BOOK REVIEW: The Sailor Who Fell From Grace With the Sea

Yukio Mishima is a famous Japanese author almost as famous for his highly public suicide as he is for his literature. For years, I had heard his name quietly mentioned in bookstores' "Recommended Authors" displays and have seen his books under lists of notable novels. Particularly, The Sailor Who Fell From Grace With the Sea always caught my eye with its plethora of masterfully designed covers. For years I felt unsure if the plot would interest me or would be too serious, but it nagged at the back of my mind; until, finally, I bought a very cheap paperback version of it off eBay.

The Sailor Who Fell From Grace With the Sea stars a young 12 year old boy named Noburu who, pardon my French, is a little shit. He acts all contrite to his mother, but then finds a peephole in the wall to watch his single mother change clothes at night. He then hangs out in reclusive spots by the docks in his port town and brags about his newfound, sexual knowledge of the female body, and all of his friends nod sagely and feel that this contributes to their wholly, "authentic," amoral philosophy and allows them to rebel from their boring, middle-class, childish existence. One might find them slightly sympathetic characters, like Catcher in the Rye's Holden Caulfield, if they didn't turn out to be blatant psychopaths. Their wanton violence against pitiful creatures completely turned me off of this book.

The book's plot doesn't really move until the Noburu's mother starts dating a sailor named Ryuji. Noburu has a deep interest in boats, and initially idolizes Ryuji; yet this quickly fades when Ryuji considers quitting his lonely sailor's life to marry Noburu's mother. Initially, I considered this to be a metaphorical representation of Ryuji as Japan with his sailor profession representing pre-WWII Japanese masculine culture, Ryuji's giving up of his profession as a representation of post-WWII Japanese culture. This would explain Noburu's youthful perspective having such intense, instantaneous disdain for Ryuji after his abandonment of the profession and marriage to his mother; yet this seems flawed as Noburu does not seem to represent a reliable perspective, having seemingly no capacity for empathy.

Perhaps I would have enjoyed this book more if we had a larger point-of-view from that of Ryuji; however, I found Noburu to be largely unlikable and unnecessarily violent. Noburu's perspective was largely emotionless, barring his intense joy at the sight of boat mechanics and his intense anger at Ryuji. This left the supposedly-emotional breakthrough of Ryuji, and the ending of the book seem rather hollow. Also I feel that Mishima was trying to deliver a metaphor of some sort, but it got lost in the murkiness of preadolescent, psychopathic behavior.

However, Yukio Mishima is still a well-known author of Japanese literature and has many more novels that he has written, so perhaps I will give him another go. Perhaps other with a stronger stomach for violent children will find something to enjoy in The Sailor Who Fell From Grace With the Sea, although it wasn't to my particular taste. It is, at least, a thankfully short adventure.

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