Switching from discussion leader to just one reader if that makes any difference.
I really love Mishima's writing. Here are a few quotes I extracted that illustrate this for me:
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Satoko kept her voice low, afraid that others might hear. Kiyoaki was angered by her self-control, for he had set his heart on nothing less than an ecstatic, supreme consummation at that moment, there beneath the blossoms. The rising moan of the night wind had made him more and more uneasy, and now he was driven in desperation to seize one sure moment of happiness for them both, to the exclusion of all else. Hence his frustration when he discovered that her thoughts were obviously turned elsewhere. He was like a husband so jealous that he insists his wife have the very dreams he has.
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Of course she only meant to convey that she [Satoko] wanted to protect him [Honda], but 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 [hers and Kiyoaki's] into a tiny, brilliant, crystal palace in which she and Kiyoaki could live free from the world around them. A crystal palace so tiny it would balance on the palm of one's hand, so tiny no one else could fit in.
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Quote:
"I [Honda] mean about thinking of the picture from the Russo-Japanese War while you [Kiyoaki] were telling me about you and Miss Satoko. I wondered why that came to me, and now that I've given it a little more thought, I haven an answer. The age of glorious wars ended with the Meiji era. . . .There isn’t much chance to die now on the battlefield.
But now that old wars are finished, a new kind of war has just begun; this is the era for the war of emotion. The kind of war no one can see, only feel—a war, therefore, that the dull and insensitive won't even notice . . .
And just as in the old wars, there will be casualties in the war of emotion, I think. It’s the fate of our age—and you're one of our representatives. So what about it then? You're fully resolved to die in this new war—am I right?"
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Quote:
Just let matters slide. How much better to accept each sweet drop of the honey that was Time, than to stoop to the vulgarity latent in every decision. However grave the matter at hand might be, if one neglected it for long enough, the act of neglect itself would begin to affect the situation, and someone else would emerge as an ally. Such was Count Ayakura's version of political theory.
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