Book Review: "The Sound of the Waves" by Yukio Mishima

I have read many books by Yukio Mishima including the Penguin translation of "The Frolic of the Beasts" (which, if Penguin or anyone from there is reading this, I would appreciate you rethinking that translation because it does not read right especially for a Mishima novel), "The Sailor who Fell from Grace with the Sea" translated by Vintage Randomhouse Publishing (my favourite Mishima novel to date), "Life for Sale", again translated by Penguin, "The Temple of the Golden Pavilion", "Confessions of a Mask" and I have yet to read one on my TBR called "Forbidden Colours". When it comes to Mishima, there are very specific themes that you always look for when reading. These include but are not limited to: love and violence, soul-searching, the turbulence of emotions, truth, division and separation and finally, you will possibly see bad decisions or failed judgement as being there too. This book, even though it has all of those, is probably not Mishima's strongest novel in my opinion but definitely lets you know that the writer is Mishima through his use of themes and the way in which the characters interact and doubt themselves almost constantly.

This book is about a fisherman called Shinji who falls in love with a woman named Hatsue. The problem here is that Hatsue is the daughter of the wealthiest man in the whole town and Shinji is a simple fisherman who does not have the worth to be with her. Constantly, throughout the book we see shades of self-doubt that come from Shinji as he attempts to reason this love with himself and attempts to prove that he can love and marry Hatsue. He basically goes from doubting himself to having to prove himself as to not be psychologically abused by his own heart for loving Hatsue. The choices he makes cause turbulence and drama throughout the novel.

I have given this book this rating because of the fact I thought that for a Mishima novel, it did not really give us too much atmosphere. There was a lot about the soul, the characters and the state of love, but there was not a lot about the setting or the nature of what it means to be a fisherman - which is something I would have liked to see. The book is also quite short even though it looks roughly the same size as other books by Yukio Mishima. I think that the action often moves a bit faster than I like my Mishima books to. However, that does not mean and in no way means that this is a bad book. It is brilliantly written to be honest and even though I miss out on things that I regularly enjoy, it is nice and refreshing to see a different side to Mishima.

I actually found myself enjoying many of the quotations in this book about character and so, I wanted to share that with you here:

"With nothing better to do, Chiyoko had begun studying her history of English Literature. Knowing not a single one of their works, she memorised names of a group of Victorian lady poets - Christina Georgina Rossetti, Adelaide Anne Procter, Jean Ingelow, Augusta Webster - exactly as though she were memorising Buddhist scriptures. Rote memorisation was Chiyoko's forte; even the professor's sneezes were recorded in her notes. Her mother was constantly at her side, eager to gain new knowledge from her daughter. Going to the university had been Chiyoko's idea in the first place, but it had been her mother's enthusiastic support that had overcome her father's reluctance. Her thirst for knowledge whetted by a. life of moving from lighthouse to lighthouse, from remote island to remote island, and the mother always pictured her daughter's life as an ideal dream. Never once did her eyes perceive her daughter's little inner unhappinesses."

In conclusion, this book is definitely not Mishima's strongest, but then again not being Mishima's strongest is still a lot stronger than many other novels. It has character, it has storyline - I think that in my personal opinion it just does not have a lot of atmosphere.