



<봄눈>는 뜻밖에도 기요아키와 혼다가 러일 전쟁 전사자 위령제 사진을 보는 장면으로 시작한다. 금기의 사랑을 나누는 기요아키와 사토코의 이야기가 중심인데 왜 전쟁 사진을 보는 장면으로 시작한 것일까. 게다가 혼다는 훗날 기요아키와 사토코의 사랑 이야기를 들으면서 이 러일 전쟁 사진을 떠올린다. ‘그 아름다운 사랑 이야기에 흙먼지로 뒤덮인 평야의 풍경이’ 겹쳐지는 것이다. 그때 혼다는 이렇게 말한다. 사실 혼다는 이 ‘풍요의 바다’ 4부작을 실질적으로 이끌어가는 관찰자이자 주인공이라 할 수 있기에 그의 이 말은 매우 의미심장하며, <봄눈>을 통해 미시마 유키오가 말하고자 했던 바가 아닐까 싶기도 하다. “메이지 시대와 함께 웅대한 전쟁의 시대도 끝이 났지. 이젠 옛날이야기가 된 전쟁 이야기는 살아남은 감무와 부사관들의 시골 난롯가의 자랑거리로 전락해 버렸으니까. 이제 젊은이가 전장에 나가 전사하는 일은 많지 않을 거야. 하지만 행위로서는 전쟁이 끝난 대신 이젠 감정의 전쟁을 치르는 시대가 시작됐어. 둔감한 놈들은 보이지 않는 이 전쟁을 전혀 느낄 수 없을 테고, 그런 게 있다는 것조차 믿으려 들지 않을 거야. 그렇지만 이 전쟁은 분명히 시작됐고, 이 전쟁을 위해 특별히 선택된 젊은이들은 틀림없이 싸우기 시작했어. 넌 분명히 그중 하나고. 행위의 전쟁과 마찬가지로 감정의 전장에서도 역시 젊은이들이 전사해 간다고 생각해. 그게 아마도 널 대표로 하는 우리 시대의 운명이겠지. 그래서 넌 그 새로운 전쟁에서 전사하기로 각오를 굳힌 거야. 그렇지?”(263~264쪽) 행위로서의 전쟁 대신 감정의 전쟁을 치르는 시대. 이런 감정의 전쟁에서 기요아키는 전사하기로 각오한다. 봄눈처럼 덧없이 사라지고 말 사랑에 기꺼이 몸을 던진다. 아무리 찰나일지라도 그 덧없는 아름다움에 비할 것은 없기에.


혼다는 이 ‘풍요의 바다’를 관통하는 환생에 관한 생각도 의미 있게 밝힌다. “인간의 품는 모든 사상을 미망(迷妄)이라 생각한다면, 전생에서 현생으로 환생한 한 생명의 전생의 미망과 현생의 미망을 각각 식별해 낼 제삼의 견지가 필요합니다. 그 제삼의 견지에서만 환생을 증명할 수 있을 뿐, 다시 태어난 당사자에겐 모든 것이 영원한 수수께끼에 지나지 않을 겁니다. 그리고 그 제삼의 견지란 아마도 깨달음의 견지일 테니 환생이란 생각은 환생을 초탈한 인간만이 파악할 수 있겠지요. (....) 환생이란 건 우리가 생의 측면에서 죽음을 바라보는 것과 반대로, 그저 죽음의 측면에서 생을 바라본 것을 표현한 데 지나지 않을지도 모릅니다. 그저 바라보는 방향이 바뀌었을 뿐인 겁니다.”(304~305쪽) 환생이란 우리가 생의 측면에서 죽음을 바라보는 것과 반대로 죽음의 측면에서 생을 바라본 것을 표현한 데 지나지 않을 거라는 말이 인상 깊다. 앞으로 2부, 3부, 4부에서는 어떤 이야기가 펼쳐질지 꽤 기대된다. 무엇보다 <봄눈>은 너무나 아름답다. 문장 하나하나가 아름다움 그 자체이다. 읽는 내내 절로 탄복하게 된다. 그 문장을 눈으로 삼키며 그 아름다움에 푹 빠지다 보면 어느새 마지막 장에 이르러 있다. 책을 덮고 나면 그 아름다움은 봄날의 눈처럼 덧없이 사라지고 말아 왠지 공허해지고 허기가 지지만 다음에도 또 그 아름다움에 기꺼이 빠지기를 바라게 된다.






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잠자냥 2021-03-08 공감(33) 댓글(2)
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[마이리뷰] 봄눈 새창으로 보기 구매
봄에 오는 눈, 금방 녹아내리는 눈이다.


봄이 온 듯 마음 놓고 있던 이들에게, 불시에 내리는 차가운 눈이지만, 봄에 내리는 눈은 오히려 포근해 보이기까지 한다. 그렇지만 결국 봄 햇살에 금방 녹아버리고, 녹아버린 것마저 증발해 버린다. 누군가의 입으로 전해지지 않으면 봄눈이 온 줄도 모를 일이다.


마쓰가에 기요아키, 눈물을 머금은 듯한 긴 속눈썹의 미남자, 남자가 아닌 소년의 모습과 변덕으로, 온갖 무용함 속에서 오로지 아름다움과 고귀함에 마음을 두는 이제 곧 20살이 될, 바람처럼 나부끼는 깃발처럼 감정대로만 살아가는 인물이다.


아야쿠라 사토코, 아름다운 선으로 만들어진, 봄눈 같다 생각했지만 의외의 강단을 보여주는 인물이다.


기요아키는 아름답지 않음에 대해 불결해하고, 고귀함과 나른함, 핏 속에 흐르는 귀족의 오만함을 보여주며, 그런 것들이 모여 만들어내는 묘한 끌림을 통해 주변인들을 모독하며 무의미한 나날들을 보낸다. 기요아키에게는 어린 시절 잠시 시중을 들었던, 비전하의 우아함과 아름다움은 절대적이다. 기요아키가 그저 나를 사랑한다고 자랑삼아 보여줄 법한, 그냥 아름다운 얼굴의 사토코는 왕자비로 발탁되면서, 예전 비전하가 가졌던 우아함과 고귀함을 획득하게 된다. 그리고 그런 사토코와 기요아키는 선을 넘은 사랑을 하게 된다. 여기에선 좀 더 복잡한 이야기도 숨어 있다. 사토코의 아버지와 기요아키 아버지 사이에서의 열등감과 모멸, 그리고 멸시다. 몰락하는 가문으로 기요아키 아버지의 경제적 도움을 받아야하는 사토코의 아버지는, 자신의 딸을 통해 철저한 위선으로 그 모욕을 되갚으려 했었다. 사토코의 숱 많던 검은 머리카락은 벚꽃처럼 떨어진다. 아름답지만 유난히 짧은 벚꽃, 그리고 그 위에 잠시 봄눈처럼 내려앉았던 기요아키도 녹아 사라진다.






주변의 배경에 대한 아름답고 그린 듯한 묘사는 한 편의 영화 같다. 유럽의 귀족제도를 본 뜬 일본 상류층의 생활상은 겉만 번지르한, 아름다운 진창을 보는 듯하다. 러일전쟁 후, 자본주의와 개혁을 통해 풍요의 바다에 던져진 아이들이 자라 20대가 되었다. 그들에게 제국주의는 천황은 일본은 어떤 의미인가도 생각하게 한다. 러일 전쟁 이후 세대들은 그 전의 세대들과 단절된 듯하지만, 불교의 윤회사상 등을 들며 이어진 세대임을 말한다.


10대의 무모하고 어찌 보면 악의적인 농담 같은 사랑, 그 사랑이 우연일까. 아님 윤회에 의한 되갚음일까. 아니면 앞으로의 일들을 예견하는 것일까. 2부에선 기요아키의 친구 혼다가 어떤 이야기들을 할지 궁금하다.






누가 미시마 유키오의 글을 읽고 이건 미쳤다! 미친 글이다 라고 했다는데 뭘까.


누구나 젊은 시절엔 수 백 가지의 격정과 바람을 가슴에 담고 산다. 미칠 듯 해서 조금씩 바람을 빼면, 그건 또 피식거리며 웃기는 소리를 내며 빠지고 만다. 내가 보기엔 너무 크고 너무 엄청난 것 같지만, 누군가에겐 그저 푸시식 거리는 바람 빼는 소리 같은 것. 그게 청춘 아닐까.


아름다운 미소년, 그리고 아름다운 미소녀, 더 늙기 전에 20살, 가장 빛나던 때에 삶을 던짐으로서 그 아름다움은 완성되는 걸까. 봄날 너무나 급작스레 피어 너무나 또 급작스레 떨어지고 마는 벚꽃처럼, 혹은 봄눈처럼.


( 원효대사의 해골물 이야기가 나와서 반가웠다. 실제 그런 일은 없었다고 하는데 시사하는 바가 큰 일화여서인지 여기저기 인용되는 걸 보게 된다 )
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mini74 2021-04-07 공감(24) 댓글(10)
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봄눈 밑줄긋기 새창으로 보기 구매
LAYLA 2021-06-28 공감(2) 댓글(0)
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우아함에 목숨 걸다. 새창으로 보기 구매
귀족, 부호의 아들, 뭇 사람들이 놀랄만큼의 용모. 주인공 기요아키는 이런 조건을 가진 18세, 19세 무렵의 청년입니다. 요즘 같으면 청소년이고 아기입니다. 이 소설에서는 주변을 혼돈의 도가니로 몰아넣는 중심인물이라 읽어나가다가 나이를 의식하는 순간 놀랍니다. 물론 백 년 정도 전의 귀족 가문이니 어른 대접의 기준이 달랐지만요.


주인공 기요아키가 감정대로 살겠다는 생각을 갖고 아름다움을 추구하는 것이 이 소설에서는 물불 안 가리는 청춘이라서가 아니라 그냥 성인 남성과 같은 진지함을 부여받고 있습니다. 친구 혼다는 이성적이며 무척이나 깊이 있는 사고력을 펼치는 것이 나이가 믿기지 않는 수준을 보입니다. 또한 기요아키의 연인 사토코도 갓 스물이지만 신비한 아름다움의 소유자로 풋내라고는 찾을 수 없는 성숙한 여성으로 그려지고 있습니다. 그러니 일단 이들의 나이는 잊고 읽어야 할 것 같습니다.





제목 '봄눈'이 많은 것을 말해 줍니다. 봄눈은 한 겨울에 내리는 눈과는 달리 한 템포 늦게 찾아오는 눈이며 한 해가 시작되는 시기에 내려서 곧 녹을 눈입니다. 이 봄눈은 기요아키의 본질을 보여 주는 것 같습니다. 뭔가 꿈같이 좋은 것이 여기에 있는데 우아하고 아름다우나 시간이 어긋나 있으며 흔적을 길게 남길 수 없다, 라는 것입니다. 아니 거꾸로 표현해야 할 것 같습니다. 그 꿈같이 좋은 것이 어긋난 시간에 흔적을 길게 남길 수 없다는 점에서 그야말로 최상의 우아함과 아름다움을 나타내는 것이다, 라고요. 기요아키는 확고하게 그렇게 생각합니다. 그래서 사토코와 현실 시간이 어긋난 이후 비로소 감정을 마음껏 불태우며 생사를 걸고 돌진합니다. 그것이 ‘우아함’이라고 생각합니다. 모두가 허락한 시간과 여건에 가질 수 있는 것에는 아름다움을 못 느끼고요. 끝에는 당연히 비극이 기다리고 있습니다.





자연 풍광의 아름다움에 대한 잦은 묘사나 추함에 대한 혐오, 우아함에의 집착 등이 주된 내용입니다. 독서 중에 작가를 자주 떠올리지 않을 수 없었습니다. 자신이 우아함의 화신인양 퍼포먼스를 통해 인생을 작품화하려고 했었던 작가.(누군가는 그렇게 생각할지 몰라도 저에게는 정반대로 느껴집니다.)





읽으며 주의를 끌었던 것 중 하나는 귀족계급이며 부유한 집안이라 서양의 온갖 문화적, 물질적 사치를 누리는 것이었습니다. 우습게도 졸부들이 그러듯이 어디 제(made in -)인지 일일이 밝혀 말하는데 예를 들면 이런 식입니다. 시카고에서 수입한 스팀 난방 시설을 갖춘 양관, 이태리 대리석으로 된 당구대가 놓인 당구실, 거기에 걸린 영국에서 온 화가가 그린 조부의 커다란 초상화, 스코틀랜드산 무릎 덮개 등등. 당시의 일본 최상층이 서구 문물을 흡수하며 누린 모습은 졸부가 과시성 소비를 하는 것과 비슷했을까요. 이들은 전혀 졸부가 아니지만 서양의 문화 앞에서는 그런 심리적 상태였을지도 모르겠다는 생각을 했습니다. 유치하고 속물적이라는 느낌이 들면서도 ‘좋은 것은 그냥 좋은 것이다’, ‘내 것이 되면 내 것이지’라는 거리낌없는 태도가 있습니다. 애초에 자기 것이었던 것처럼 어떤 거부감이나 위축감 같은 것이 없어요. 침략을 받아 강제로 이식된 것이 아니어서 그런지도 모르겠습니다.


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BOOK 1

Spring Snow
by Yukio Mishima

4.16 · 15,299 Ratings · 1,255 Reviews · published 1967 · 95 editions
Tokyo, 1912. The closed world of the ancient arist…More

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BOOK 2

Runaway Horses
by Yukio Mishima

4.20 · 6,043 Ratings · 453 Reviews · published 1969 · 68 editions
Isao is a young, engaging patriot, and a fanatical…More

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BOOK 3

The Temple of Dawn
by Yukio Mishima

3.84 · 4,055 Ratings · 309 Reviews · published 1970 · 41 editions
Yukio Mishima’s The Temple of Dawn is the third no…More

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BOOK 4

The Decay of the Angel
by Yukio Mishima

4.13 · 3,781 Ratings · 310 Reviews · published 1970 · 64 editions
The dramatic climax of The Sea of Fertility tetrao…More

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Spring Snow
(The Sea of Fertility #1)
by Yukio Mishima, Michael Gallagher (Translator)
4.16 · Rating details · 15,299 ratings · 1,255 reviews
Tokyo, 1912. The closed world of the ancient aristocracy is being breached for the first time by outsiders - rich provincial families, a new and powerful political and social elite.


Kiyoaki has been raised among the elegant Ayakura family - members of the waning aristocracy - but he is not one of them. Coming of age, he is caught up in the tensions between the old and the n ...more
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Paperback, 389 pages
Published November 2000 by Vintage (first published 1967)
Original Title春の雪 [Haru no Yuki]
ISBN0099282992 (ISBN13: 9780099282990)
Edition LanguageEnglish
SeriesThe Sea of Fertility #1
CharactersKiyoaki Matsugae, Satoko Ayakura, Shigekuni Honda, Shigeyuki IinumaSettingTokyo (Japan)


Literary AwardsNational Book Award Finalist for Translation (1973)
Other Editions (94)
Spring Snow (The Sea of Fertility, #1)
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Hey everyone. I heard great things about Yukio Mishima and was wondering if someone could let me know which one of his books would be the best to start with. Would it be this? 'Spring Snow'? Also, I am a huge Murakami...are there any similarities?
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Alexandra Murakami and Mishima are very different style-wise. Mishima is more of a what I suppose you could term a classical internalist; he writes dramas that …more
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Mishima is very clear that Kiyoaki is both beautiful, and essentially dumb. Not interested in study, intellectual discourse, but very beautiful. This is something reiterated. So is Satoko (though not dumb). Why does this quality make a powerful, universal etc love-story? The Calvin Klein school of romance. Romeo & Juliet are young and hot, but not expressly stupid.
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Tijl Vandersteene I don't think he's dumb. He's not interested or motivated, but that's something else. Because his social background he can afford to be lazy in school…more
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Average rating4.16 · Rating details · 15,299 ratings · 1,255 reviews


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Jim Fonseca
Feb 26, 2019Jim Fonseca rated it it was amazing
Shelves: japan, japanese-authors
Mishima (1925-1970) was a classic Japanese author. He was a fierce anti-communist who led a band of rebels trying to restore the Emperor. He committed ritual suicide when the plot failed. His best-known work is a tetralogy, The Sea of Fertility, of which this book is the first volume.


Class divisions and changing values in Japan due to western influence aree major themes. The main character is the son of a very wealthy family. How wealthy? They have 40 servants and the boy doesn’t know all their names even though some of them who have worked there for years. The family lives in a multi-house compound which includes a western-style home in which they entertain and occasionally have western meals. The boy’s own room is in a Japanese-style house but it’s decorated with western furniture. His mother often dresses and wears her hair in western style. And yet, he has a friend at school whose family, he feels is, more ‘western in outlook’ than his, despite their family’s lack of western trappings in furniture, food and dress.


description


The boy is very good-looking, dreamy, melancholy, lazy and ambition-less. He’s bright but he figures he’ll get into a university for rich kids because he’s not wasting time studying for exams to get into an academically prestigious school. He’s 18 when the story opens. The end of the Russo-Japanese War, 7 years ago, is a key backdrop to the story. So we know it’s around 1912.


So the boy’s family has money, but it’s not one of Japan’s traditional 28 noble families, like the one next door. So his father creates an alliance between those two families and the boy spends much time at the neighboring residence absorbing the noble ambiance. His father supplies the money; the other family supplies the prestige.


The plot revolves around a love story between this boy and the daughter of the neighboring household. They have known each other all their lives and she has loved him since they were children. But his feelings toward her are on-again, off-again; he mistreats her and pretends he doesn’t care for her. Finally she gives up on him and becomes engaged to a son of a noble family, actually a member of the Emperor’s household.


At this point (she’s is 21; he’s 19), and after the engagement has been approved by the Emperor himself, finally he decides he loves her and begins to pursue her. They begin a sexual relationship and she becomes pregnant. If word of any of this gets out, it would be the equivalent of a national scandal! When the boy’s father learns what is going on, after spending his whole life ass-kissing the emperor and the nobles, to say he is apoplectic is putting it mildly. Never having lifted a hand to his son before, he beats him with a pool cue.


The difficult romance gives the author a chance to discuss the theme of ‘the light of reason vs. the darkness of passions.’ There’s also quite a bit of discussion about Buddhism and reincarnation. But we know all this can only end in tragedy. His friend counsels him that he is throwing his life away almost as if he wants to commit suicide.


description


There is good writing, such as this passage that I liked: “On a warm spring day, a galloping horse was only too clearly a sweating animal of flesh and blood. But a horse racing through a snowstorm became one with the very elements; wrapped in the whirling blast of the north wind, the beast embodied the icy breath of winter.”


It's a good story. I don’t know if it entices me to read the whole tetralogy, but the second volume is the series, Runaway Horses, is equally highly rated as Spring Snow. (The other two are The temple of Dawn and The Decay of the Angel.) Probably the author’s best-known work in English is not part of the tetralogy, it’s The Sailor Who Fell from Grace with the Sea.


description


Photo of the Great Buddha of Kamakura featured in the novel from onmarkproductions.com
Photo of the newly restored Marunouchi Building, part of the Shimbasi railroad station featured in the novel.
Photo of the author from Goodreads
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Jeffrey Keeten
Mar 18, 2012Jeffrey Keeten rated it it was amazing
Shelves: the-japanese
Yukio Mishima felt the Japanese government needed to return to a system based on the samurai code. He was descended from samarais and believed that this code, advocating complete command of one's body and soul combined with a complete loyalty to the emperor, was necessary for Japan to return to prominence. He formed his own army in 1970 and attempted a coup d'état. With a few friends he overpowered the commandant of the Ichigaya Camp — the Tokyo headquarters of the Eastern Command of Japan's Self-Defense Forces and tied the commandant to a chair. Mishima then stepped onto a balcony outside the commandant's office and gave an impassioned speech to the government troops to join his cause. He was jeered and mocked off the balcony.


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He returned to the commandant's office and committed seppuku, a ritual suicide. The friend he had chosen to slice his head from his body at the end of the ritual could not complete his responsibilities and another friend stepped in to end his pain. Mishima had been planning his suicide for almost a year. For those with a more gruesome bent you can find pictures of his severed head on the internet.


Mishima was only 45 on November 25th, 1970. He had been a successful actor, kendo master, and of course writer. Mishima wrote 40 novels, 18 plays, 20 books of short stories, and at least 20 books of essays, one libretto, as well as one film. Like Fitzgerald, he dashed off a lot of work for quick cash, but even if those inferior works are discarded, he still had an impressive body of work for a man who died so young. He had just finished the final volume in The Sea of Fertility tetralogy, of which Spring Snow is the first, before his suicide.


Spring Snow is a novel of pride, misplaced loyalty, blackmail, intrigue, lust, selfishness, sacrifice, and misery. It is the story of star crossed lovers, steadfast friends, political mishaps, and conniving servants. The setting is 1912 Tokyo in the inner circle of imperial court. Our hero is Kiyoaki, who was born so beautiful he stirred the blood of women from 8 to 80. He was a young man of 19 whom women wanted and men wanted to be like. Those people too enamored with him soon found themselves rebuffed. Honda, a fellow classmate of Kiyoaki observed this tendency and modified his approach to Kiyoaki forsaking fawning for aloofness. "He knew only too well how Kiyoaki reserved his keenest displeasure for any excessive show of friendship." Now his name is HONDA not HONDO.


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It must be the fact that Hondo was one of my favorite John Wayne movies when I was a kid combined with the fact that I really liked Honda, by far my favorite character in the book, that I kept changing his name in my head to Hondo.


Kiyoaki as a young lad of 13 was asked to participate in a ritual ceremony that brought him in close proximity to the princess. He missteps and disrupts the trail of her ermine coat.


"Princess Kasuga's lavish use of French perfume extended to her train, and its fragrance overpowered the musky odor of incense. Some way down the corridor, Kiyoaki stumbled for a moment, inadvertently tugging at the train. The princess turned her head slightly, and, as a sign that she was not at all annoyed, smiled gently at the youthful offender. Her gesture went unnoticed; body perfectly erect in that fractional turn, she had allowed Kiyoaki a glimpse of a corner of her mouth. At that moment, a single wisp of hair slipped over her clear white cheek, and out of the fine-drawn corner of an eye a smile flashed in a spark of black fire. But the pure line of her nose did not move. It as as if nothing had happened...this fleeting angle of the Princess's face--too slight to be called a profile--made Kiyoaki feel as if he had seen a rainbow flicker for a bare instant through a prism of pure crystal."


This scene stays with Kiyoaki for the rest of his life. He considered it one of the most defining moments of his life, which makes it all the more inexplicable why it takes him so long to realize the extraordinary beauty of his life time friend Satoko. Only after his friends at school see her and react extravagantly to her charms does Kiyoaki for the first time see her as a woman and not as an annoying child. She is acerbic, sarcastic, intelligent, and head over heels in love with Kiyoaki. Her wit and his pride contribute to the continued cross purposes of their relationship. Honda proves himself time and time again helping Kiyoaki with insane plans to get unsupervised time with Satoko. He rejects her and then wants her more than ever. "His own heart seemed to him to be much like an arrow stripped of the flashing white feathers that gave it direction."


The minor characters provide twisty plot turns that add inspiring flavor to the plot. Jaw dropping, unexpected moments of blackmail with a dash of spicy intrigue keep the pages turning even when the main characters are off the stage. Beautiful descriptive passages, bits of Zen, and an ending that Shakespeare would certainly approve of lead me to say HIGHLY RECOMMENDED. (less)
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Ahmad Sharabiani
Mar 30, 2014Ahmad Sharabiani rated it really liked it · review of another edition
Shelves: japan, fiction, asia, romance, historical, literature, 20th-century
春の雪 [Haru no Yuki] = Spring Snow (The Sea of Fertility, Book 1), Yukio Mishima


Spring Snow is a novel by Yukio Mishima, the first in his Sea of Fertility tetralogy. It was published serially in Shinchō from 1965 to 1967, and then in book form in 1969.


The novel is set in the early years of the Taishō period with the reign of the Emperor Taishō, and is about the relationship between Kiyoaki Matsugae, the son of a rising new rich family, and Satoko Ayakura, the daughter of an aristocratic family fallen on hard times. Shigekuni Honda, a school friend of Kiyoaki's, is the main witness to the events. The novel's themes center on the conflicts in Japanese society caused by westernization in the early 20th century.


تاریخ نخستین خوانش: ششم ماه آگوست سال2014میلای


عنوان: برف بهاری؛ نویسنده: یوکیو میشیما؛ مترجم: غلامحسین سالمی؛ سمیا صیقلی؛ تهران، نگاه، سال1391؛ در640ص؛ مصور؛ فروست ادبیات مدرن جهان هشت؛ شابک9789643516178؛ موضوع: داستانهای نویسندگان ژاپن - سده20م


کییوآکی، پسری زیبا، و اشرافزاده است؛ در خانواده ی پولدار «ماتسوگائه» به دنیا آمده، خانواده ی «آیاکورا» خانواده ای از نظر اجتماعی بالا، ولی از نظر مادی نادار هستند؛ پدر «کییوآکی» او را به نزد خانواده «آیاکورا» میفرستد، تا موقعیت اجتماعی آنها برای پسرش سودمند شود؛ خانواده «آیاکورا» دختری بسیار زیبا به نام «ساتوکو» دارند، دختر و پسر عاشق همدیگر میشوند


نقل نمونه متن: (دو شاهزاده ی جوان چیزی بیشتر از یک کنجکاوی معمولی، که ممکن بود نسبت به نمایشنامه‌ های خارجی ابراز کنند، از خود نشان ندادند؛ «کی‌یوآکی» «هوندا» را که بعد از مدرسه همراه او، به خانه شان آمده بود، به آن‌ها معرفی کرد؛ بعد از صرفِ شام، متوجه شد که آنان چندان توجهی به توضیحاتِ دوستش به زبان انگلیسی، درباره ی نمایشنامه ‌ها و چگونگی اجرای آن‌ها از خود نشان نمی‌دهند؛ در چنین مواقعی، وفاداری و جدیتِ کاملِ «هوندا»، «کی‌یوآکی» را تحتِ تأثیر قرار می‌داد، و احساسِ دوگانه ناراحتی وجدان و دلسوزی را، در او پدید می‌آورد؛ مطمئنآ هیچیک از افراد گروهی که آن شب عازمِ تئآتر بودند، علاقه ‌ای به خودِ نمایش نداشتند؛ «کی‌یوآکی» که کاملا در دنیای ذهنی خودش سیر می‌کرد؛ هر چند امکان داشت «ساتوکو» نامه را خوانده باشد، با اینهمه ممکن بود زیر قولش بزند، و نیاید؛ سر پیشخدمت وارد شد، تا اطلاع دهد که کالسکه منتظر آنان است؛ اسب‌ها شیهه می‌کشیدند، و هُرمِ نفس‌هاشان، همچون شعله‌ های سفید رنگی، از منخرین‌شان بیرون می‌آمد، تا در آن هوای تیره‌ گونِ زمستانی، با پیچ و تاب به سوی آسمان رود؛ «کی‌یوآکی» لذت می‌برد، از اینکه می‌دید اسب‌ها، در آن هوای سرد زمستان، بوی مُشک آگینشان، کمتر از دیگر مواقع به مشام می‌رسد، و صدای زنگدارِ برخورد نعلِ سُم‌هاشان بر زمینِ یخ‌زده، به وضوح شنیده می‌شود، و آنگونه با غرور، قدرتِ خود را، به تماشا می‌گذارند.)؛ پایان نقل


تاریخ بهنگام رسانی 31/05/1399هجری خورشیدی؛ 13/02/1401هجری خورشیدی؛ ا. شربیانی (less)
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William2
Mar 30, 2017William2 rated it liked it · review of another edition
Shelves: fiction, 20-ce, japan, translation
Set near Tokyo in 1912. In Spring Snow Kiyoaki Matsugae is sent as a child be raised on the estate of a Count where he learns all the worst habits of a decadent court. He is slothful, he preens in the knowledge of his superior looks. When 18 years of age he is so self-involved—the familiar disaffectedness of many Mishima protagonists—that even when kissing the woman who loves him he thinks only of how he feels. He's an affected asshole who takes a conscious pleasure in cruelty.
This . . . was further proof of the hidden, savage essence of the elegance he had cultivated for so long. (p. 257)




Kioyaki's friend is the upstanding Shigekuni Honda. He adores Kiyoaki. A hard-working young man who loses himself in thoughts of the niceties of European Natural Law and the Laws of Manu, which at the time of the action, the author tells us, were the foundation of Indian law. He also has an abiding interest in historiography, particularly how he and his peers will be viewed by future generations. This dovetails with the theme of reincarnation which links the four books of The Sea of Fertility cycle.


The vast Matsugae estate is imposing. It is still the period of mourning for the late emperor who was called Meiji in life. So the cherry blossom festival as it turns out will be observed, though on a smaller scale than usual. An imperial prince attends with his wife and other visitors. Their route through the blossoms is girded by a red and white curtain, presumably for purposes of privacy. The Western house is filled with geishas. A platform for their cherry blossom dances is built in the garden. Later, there will be a banquet and a film shown based on a Dickens novel.


Amid it all Kiyoaki is adrift. Satoko is there in all her finery but it's somehow not enough. What is he waiting for? In thrall to his own beauty, his pride, Kiyoaki is at odds with himself, contradictory in his impulses. He is lost, no decisiveness—aside from a snowy rickshaw ride with Satoko, which was her idea—comes from him. His is a rapt passivity. Meanwhile, he stubbornly let's go of Satoko when she is courted by an imperial prince, and thinks good riddance.


Devoid of worry or annoyance, free of all anxiety, Kiyoaki at nineteen liked to see himself as a cold and supremely capable young man. He felt that he was now past some watershed in the course of his life. (p. 163)




But he isn't. Unable to read his own emotions, he takes grief for delight; his "strength of will," as he terms it, when tearing up a letter from Satoko unread, he begins to sense may be cowardice, for she is just about to marry the imperial prince. What a muddle he's in. Though an aristocrat he has known social isolation much of his life. Thus, his misreading of people and situations always in a manner that plays to his own falsely elevated sense of self worth.


Long ago he had resolved to recognize his emotions as his only guiding truth and to live his life accordingly, even if meant a deliberate aimlessness. That principle had now brought him to his present sinister feelings of joy, which seemed to be the brink of a racing plunging whirlpool. There seemed to be nothing left but to throw himself into it. (p. 177)




I won't go into Kiyoaki and Satoko's love affair or the novel's tragic denouement. Suffice it to say that Kiyoaki's comeuppance is quite a spectacle and Honda is there to puzzle over it. The book has a very long fuse. The last 200 pages are far better than the first 200. Despite this uneven start, this is the strongest Mishima novel I have ever read. (less)
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Adam Dalva
Apr 29, 2020Adam Dalva rated it it was amazing · review of another edition
A brilliant first salvo in the Sea of Fertility tetralogy, setting up questions of reincarnation, cultural continuity, and faith while working as a stand-alone novel. I'm curious to continue my journey through these books - they are an odd mixture of the researched nostalgia of the Ferrante series and the self-sufficient decade spanning approach of the Rabbits or the Zuckermans. I always enjoy reading Mishima, but the gentleness and frequent, Austenian (!) humor of Spring Snow surprised me. It's a love story, a hate story, simple in its conceit (a 19 year old man drives away a woman two years older, then realizes he may love her once she's engaged), but full of Mishima floruishes (dead animals, lengthy Mann-like discourses on Buddhism, turbulent longing, constant risk of death.) Most interesting, perhaps, is the fact that the book's supporting character, Honda, is barely in the action, yet will take on the mantle of the series going forward. Ambitious, and a pleasure. It's also a brilliantly researched look at the practices and customs of 1910s Japan. (less)
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Karl
Jun 09, 2018Karl rated it it was amazing · review of another edition
“Spring Snow” is volume one of Yukio Mishima’s tetralogy ‘The Sea of Fertility”. When the book opens the year is 1912 and the setting Meiji Japan, which has given way to "Taisho democracy", an environment is that of a fading Japanese aristocracy resigned to accept into its midst the creep of a westernization of it’s culture.


Adolescent law student Shigekuni Honda is an impassive friend to Kiyoaki Matsugae, a baron's son of distant samurai descent. Honda's future seems preordained. Kiyoaki is a dreamer who is gripped by the sense that life's slippery fineness is running through his fingers and away from him second by second. He longs to chase the impossible, to ‘bend the world’ into the shape of his ideals.


Kiyoaki's desires eventually encounter the beautiful Satoko Ayakura. Although they have been friends since early childhood, they have grown into a mutual indifference of each other. When Satoko gets engaged to a prince, Kiyoaki is suddenly consumed by an inspired passion for her, and the two fall into an illicit affair that proves the undoing of them both. She get pregnant and then gets an abortion. Honda accepts the job of go-between for the lovers, but can only watch as Satoko renounces the world and exiles herself to a remote, wintry nunnery. Kiyoaki drives himself to pneumonia in a hopeless effort to retrieve her. Dying, clutching Honda's hand, Kiyoaki murmurs that they will meet again someday, ‘beneath the falls’.


Although it sounds a bit melodramatic, in truth the book is amazingly well written, with subtleties, implications, and consequences of environment both human and cultural that cause the reader to marvel at Yukio Mishima’s abilities. A master at work.


The closest equivalent I could suggest for compaison is the love story of ‘Romeo an Juliet’ also a story of star crossed lovers. The story is filled with symbolism, imagery and melancholy.


This Knopf hardcover edition was printed in 1972 and is the first American Edition issued as part of a set of all four books. The cycle consisting of:


Vol 1. - Spring Snow
Vol 2 - Runaway Horses
Vol 3 - The Temple Of Dawn
Vol 4 - Five Signs Of A Gods Decay


The series, which Mishima began writing in 1964 and which was his final work, is usually thought of as his masterpiece. Mishima's ritualistic suicide in 1970 will always overshadow his work. (less)
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Michael Finocchiaro
Oct 11, 2016Michael Finocchiaro rated it it was amazing
Shelves: japanese-lit, novels, japanese-20th-c, fiction
It is hard to put words to the beauty and melancholy that Mishima pours into this first of his great tetralogy. The symbolism, the imagery, the characters - everything here is drawn with a fine pencil and eye for detail. The characters reappear in the following books but not as you might expect. This is one of the great monuments of Japanese literature in the 20th C (my other favourite is Soseki's I am a Cat) and it is truly a pleasure to read and savour. (less)
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Jr Bacdayan
Sep 03, 2016Jr Bacdayan rated it really liked it
A book can be either of two things: a key to open locked doors which lead to unique experiences we have not encountered or are impossible for us to attain; while the other is a mirror to show us who we are or remind us of ourselves and the past we have not forgotten. One stirs excitement, the other nostalgia. This time it took the shape of the latter. The book served as a mirror to me, reminding me of a befuddled young man blind to the workings of his heart, prone to exaggerating the simple nuances in the actions of a woman devoted to him, a woman he doubted because of childish fears. But I am not here to talk of myself, I am here because the pain it stirred in me forces me to write.


Kiyoaki, a beautiful yet lethargic young man, is at odds with his equally beautiful childhood friend Satoko. An inexperienced boy when it comes to the desire inside him, he constantly misinterprets and confuses the actions of the young woman who is thoroughly taken with him. His melancholy attitude doesn’t help his cause and he loathes balefully in the estranged pool of his own work. That is until he learns of Satoko’s engagement with a prince, thus the object of his hatred and bewilderment is snatched from him, suddenly out of reach. It is such a curious thing that when something we have ignored for so long is suddenly unavailable to us, we find it infinitely more desirable. The fickle human heart with its itinerant impulses shifts its gear and so the idea of unattainability forces us to acknowledge the taken for granted, the sudden spotlight makes the dull suddenly novel. And it is in this manner that young Kiyoaki realizes the gravity of his passion for Satoko. Doomed from the very start, an affair begins between the childhood friends. In this shared consciousness of tragedy, their love flourishes.


At the very core of this tragic romance Spring Snow serves as Yukio Mishima’s statement against elegance. Being a military man of action, he felt that the Japanese strayed from the righteous way of the Samurai and have alarmingly become slaves of pleasure, smitten with exterior beauty, apathetic to the real world, too taken by the West, too modern. He envisioned a traditional Japan with its graceful simplicity, austere values, and unceasing nationalism and love for the Emperor. The character Kiyoaki is a warning to the people of Japan, a cautionary tale to show the rottenness that elegance is bound to instill in the indolent souls of its time. This very idea is what prompted Mishima to stage a coup d’état in 1970 to restore power to the Emperor. But he failed and thus committed ritual seppuku. However before his death, he was able to complete his tetralogy, the Sea of Fertility, which features Spring Snow as the first of four books. With this in mind, I believe it to be quite irresponsible to fully interpret an incomplete picture. To understand his real intentions, I have to complete the journey by reading the other three works. Yet as a standalone it is rather fascinating to see something that was meant to alarm, instead take one’s breath away with sheer elegance. And so by embodying the object of his scorn, Mishima ironically succeeds in mirroring the very relationship of Kiyoaki and Satoko.


“The path we’re taking is not a road, Kiyo, it’s a pier, and it ends someplace where the sea begins.”


All at once subtle, tender, and painful, this novel manages to evoke a somber tinge of passion in the otherwise luscious backdrop of Taisho Japan. Indeed, like spring snow, a furtive loveliness envelops the landscape of its pages but intertwined with this beauty is a faint cry of desolation, a quiet deadliness that can only enhance its icy elegance. (less)
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B0nnie
Mar 21, 2012B0nnie rated it it was amazing
Shelves: favourite-books
Mishima, like other great writers, has a way of implanting memories in our heads, echoes of other lives. How this magic happens is a mystery but when it does, you feel somehow denser inside, more solid. Spring Snow left me with that feeling, of having increased my gravity and weight, with the lyrical descriptions, history, characters, ceremonies, letters, political intrigue, birds and emerald rings and emerald snakes, and silk kimonos, and more.


At its heart, this is a doomed love story, about two beautiful people - Kiyoaki Matsugae, and Satoko Ayakura - whose outward beauty match their inner turmoil.


This excerpt from Kiyoaki’s dream diary is an allegory of the story...which is an allegory…within allegory,


The very night before, he had dreamed of his own coffin, made of unpainted wood. It stood in the middle of an empty room with large windows, and outside, the pre-dawn darkness was shading to a deep blue; it was filled with the sound of birdsong.


A young woman clung to the coffin, her long black hair trailing from her drooping head, her slender shoulders wracked with sobs. He wanted to see her face but could make out no more than her pale, graceful forehead with its delicate peak of black hair.


The coffin was half covered with a leopard-skin bordered in pearls. The first muted glow of the dawn flickered on the row of jewels. Instead of funeral incense, a scent of Western perfume hung over the room with the fragrance of sun-ripened fruit. Kiyoaki seemed to be watching this from a great height, though he was convinced that his body lay inside the coffin.


But sure as he was, he still felt the need to see it there by way of confirmation. However, like a mosquito in the morning light, his wings lost all power and ceased beating in mid-air; he was utterly incapable of looking inside the nailed-down coffin lid. And then, as his frustration grew more and more intense, he woke up.


And Satoko,
...her words had a cold, proud glitter that could not tolerate the intrusion of a third party. In her own mind, she had fashioned their sin into a tiny, brilliant, crystal palace in which she and Kiyoaki could live free from the world around them. A crystal palace so tiny that it would balance on the palm of one’s hand, so tiny that no one else could fit in. Transformed for a fleetingly brief instant, she and Kiyoaki had been able to enter it and now they were spending their last few moments there, observed with extraordinary clarity in all their minute detail by someone standing just outside.


There is a movie, but from the preview it seems to have only caught the surface. But still...
description
春の雪


Spring Snow is a masterpiece - or at least the beginning of one, as it is the first in a cycle of four novels called the Sea of Fertility. I hope that the other books are as good as this one, but it’s going to be a hard act to follow. (less)
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Gabrielle
Apr 24, 2018Gabrielle rated it really liked it · review of another edition
Shelves: historical, classics, reviewed, asia, own-a-copy, read-in-2018
4 and a half stars.


When I read a translated book, I'm always very conscious that what I'm reading is not necessarily what the author meant to write: I'm reading a book that's very much like what the author wrote but not really the same. I have no idea what Mishima's book is like in the original Japanese, but if this translation is anything like it, the beauty of the prose in Japanese must be devastating.


The story of Kioyaki and Satoko is, in and of itself, not remarkable: forbidden loves, especially in highly hierarchical and ritualized society, such as Imperial Japan on the cusp of modernization is nothing new, nor are bildungsroman about the often painful transition between boy and man. But the prose! The delicate, poetic and incredibly evocative prose turns this story into a dream-like journey in 1912 Japan, a world fascinated with the West but still holding on to deeply rooted traditions.


It has to be read slowly, to really let oneself bask into the elegant melancholy of Mishima's writing. It is dense at times, but so sensual and crisp that you forget how silly Kioyaki and Satoko are. They are both so beautiful and so spoiled, selfish and conceited that you wish someone would give them a good slap or two until they snapped out of ruining each others' lives. But Mishima writes them in a way that makes it impossible not to want to know what happens to them. It comes as no surprise that there is tragedy at the end of the path they follow. But what an interesting path!


And as gorgeous as the writing is, it reminded me of a really pleasant but too liberally applied perfume: it could get a bit overwhelming, and then I'd have to read the passage again to make sure I knew what was going on.


I will be looking for the rest of the "Sea of Fertility" tetralogy, which follows Kioyaki's friend Honda. The deep friendship between the two young men leads Honda to believe he meets successive reincarnations of Kioyaki and tries to save him from his karma. If the other three books are as good as "Spring Snow", they are more than worth the time! (less)
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[P]
Feb 23, 2015[P] rated it it was amazing
Shelves: bitchin
Has there ever been a stranger novelist than Yukio Mishima? On the one hand, he was a body-building Nationalist, who advocated bushido, the samurai code; he also, as many know, committed seppuku, which is a ritual form of suicide involving disembowelling and beheading. You don’t, it is fair to say, get that kind of thing with Julian Barnes and Karl Ove Knausgaard.


description


On the other hand, Mishima was undeniably a cultured man, who spoke English and dressed in the English fashion; he was a bisexual who acted in films and wrote plays as well as novels and short stories. It is almost as though he embodied the conflict – that of the traditional and reserved vs. the modern and progressive – that until very recently so dominated most of the great Japanese literature, and about which his own work, especially Spring Snow, is also concerned.


In what is perhaps a nod to Murasaki Shikibu’s monumental Tale of Genji, Spring Snow is primarily focussed on a preternaturally beautiful young man. As with the shining prince, everyone who meets the central character, Kiyoaki Matsugae, is struck by his attractiveness; and the awareness of his good-looks and the effect it has on other people makes him somewhat spoiled and conceited. Furthermore, although he is the son of a nouveau riche couple, who dress in Western clothes, he was actually raised by a once-prosperous aristocratic family, in order to ensure that he is well versed in traditional Japanese ways and has an elegant bearing. This upbringing means that Kiyoaki is, in a sense, caught between two different eras; he isn’t fully a traditionalist [he doesn’t revere the Emperor, for example], nor is he entirely modern; he is elegant, as his parents desired, but his elegance, and decadence, means that he is unfit for the modern world [for instance, out of indolence he neglects his schooling].


I imagine that it is clear already that my opinion of Kiyoaki is not especially positive. He is not bad per se, but he is tremendously arrogant and self-obsessed. Of course, you could excuse some of his flaws on the basis of his age. Kiyoaki is a teenager and so arrogance and self-obsession are pretty much part of the deal, but, even so, the behaviour of most teenagers does not lead to the ruin of numerous people. I should point out, however, that I do not think that the reader is meant to like him; I believe that, as a product of two conflicting eras, or ways of life, the effete and ineffectual Kiyoaki is, for Mishima, a necessary failure as a human being. For me, it is telling that his servant Iinuma, the one character whose attitude would have, I think, most closely resembled Mishima’s own [in terms of his feelings about loyalty, duty, etc], is disappointed in him, and even, at times, disgusted by him.


“Iinuma looked down at his face, at the sensitive darting eyes with their long lashes – the eyes of an otter – and he knew that it was hopeless to expect him to swear the enthusiastic oaths of loyalty to the Emperor that a night like this would have invoked in any normal young Japanese boy.”




“Kiyoaki’s eyes were now wide open as he lay on his back staring at the ceiling, and they were filled with tears. And when this glistening gaze turned on him, Iinuma’s distaste deepened.”




As I read the novel for the second time, I was baffled by the popular opinion that it is a moving love story, or even the greatest of all love stories. Yes, it details a troubled relationship between two young people – the aforementioned Kiyoaki and the equally beautiful Satoko, the daughter of the noble family who raised the boy – but it is a strange kind of love that continually rejects someone and then suddenly wants that person at the point at which it has become impossible to have them. Perhaps Satoko does love Kiyoaki, but there is abundant evidence that the same is not true for the young man. For example, the first thing he says to his friend Honda, when an ill-looking Satoko is unresponsive towards him, is “I don’t think Satoko will sleep with me anymore”. Does that sound like love to you? No, it sounds like someone who is a bit of a dick. Don’t get me wrong, I’ve not always been a nice guy where girls are concerned, so you could say I’m in no position to judge. But on the basis of the principle of it takes one to know one I’m calling Kiyoaki out.


Moreover, although there are seemingly insurmountable obstacles to their relationship, I don’t necessarily buy the star-crossed lovers interpretation of the story because the couple, Kiyoaki in particular, cause their own problems and create those obstacles themselves. Having said that, I guess you could argue that fate or destiny is also an obstacle to the couple’s love, and this is certainly not something that Kiyoaki and Satoko can control. As you may know, Spring Snow is part of a tetralogy called The Sea of Fertility. Each book in the series deals with reincarnation and predestination. In Spring Snow, the first volume, there are numerous hints and suggestions that what is happening, specifically to Kiyoaki, is, in a sense, meant to be. For example, he keeps a dream journal, and one of his dreams involves Satoko clinging to his coffin; there are repeated references to his demise, and a general sense of foreboding hangs over the novel.


“There’s no doubt that he’s heading straight for tragedy…I’ve got to use every ounce of my strength to stop him fulfilling his destiny.”




In this way, Satoko and Kiyoaki’s relationship is tragic, because they never had a chance. However, if you want to appeal to predestination then you can’t really talk about Kiyoaki at all, because without free will he becomes a non-entity. As a reviewer, in order for discussion to be possible, I want to take him on face value.


One may ask then, if Kiyoaki is so unpleasant, and Spring Snow is not the tragic or tear-jerking tale of adolescent love it is billed as, why should you read the book? Well, first of all, it is always engrossing; whether one sympathises with Satoko and Kiyoaki or not, one is, crucially, still interested in their fate. Furthermore, although the narrative isn’t exactly full of high-octane action, Mishima, unlike many of the other historically important Japanese novelists, does serve up a steady amount of excitement and surprise and tension. In contrast, something like Tanizaki’s acclaimed novel The Makioka Sisters may be wonderful, but it is at times interminably slow and uneventful; I can’t imagine that, when reading that book, there are people that have stayed up late into the night, desperate to reach the end of a chapter, so as to find out what happens next, but I can certainly see that being the case with Spring Snow.


I wrote at the beginning of this review that Mishima to some extent embodied the conflict that he wrote about, that of the traditional and the modern ways of life; what is most interesting about Spring Snow is that this conflict, this tension, is not only apparent thematically, it is in the style too. So, while the prose is undeniably graceful, as you would expect from a great Japanese novel, it lacks simplicity; indeed, Mishima’s style, with its extended metaphors, extreme emoting, and psychological depth, is, I would say, closer to Western writers, like Flaubert, Proust, and Dostoevsky, than Kawabata or Tanizaki. I would also argue that Mishima’s characters are easier to understand and relate to for a Western audience; again, one may not like their behaviour, or admire their motivations, but they are more familiar to us; Kiyoaki is a brat, for example, but we all have known brats. Satoko is perhaps more a mystery, more like the enigmatic women you find in Kawabata, but even her actions can be viewed in terms of a young girl having the hots for a great-looking guy.


Yet for all that, the biggest selling point is just how beautiful Spring Snow is; it really is breathtaking at times. As with Flaubert’s Madame Bovary, the prose is actually so beautiful that it is, in a sense, diverting, so that, like when in the company of a beautiful woman one becomes incapable of judging her behaviour, readers tend not to pick up on how unsavoury the behaviour of the characters actually is. Also like Flaubert, Mishima’s prose is sensual, and highly detailed. In my review of Madame Bovary I called the Frenchman a hyperrealist, by which I mean he makes the real or ordinary seem extraordinary, and I would apply the same term to Mishima. There are numerous passages in the text that one could highlight as evidence, but one that particularly struck me was Kiyoaki holding the train of the princess’ dress:


“Beautiful, elegant, imposing, she was like a flower at the moment of its perfection…Princess Kasuga’s hair had the blackness and sheen of fine lacquer. Seen from behind her elaborate coiffure seemed to dissolve into the rich white skin-textures of the nape of her neck, leaving single strands against her bare shoulders whose faint sheen was set off by her décolleté…she held herself erect and walked ahead with a firm step, betraying no tremor to her trainbearers, but in Kiyoaki’s eyes that great fan of white fur seemed to glow and fade to the sound of music, like the snow covered peak first hidden, then exposed by a fluid pattern of clouds.”




I love that. It isn’t a one-off either, Mishima throws this kind of stuff out by the page. Mad, bad, and dangerous to know he may have been, but he was a wonderful, sensitive writer.


----
THE SEA OF FERTILITY
Volume 2: Runaway Horses https://www.goodreads.com/review/show... (less)
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Meike
Jul 26, 2017Meike rated it it was amazing
Shelves: japan, 2017-read
A love story that reflects the struggles within Japanese culture brought about by the westernization at the beginning of the 20th century – Mishima, you’re a genius. On the surface, the content of the book could be summed up like this: The young Kiyoaki, born into a family that has recently come to accumulate considerable wealth, grew up with Satoko, the daughter of an old aristocratic family struggling with monetary problems. It is only when Satoko gets engaged to an Imperial prince that Kiyoaki realizes that he truly loves her, and they begin a secret love affair that ends tragically.


Of course, that is only the top layer of this intricate poetic work. The author biography at the beginning of the book states that after completing his tetralogy “The Sea of Fertility” (of which “Spring Snow” is the first part) in 1970, Mishima committed ritual suicide. Whoever wrote this is guilty of misleading readers by omission: Before Mishima ritually cut open his stomach and let himself be beheaded by a friend, he tried to stage a coup d’état because he wanted to restore the power of the Emperor. This poet was also a martial artist and bodybuilder who had his own private army, and he wanted to protect traditional Japanese values against westernization. Accordingly, this is not a harmless love story, but a meditation on the differences between Eastern and Western thought, law, culture, and religion.


Kiyoaki’s ancestors used to be samurai, but there is not much warrior spirit left: His parents indulge in Western movies, fashion, and style, and Kiyoaki declares that he will never spill blood. At the same time, the family is still attached to Japanese cultural traditions: They entertain guests with Geishas, they are very proud of their contacts to the Imperial family and, if conflict arises, they mention how this would have been resolved in “the old times”. This tension between East and West is also reflected in the relationship between Kiyoaki and Satoko. Kiyoaki admires her whenever she behaves like a demure, traditional woman, he is intrigued by her physical beauty, her colorful kimonos, her face and neck under her white make-up. But whenever Satoko acts confidently and speaks her mind, Kiyoaki feels insulted and gets angry. When Kiyoaki finally begins a relationship with Satoko after her engagement, he knowingly breaks the rules of Japanese society - well, any society, actually, but here the situation is worsened by the fact that the Emperor sanctioned the marriage to an Imperial prince. Nevertheless, Kiyoaki tells his friend Honda that he would be willing to comply with the rules when forced to face consequences for his transgression, including death. Just as Japanese society as a whole, Kiyoaki and Satoko are torn between the old and the new.


Beyond exploring the impact of westernization by looking at individual and family relationships, Mishima also discusses the change within societal institutions that shape Japan as a whole, namely law and religion. Kiyoaki’s friend Honda is the son of a judge and aims to become one, too. He is fascinated by the differing principles of law that might be applied in different societies, and through his eyes, Mishima displays philosophical tensions such as the imperative of Western law that is based on man’s power of reason and Hindu/Buddhist cosmic law with its doctrine of the transmigration of souls. This becomes crucial as the “Sea of Fertility” tetralogy depicts Kiyoaki being reincarnated in every installment, while Honda grows old and witnesses Kiyoaki’s reincarnations. Adding to that, one could mention that the then-valid Meiji Constitution was based on Prusso-German law and by that was heavily influenced by the West.


And they are more fields in which the theme of the book is played out: Siamese princes who come to Japan and experience culture shock, loyal servants in moral distress, and a reactionary student wrapped up in his own ideas. So although “Spring Snow” might not be as obviously political as “Confessions of a Mask” or “Sun and Steel”, it still is a very typical Mishima book, as it ponders the question what direction Japan should take, and how the decline of tradition and the rise of westernization should be handled. Beautiful prose, fascinating ideas, and must probably be read many times in order to understand the text’s whole genius. (less)
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Luís
Jun 24, 2020Luís rated it it was amazing · review of another edition
Shelves: g-classics, g-historical-fiction, e-5-favourites, japan
In Yukio Mishima's famous tetralogy, "Spring Snow," the first novel is Kiyoaki, the only son of the new noble Marquis and Marquise Matsugae, owners of a magnificent forty-hectare estate not far from Tokyo.
The Marquis placed his son from an early age in an aristocratic family, the Ayakura. He will be raisin in an atmosphere of court nobility near the whimsical and very beautiful Satoko Ayakura, two years his senior.
Not yet a principal and now at his parents' house, Kiyoaki was 18 years old in 1912 when the Meiji era, marked by the end of Japan's policy of voluntary isolation, ended, and the Taisho era permeable to Western culture began.
Without being effeminate, Kiyoaki is of exceptional beauty, but neither studies nor sports activities interest him. Instead, he would rather be adept at idle musings and keep the details of his night dreams in a diary.
His tutor for six years, the manly Iinuma, is sorry for his lack of spirit and poor academic performance; even his best friend from a less fortunate background, the studious Honda, is often perplexed by such moods.
Although madly in love with each other, Kiyoaki and Satoko both have an unfortunate tendency to complicate things. Planned with the help of the matchmaker Tadeshina, Satoko's next, the slightest flirtation is so unspontaneous that it becomes laughable.
The childishness of the two young men is evident, and a misunderstanding one day takes on disproportionate proportions, amplified in time by Kiyoaki's pride.
With his customary skill, Mishima transforms an idyllic relationship with great potential in a few short chapters, which so felt to the reader, into a passionate drama fanned over the weeks by the weight of the conveniences specific to this aristocratic environment.
Friends, let Yukio Mishima take you by the hand to discover the magnificence of the Matsugae estate!
You will see the majestic maple trees of fragrance colour in the fall.
Perhaps you prefer to wait until spring and take a short boat ride on the lake to the islet in the centre of the property while "the first buds grow vertically so that the entire garden seems to stand on the tiptoe"?
You will enjoy admiring "the blossoming cherry trees that intersperse between the pine trees in the long rows of trees on either side of the avenue that leads to the gate for almost a kilometre."
Each of the fifty-five chapters is a poetic diamond finely crafted by a writer at the top of his art. Together, they form a novelistic work whose beauty, like no other, has upset and satisfied the old reader that I am.
If my library had a small place in the shape of a tabernacle, I would undoubtedly store "Spring Snow," not without having decorated it previously with the eight stars of the barrier of Orion, this famous constellation whose central asterism slumped under a radiant moon. (less)
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Tristan
Apr 27, 2015Tristan rated it it was amazing
Shelves: indispensable
“Oddly enough, living only for one’s emotions, like a flag obedient to the breeze, demands a way of life that makes one balk at the natural course of events, for this implies being altogether subservient to nature. The life of the emotions detests all constraints, whatever their origin, and thus, ironically enough, is apt eventually to fetter its own instinctive sense of freedom.”


- Yukio Mishima, Spring Snow


After finishing this supreme piece of fiction (the first of the tetralogy The Sea of Fertility ), I had the irresistible urge to revisit Gore Vidal's 1971 essay The Death of Mishima published about 8 months after the Japanese author had performed seppuku following a failed coup d'état attempt. It was this essay which prompted me to seek out the work of Mishima. A certain passage greatly struck me, and succinctly explained just what it is about Mishima's sensibility that manages to evoke such a strong reaction in me :


"Yet Mishima wanted a life of the flesh, of action, divorced from words. Some interpreted this to mean that he dreamed of becoming a sort of warlord, restoring to Japan its ancient military virtues. But I think Mishima was after something much simpler: the exhaustion of the flesh in physical exercise, in bouts of love, in such adventures as becoming a private soldier for a few weeks in his middle age or breaking the sound barrier with a military jet. Certainly Mishima did not have a political mind. He was a Romantic Artist in a very fin de siècle French way. But instead of deranging the senses through drugs, Mishima tried to lose his conscious mind (his art) through the use and worship of his own flesh and that of others. Finally, rather than face the slow bitter dissolution of the incarnate self, he chose to die."


It is this desperate longing for a renewed sense of -and respect for- masculinity in all its facets that makes Mishima such an intriguing cultural figure. After Japan's humiliating defeat in WW II the country was forced to metaphorically castrate itself, and over the last couple of decades the Western powers in a lesser degree have as well, but in that case it came about through a series of sociocultural shifts.


Spring Snow of course has a lot more themes on offer. In that respect it is quite a dense read, but one that is greatly aided by Mishima's richly lyrical, sensuous prose. Michael Gallagher must be commended for this brilliant translation, for I felt deprived of none of its intricacies. I was constantly taken aback by Mishima's flawless portrayals of distinctive, unforgettable characters and their emotional states. While quite a traditional writer, he is incredibly meticulous, like a Japanese Nabokov.


Part historical document, part philosophical/spiritual meditation, part love story (in fact two love stories, if you count Kyoaki and Honda's incredibly moving friendship), it is difficult not to find something to derive pleasure from in Spring Snow. In this regard I consider it a nigh perfect springboard for further exploration of Japanese culture during this era. It is simply fascinating, and almost challenges its foreign reader to delve deeper.


If I'd have to hazard a guess, I predict me finishing the entire tetralogy will enhance this first, immensely gratifying tasting even more. How fortunate a discovery, this. Pure joy.
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P.E.
May 15, 2020P.E. rated it really liked it · review of another edition
Shelves: treasure-hunt, tragic, ideology, mythology, favorites, bildungsroman, japanese-literature
The world is your oyster, or is it?




Overhead the albatross
Hangs motionless upon the air
And deep beneath the rolling waves
In labyrinths of coral caves
An echo of a distant time
Comes willowing across the sand
And everything is green and submarine
Echoes - Pink Floyd


-------


Spring Snow = Neige de printemps




First novel in the Sea of fertility tetralogy, Spring Snow tells the story of the love between young marquis Kiyoaki Matsugae and young countess Satoko Ayakura. However, this is not your typical impossible love story as the marriage is possible between them (view spoiler).


Also, the book explores the path taken by law student Shigekuni Honda, following the intricacies of Roman law on the one hand, Hinduist and Buddhist cosmogony on the other hand.


-------


Themes :


This book feels to me as though Mishima was paying a tribute to the novel as a genre, as Spring Snow contains many threads at once, following many characters arcs and literary traditions :


- An ill-fated love-story.


- Something akin to a comedy by Molière or Beaumarchais, filled with subplots involving letters, crafty valets or housekeepers, schemes and revenge...


- A vivid portrayal of post-Meiji, Taisho era Japan, less than a decade after the Russian-Japanese war (1904-5). Its new social hierarchy, materialized by the frayed relationship between Marquis Matsugae (Kiyoaki's father) and Count Ayakura (Satoko's father, a member of the ancient aristocracy), and embodied by conflicted Kiyoaki, raised by both families.


- The swift, mimetic occidentalization of the elite.


- Memories, representation and self-image.


- Fate, dreams, desire and Kiyoaki's fascination for death, present throughout the story via symbols and echoes, taken as omens and prophetic signs throughout the story.


- Changing times. How to have a significant part in the history of a new era? Devote oneself to passions not to be a mere plaything in the tide of History? Merge, Coalesce into beauty not to merge into the commonplace and kitsch?


- Dialogues tackling the subject of will, fate and the illusion of chance, expounding ideas from Hosso Buddhism, some about transmigration.




- Stylistically, Yukio Mishima achieves a sort of tightly knit tapestry, a consistent network of echoing reflections.




------


My opinion on the story :


As far as I am concerned, this is a fairly outstanding book, offering some endearing characters, convincing conflictual relationships, fascinating thoughts and contemplations.


One drawback for me : Kiyoaki seems a bit too unflinchingly determined not to answer Satoko's calls and letters for a significant length of time. Again, that certainly serves the story as it gives a telling example of how self-absorbed and obsessed he can be. Still, I didn't felt attached to Kiyoaki as much as I did concerning Honda.




Kōfuku-ji Temple, Nara




----


Suggested books :




For their common oblique treatment of the story, subjectivity...
Rashomon and Other Stories




Regarding the character of proud, self-absorbed Kiyoaki, his contrariness/waywardness, his masochism:
No Longer Human
The Double
Under the Volcano




As to Honda's philosophical musings and spiritual journey :
See part 2, introductory discussion about history, free will and determinism in
War and Peace




About the occidentalization of Japan :
L'école de la chair = The School of Flesh - Yukio Mishima
La Mort en été = Death in Midsummer - Yukio Mishima




About the occidentalization of other cultures :
Petersburg Tales
Diary of a Madman and Other Stories
Istanbul: Souvenirs D'une Ville




About how our misconceptions model how we imagine ourselves and others,
How no to merge into the commonplace and kitsch :
Immortality




On another secluded hero :
Siddharta


Speaking of incestual-like relationships :
Jude the Obscure
Wuthering Heights




About passion and convents :
The Letters of a Portuguese Nun




Soundtrack :
The Ocean - Mesopelagic: Into the Uncanny (less)
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Ryan
Feb 21, 2008Ryan rated it it was amazing · review of another edition
Once you start reading Mishima, and becoming absorbed with his characters, you are caught in a web that resembles the web he reveals his own characters are enmeshed in. His characters are so tragic, yet so ordinary; so privileged, yet so doomed; so foolish, yet so much more introspective than you. Spring Snow was one of the best books I have ever read. Mishima is like a surgeon; the tip of his needle or scalpel so fine, so pointed, that he can isolate the most fleeting, awkward, and yet noble emotion, gesture, or thought, and hold it up to you like a jewel, and allow you to view it from all sides and savor it. And he does not hold these gems up to show you how ugly they are; what is so beautiful about his writing is that even the ugliest, basest, most "human", emotion, he gives nobility and honor, so that his characters seem deific, holy... like we should see ourselves. You become his fools, and you enjoy letting their hurt become yours because you have become more honest, and more truly yourself through the process of reading him... An exquisite book, haunting. (less)
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Joel Palma
May 08, 2016Joel Palma rated it it was amazing
Shelves: favorites, japanese
Hands down, my favorite Japanese novel to date!!!


I can only but sigh finishing reading this masterpiece by Yukio Mishima. I am much overwhelmed by this beautifully poignant book that will surely tugs the heart of any reader.


So gorgeously written that demands to be read slow (not because one is intimidated to do so but it is such a beauty to relish every word written, I call it the "Mishima magic") and, indeed, Proustian in its rendition- as universal and constant as the waves of the sea, the introspection of the protagonist have much gone deep, lyrical, profound. Some of the chapters are as allusive, meditative and poetic like a kōan.


I particularly love the dialogues from Prince Pattanadid about everything sacred has the substance of dreams and memories, and so we experience the miracle of what is separated from us by time or distance suddenly being made tangible. For once the dreams and memories are beyond our grasp, the object is sanctified, once touched, we easily desecrates it. How strange man is! His touch defiles and yet he contains the source of miracles!


The book has the intimacy of Akutagawa's "Rashōmon" yet at an epic proportion. The subtleties only the Japanese can write is suffused within the pages of this book.


The characters of Kiyoake and Satoko will live with me forever...Such youthful vivacity, love and promise... The book is also philosophical and ironically comic at some of the most critical parts of the story which greatly balanced the book to veer away from being melodramatic, such as Honda's musings and Tadeshina, who reminds me of Mrs. Rupa Mehra, one of the most enduring characters in the literary world from Vikram Seth's "A Suitable Boy".


Just as one may think that this book is only a youthful, budding love story, no... Mishima, the master storyteller, weaves a tough and timeless basketwork- with complex twistings and braids made of wood, it holds the basket in form, as a whole. Seemingly simple, this book serves as the torii gate that will open the epic "Runaway Horses", the second book in the series "The Sea of Fertility" with such vast, sheer work of genius!


The most beautiful, melancholic and touching love story I've ever read and devoured with such heartache and will remain so for a very long time. (less)
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Bettie
Mar 30, 2015Bettie rated it liked it
Shelves: spring-2015, historical-fiction, published-1965, japan, japan-tokyo, tragedy




Description: Tokyo, 1912. The closed world of the ancient aristocracy is being breached for the first time by outsiders - rich provincial families, a new and powerful political and social elite.


Kiyoaki has been raised among the elegant Ayakura family - members of the waning aristocracy - but he is not one of them. Coming of age, he is caught up in the tensions between old and new, and his feelings for the exquisite, spirited Satoko, observed from the sidelines by his devoted friend Honda. When Satoko is engaged to a royal prince, Kiyoaki realises the magnitude of his passion.


The first book in The Sea of Fertility tetralogy. Translated from the Japanese by Michael Gallagher.


Opening: WHEN CONVERSATION at school turned to the Russo-Japanese War, Kiyoaki Matsugae asked his closest friend, Shigekuni Honda, how much he could remember about it.


I have no yearning to read anything other than this first book to get a sense of the author and his politics, and just why he felt that to go back to the mediaeval way of the Samurai was ::a::good::thing::


The particular reason to read this now is that it is Spring - and snow is falling.


As we move through the story there are divinations of things to come from the Dream Diaries, and a black dog at the top of a waterfall, an occurence which is said to augur badly. Yes, many carrots of things to come further down the line.


Yukio Mishima started weight training in 1955. His rigorous weekly regimes continued until his death. Mishima also become an avid and skillful practitioner of kendo. Despite his earlier flight from military service, Yukio Mishima would be known for his political support for a re-militarized Japan. Yukio Mishima became a part of the Ground Self Defense Force and went through the training process in 1967. In 1968, Yukio Mishim uses his reputation and his martial training to found the Tatenokai or the Shield Society. This paramilitary organization swore their loyalty to the abstract notion of the Voices of the Heroic Dead. Mishima supported Japanese Nationalism but was greatly angered by Emperor Hirohito’s renunciation of imperial divinity.


In 1958, Yukio Mishima married Yoko Sugiyama. The following year, Yoko gave birth to a daughter named Noriko and four years later Yoko gave birth to a son named Ichiro. Yukio Mishima frequented gay bars. But many people (including Mishima’s widow) have tried to obfuscate the fact of his homosexual activities. This obfuscation has failed to prevent many of Mishima’s male lovers from coming forward. Yukio Mishima’s children have joined in the effort to prevent Mishima’s full sexuality from becoming apparent by suing people who acknowledge these relationships.
Read more






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Ailsa
Jan 12, 2018Ailsa rated it really liked it
Shelves: xmas-2017, japanese-literature
"Just as a stream returns to its normal course after a flood, Kiyoaki's predilection for suffering began to reassert itself."


"At that moment she held an irresistible attraction for him... it was the lure of the forbidden, the utterly unattainable, the proscribed. He wanted her in this way and no other."




Set in Japan in 1912, after the Russo-Japanese War Spring Snow captures a society in flux in startlingly crisp prose.


"Beautiful, elegant, imposing, she was like a flower at its moment of perfection."


David Mitchell calls this an "austere love story", but I think Kiyoaki and Satoko's romance is secondary to Kiyoaki's preoccupation with his perception of self.
Kiyoaki is a young nobleman, handsome and deeply introspective. He has everything he could ever want yet he yearns for some great purpose to devote himself to. Mulling over why Kiyoaki is so annoying, I realised that my frustration stems from how alien his motivations are. The pursuit of happiness is so ingrained within me that his cultivation of beautiful melancholy and grandiosity seems shallow. All of his insurmountable problems are quasi-masochistically self made.


Having trouble marshalling my thoughts on this one. I'll return to this review later, I don't want to ramble on incomprehensibly. Suffice to say, I disliked the experience of reading this novel because I just wanted slap Kiyoaki the whole time. The reincarnation and laws of manu stuff was tedious as well. However, there are moments of incredible beauty and it throws up a lot of grist for the mental mill. Hmm, conflicted. (less)
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brian
Sep 08, 2007brian rated it it was amazing
the first in mishima's tetralogy and, so far, the best (i'm in the middle of the third). on its own, Spring Snow is easily one of the most tender love stories i've read -- but it cannot be considered on its own: as honda watches a friend reincarnated several times over the span of several novels, it all adds up to even more than the sum of its extraordinary parts. in the USA, this'd play out as gimmick; in japan (shinto, buddhism, etc.) it is the assumption. an exploration of history, the philosophy of history, buddhism, transmigration of souls, right-wing fanaticism, nationalism, america's influence over the east, loneliness, memory, love, etc... the depth and breadth of this series cannot be overstated.
oh yeah... mishima promised that after completing the fourth and final book of the series, he'd kill himself. the day he handed in the manuscript, he rounded up his crew of right-wing militants, forcefully took over a goverment building, gave a speech to the military (he plots this all out in Runaway Horses, the second of the tetralogy), and then killed himself. fuck yeah!
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Håkon
Jan 13, 2020Håkon rated it really liked it
It's kinda sad tbh ngl ...more
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Teresa
Jan 24, 2013Teresa rated it really liked it · review of another edition
The most important -- and used -- word in this book of historical fiction has to be 'elegant' (and its variations). And while the prose style itself is always elegant, the elegance of the ancient aristocracy is not always a good thing, as mostly it seems to be ineffective, even useless, for the situations the characters find themselves in. Those with 'new-money' have the power, but the novelist seems to like them even less than he does the aristocrats. (Even so, all the characters are well-rounded and multifaceted.) Caught in the middle of these two 'factions' (despite their differences, they use each other) is the 19-year-old protagonist, Kiyo, son of new-money but raised as a child by a noble family in order to acquire the elegance his parents lack.


The time is circa 1913; the Russo-Japanese War has recently ended; Japan is becoming Westernized, and Mishima doesn't like it. His sympathies seem to be with the old Japan (and Buddhism), when devotion to the Emperor was paramount -- (The soft shoulders that aroused such desire in him were opposing him with a force that drew on the weight of imperial sanction.) -- though perhaps the novelist's answer to the way to reconcile the new with the old can be found in the person of Kiyo's loyal friend, Shigekuni, and the Honda family.


The attention to nature, the flow of the seasons and its attendant rituals is beautifully done. The symbolism in the beginning is brought to fruition at the end; not a character is wasted.


I was lucky enough to be in Japan last year for "Coming of Age Day," which is for 20-year-olds, the age of majority in Japan; that age is, and becomes, important in this novel. (less)
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morgan
Jan 21, 2021morgan rated it it was amazing
This book has become my dearest book, my most treasured book and my favourite book of all time.




When I've advanced a little further with my Korean and Mandarin studies, I will definitely start learning Japanese with pure purpose of reading Mishima's work in it's written language (and maybe to rewatch Attack on Titan without subtitles ☺️) (less)
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Matthew Ted
Apr 07, 2020Matthew Ted rated it really liked it
Shelves: read-2020, lit-writ-japanese, 20th-century, translated
56th book of 2020.


Finally finished. This book was one to be savoured. As my fifth Mishima book, though not my favourite (The Temple of the Golden Pavilion still holds that title), I think the language in this one has been the best so far. Nothing short of beautiful. Every sentence seems to have been thought about, crafted, weighted... Mesmerising descriptions, both of the external worlds and internal emotions of the characters.


The only reason this hasn't become my favourite Mishima, or become a new favourite book of mine, which it was tempting in the beginning, is because of the plot. I raced through the first one hundred pages, spellbound by the writing, and then the plot lulled, and lulled some more; even the writing then wasn't enough to excite me as much as I had been before. It's your typical star crossed lovers story, at its heart. If you care for language, read this book, no other way around it. If you don't care as much for the beauty of prose, and want a good plot, I don't know if I'd rush to recommend this. However, let me showcase some of this language I've been babbling about:


"As for me, I've always wanted to know the secret that enables love to evade the bonds of time and space as if by magic. To stand before the person we love is not the same as loving her true self, for we are only apt to regard her physical beauty as the indispensable mode of her existence. When time and space intervene, it is possible to be deceived by both, but on the other hand, it is equally possible to draw twice as close to her real self."


Then there was the ink that smelled dark and solemn, and the sound made by the tip of the brush as it raced over the surface of the scroll, like the wind rustling through bamboo grass. And finally, there was the sea - the well of the inkstone was the sea, and above it rose the hill with the strange name. This sea fell away so sharply from its shore that it gave not so much as a glimpse of its shallow bed. The still black sea, without a single wave, a sea spangled with gold powder fallen from the ink stick, always made him think of the rays of the moon fragmented on the night sea of eternity.


His own heart seemed to him to be much like an arrow stripped of the flashing white feathers that gave it direction.


"My eighteenth autumn, this day, this afternoon, this moment: never to come again," he thought, "something already slipping irrevocably away."


A sad book, in conclusion, doomed from the beginning. Mishima has a way of writing about deep profound sadness, especially in men, especially concerning love; especially concerning life. (less)
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Alex
Aug 19, 2013Alex rated it liked it
Shelves: 2013, japan, rth-lifetime, reading-through-history
This is a subtle, intelligent, sensitive, perceptive book. But it's also a little boring.


It has some spectacular moments! Tadeshina is a terrific character in the mold of the nurse from Romeo & Juliet, and her makeup is probably the best character in the book. And there's a scene involving Kiyoaki's nipple that's terrifically gay.


This may have been one of those cases where it was the wrong book at the wrong time. I wasn't prepared for something I had to immerse myself in at a Proustian level, but here it was, and I sorta cruised through it on autopilot. I appreciate that this is an excellent book. But...it's also a little boring. (less)
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Florencia
Jan 18, 2017Florencia rated it really liked it · review of another edition
Shelves: mishimaism, favorites, japanese
Even when we're with someone we love, we're foolish enough to think of her body and soul as being separate. To stand before the person we love is not the same as loving her true self, for we are only apt to regard her physical beauty as the indispensable mode of her existence. When time and space intervene, it is possible to be deceived by both, but on the other hand, it is equally possible to draw twice as close to her real self.


Delectable writing, disturbing characters; what a mixture.




* Review to come? Maybe on my blog.
** The Sea of Fertility:
Runaway Horses
The Temple of Dawn
The Decay of the Angel (less)
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Anna
Mar 09, 2018Anna rated it it was ok
Shelves: modern-classics, historical-fiction, read-in-2018
At first, I was attracted by the beautiful imagery, but it soon became overshadowed by its very spoiled, incredibly narcissistic, and highly unlikeable protagonist; every gesture of his and every thought is endlessly dissected until you get bored and have to put the book down. As I progressed it became even more tedious: I don't skip descriptive passages or skim-read to get to the dialogue, which isn't much, to begin with: I generally read and relish in every word on the page, but then I get three paragraphs on clouds and self-indulging philosophical monologues on love, life and whatnot that sometimes contradict themselves, and I wonder “What was the point of the previous chapter?”


I wanted to get a sense of the early twentieth century Japan, yet apart from a scene, in the beginning, with the ceremonial carrying of the Empress’s and Princess Kasuga’s trains, everything felt all too familiar, too Westernized, even the writing overflows with themes of classic European literature. His extended metaphors and psychological depth reminded me very much of the German romantics or of Russian authors, like Dostoevsky, or even of the French, Flaubert and Proust.


I can’t help but think that, in this case, the author is much more fascinating than the work, Yukio Mishima having acquired an almost mythical status in Japanese literature. That being said, this book was not for me, I don’t think I’ll be reading anything by Mishima: one can only tolerate so much of this overly-poetic male aesthetic. (less)
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Michael
Jun 10, 2010Michael rated it it was amazing
Shelves: aa-japanlit, translation, aa-asialit, romanticlit, aaa-top-translation, masculinismlit, historicity, aaa-favoritefiction, read-twice-or-more, all-five-star
if you like this review, i now have website: www.michaelkamakana.com


220202: read this mostly on long flight. nostalgia has double effect on me, as it is romantic portrayal of the era (1912 Japan), and as mentioned, my romantic sense of when i was the same age as kiyoaki, 19, similar fascination, difficulties, obsession and turbulent emotions inspired by my first serious girlfriend. i have read this now three (3) times, might go on to read the other three again. this reading, familiar with how the plot goes, i could concentrate on narrative and poetics. as i do not read Japanese, all i can say is the translation is beautiful, that the images, details, natural world is powerfully presented...


now that i have read a lot of philosophy, particularly buddhist, can understand the discussions, thoughts, shared by the young men, and having read proust, for example, i have clearer understanding of the emotional provocations that get all out of control. i can better see how he is not merely childish but caught up in his fever dream of love, one he must only recognise too late, and that she has some wilful role as well. in fact, it is remarkable, memorable, that everyone has their own motivations, from retainers, law students, buddhist nuns, abbess, parents and the imperial family...


now that i know the continuing role in the tetralogy the honda plays, i read his sections with more intent, seeing him as the rationalist opposite, but good friend who facilitates their encounters, all the while both pitying kiyoaki's love and knowing it must end. and the way it ends. no spoilers, but it is heartbreaking sad...


kiyoaki is something like the beautiful, emotional, man i wanted to be at that age, and satoko is the beautiful, emotional, woman i wanted to love. the images with which Mishima tells the story still haunt me, the tragedy of young love still works these decades later. i think i might just reread the others to see if my judgement has matured...


.??? 80s: this is the first japanese work i read, years ago (decades...): inspired me to try out literary work from other cultures. this is the first of four in 'the sea of fertility' tetralogy by mishima, so you do not have to decide what to read next. this is my favorite of the four, possibly because it was such a romantic conception of the time and the character, i read this before the various authors the blurbs compared him to: end up liking him here better than proust, hemingway etc. i have only read this twice, hesitant to risk breaking the spell of my memories of it, also of the time i read it, when i was so young, so romantic, so hopeful... (less)
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Matthew
Nov 15, 2011Matthew rated it it was amazing · review of another edition
Shelves: favorite-fiction
This book is, in my opinion, without a doubt, the greatest love story ever told. I don't care what you think about any of the classics, anything you've read before, be it Austen or Shakespeare or the Greeks. The poetic brilliance and tragic self-destruction of love in this book chills me. Even in translation, this piece was the bane of my existence for the length of time I spent reading it - a fair amount for it's length of 400 pages.


Mishima is one of the few authors I've read recently who astounds me on a level I can barely comprehend. Even in translation, I can tell that Gallagher has spared no expense in making sure each word corresponds perfectly to the Japanese - I can just feel in the page that it was an immensely difficult process. Beauty rarely translates. Even more rarely does it transcend. This piece, certainly, does both.


As this is the first part of a tetralogy (The Sea of Fertility), it's clear to me that there's much more at work here. Although there are initial thoughts of "oh, this is just a love story" I could tell that certain groundwork is being laid for the remainder of the story, to be told in the next three installments. That said, the work is self-contained. There is no need to read on anymore than this story, but Mishima's prose certainly ebbs and flows more elegantly than any American author I have read. The binding agent is Honda, the protagonist of the first book's best friend and passionate follower, who struggles with life's questions as a logically sound and pleasantly plain individual in search of knowledge, companionship, and truth. As the Buddhist philosophy of "reincarnation" unfolds before him, he is forced to accept or reject it, and possibly transcend it altogether through the magnificent power of the Japanese spirit.


"I've known supreme happiness, and I'm not greedy enough to want what I have to go on forever. Every dream ends. Wouldn't it be foolish, knowing that nothing lasts forever, to insist that one has a right to do something that does?... But... if eternity existed, it would be this moment. And perhaps you, Mr. Honda, will come round to seeing it this way some day."


In this book the Yamato spirit flies proudly. But in addition, there's a very human, very grounded, and very evocative spirit capable of touching anyone, regardless of where you were born. Highly recommended. Don't think for a second you've read it all until you've read this book.
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liz
Apr 02, 2022liz rated it really liked it · review of another edition
« just now i had a dream, i’ll see you again. i know it, behind the falls »
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