October 5, 2022 • 46 mins
In his heyday, Japanese author Yukio Mishima was one of the most well-known writers in the world. But where did he come from -- and what on Earth led to his strange demise? In part one of this two-part episode, Ben, Noel and Max welcome research associate Zach Williams in his first on-air appearance.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Ridiculous History is a production of I Heart Radio. Welcome
(00:27):
back to the show, Ridiculous Historians. Thank you, as always
so much for tuning in. Let's hear it for the man,
the myth legend, our super producer, Mr Max Williams, whoa
Max is the Best. They call me ben joined as
always with my rider Die nol No. This one has
been a long time in the making, my friend. Yeah,
(00:49):
and I'm sorry for my lackluster Max is the Best
because you know, usually obviously I do my little like
you know, crowd noise and worshipful of Max because that
is what he is do. But today we're kind of
talking about someone that sort of stepped out, uh, to
to meet what they thought were their public um, the people,
(01:10):
to to to greet them and present them with the
brave new world, a new way of doing things, and
were met with sad trombones. Uh that they're that elicited
about the most sad trombone reaction one could possibly um
react with, which is committing ritual suicide. Uh pretty heavy spoiler. Yeah,
well you know, I mean, I mean, let's just a
(01:31):
little bit of a trigger warning because it is. Yeah,
this episode is it is. It's got some uh bombast,
it's got some iconoclastic kind of behavior, it's got literature,
it's got culture of the Japanese variety, and it really
also is an interesting story of kind of East meets
West in terms of a Japanese you know, writer who
(01:53):
really did kind of make a name for themselves in
the United States. We are of course talking about the
bizarre final year is of Yukio Mishima. Yeah, I see
this as um. I see this as a telling illustration,
a telling example of how different your favorite artists lives,
(02:15):
maybe than what you initially perceive. You might have a
favorite musician who all of a sudden, apparently out of
the blue, comes comes with some political stance that really
surprises you, or a sculptor perhaps, or as in this case,
and author. So we are not diving into this alone.
This is a two part episode. This is our whole week.
(02:36):
It's Mishama Week. Here at Ridiculous Historians and Folks, we
are joined for the first time on air with one
half of our brand new research associate team. Let's hear
it for the one and only Mr Zach Williams. No
(02:57):
relations Hi, everybody, keep for having me. It's a it's
doctor Zach Williams. As a matter of fact, I'm kidding.
I'm kidding. Don't please, don't do that. I'm joking. You
did parody parody. One night over sleep down, a doctor appeared,
but this was no normal doctor. Who's there? It's Zack
(03:20):
Zach who the doctor named Zach. And he's here to
bill your scraps just for Colledge. Pett is a cat
teaching history books and stuff. Let's go with other things. Yeah,
(03:43):
that'll work, Zack. Do you really think you're gonna get
out of this now? You? You big leaguus in this way, Doc,
doctor Zach. I like doctor Zach because it sounds like
both kind of formal and informal. Because Zach I've always
just thought as a real fun love and kind of
(04:04):
name because I think of Zach Morris from Saved by
the Bell. I'm sure you don't love that comparison, but
it is what it is. We're we're glad, We're glad
to have you, Zach. And this is a this is
a topic that is near and dear to your heart
and to a mutual friend of ours, a friend of
the show, Peyton Fisher, who turned me onto the film.
Uh Mishima many many many years ago. Um, how did
(04:24):
you kind of come to appreciate and and even know
about this very kind of divisive figure. Well, I've always
been attracted to iconoclasm generally speaking. And uh, at the
time that I first encountered mishmast fiction, I was in
a creative writing program and undergrad I was trying to
be a poet and a fiction writer and just seeking
(04:45):
out things of a sort of like late modernist postmodernist
spent which is sort of like my wheelhouse at the time.
And I'd always had a sort of like affinity for
for for Japanese aesthetics and culture. And I read his
book The Sound of Waves, which I thought was like
a very standard kind of coming of age story that
kind of celebrated this very traditional idea of masculinity and
(05:05):
sort of like being a man working hard to get
what it is that you wanted despite your poverty or
something like that. It's a very bootstraps Romeo and Juliette
style story. But one of the things that really struck
me was one of the characters in that book, whose
name escapes me now because it's been so long since
I read it, but she's in love with this uh.
This lead character Shinji, and has gone to university, comes
(05:25):
back find that he's in love with Um, the daughter
of of like a shipping baron um named hut Sue,
and basically contrives to break up their relationship by spreading
rumors about her um ill repute will say, her sort
of promiscuity. And one of the things that's so interesting
about that book is that it really comes alive in
(05:46):
the sections where you're kind of stewing alone with this
character kind of thinking about her motivations and her kind
of guilt and shame over having come between these two people,
And there's this really interesting sort of psychological kind of
depth to those moments that isn't quite present in the
plot of the rest of the book. I was like, well,
it's very interesting kind of approach to this character, this
(06:08):
idea of like you could have contempt for somebody while
also having some sort of empathy. It's empathy, but also
you know, you're relating to them in a really in
a real way. Because we we can all be spiteful,
kind of backbiting, conniving people when we're not getting the
things that we want. We feel like we've been denied
of something. So I thought, Wow, that's actually a really
lovely sort of section of the book. And then I
(06:29):
saw the film Mishima Life in Four Chapters, because I'd
read the book cold and found all of this stuff
about this fellow, all of these contradictions a true postmodern figure,
if you could ever think of one, because so much
of his life is shrouded in like this sort of
public persona, this performance, but also the ambiguities of his
private life, the ambiguities of his political affiliations in ideology,
(06:51):
whether or not those things we're actually like serious kind
of pursuits or or just another part of the window dressing.
And I always find that sort of thing very, very fascinating,
like somebody who turns their life into a sort of
theater and object of art, and in many cases much
to their own detriment, which is definitely kind of like
the cautionary tale of this story. I think, yeah, agreed,
(07:12):
And if we and also when we look at the
life of someone who is uh universally considered to be
one of the most important writers in Japan during this
time period, we see that he lives through some crazy
events in history, I think we're right to have that
(07:34):
disclaimer trigger warning here. But there's a lot that goes
into that final act. Uh. Like many many authors then
and now, this guy takes a pen name the Mishima
Yulkyo we know now was not born Mishima Yukio. Correct. Yeah,
he was born a Hiraka Kimitake. And one of the
(07:56):
funny things about any sort of encounter with Japanese literature,
you end up with his um, especially early translations in
the twentieth century. There's always this weird orientalism to it
um And at one of the front notes, the author
bio in a fairly recent vintage edition of The Sea
of Fertility Books lists of this like a like a
sort of like a son of a samurai family. Everyone's
(08:20):
very quick to kind of play up these associations between
like the old samurai and the sort of this sort
of modernist writer and things like that. Of course, a
lot of that comes from the turn in his politics
near the end of his life, but it's a very
interesting kind of thing to see him having sort of
come out from under this um. It's sort of like
old money um. They were vassals of the Maiata clan,
(08:43):
for instance, in the northwestern regions of Japan, and naturally
his family very impressive, comes from this incredibly impressive background,
and you have this young man who, ostensibly, in his
younger years as a child, very quiet, subdued, isolated, not
part securely impressive by any means, um sort of frail
(09:03):
and constitution and asthmatic um, definitely not the picture of
masculinity that you would expect from like you know, the
vassals of old samurai, you know, sort of families and
things of that nature. So it's a very interesting kind
of thing to sort of see him make a new
version of himself from out of his failures to embody
these um, these very kind of auspicious beginnings. And I
(09:27):
think too it's also a very kind of apt metaphor
for the transitional period that Japan would find itself in
later on, in the forties and fifties and in the sixties,
where things become very very fraught. Indeed, and uh, it's
always something that I find myself drawn to, is uh.
This sort of failure. Failure is a theme not only
in literary production, but also in like the production of
(09:48):
the stuff of life and sort of like making one's
own self and identity also Japan on me, I've always
been fascinated by their sort of mix of you know,
such you know, steeped tradition in and like this kind
of like almost you know, um surf and vassal kind
of you know, militarized highly almost like medieval kind of structure.
(10:09):
And then you know, after the bomb is dropped and
all of that, then they have to kind of reimagine
themselves culturally in this almost like kind of futurist kind
of mode. Uh. And so it really is this very
fascinating mix that I think creates some really incredible culture,
whether it's you know, literature or on anime or technology
or whatever it might be. It is a culture that
(10:30):
literally has had to reinvent itself. But then of course
there are always echoes of of the past as well.
So I think you know, Mishima kind of like embodies
that to a degree as well, in terms of kind
of being this modern figure but also being this kind
of like person that came from those those ancient traditions. No. Absolutely,
And it's worth noting too that before all of this
(10:51):
um this business with you know, the suicide, the sort
of stage coup data which we'll get too later. UM
a very cosmo allaton Um polly math like he was.
He was a lyricist and singer and actor, a poet,
a novelist, short story writer. UM, a theater director and writer.
He had his own theater groups. He was all over
(11:13):
the place. I can't imagine um a more prolific figure
from that time. And you know, naturally nowadays people have
hard time finding even time to read much less. Right.
You know, I've succumbed to the pressures of work, and
I barely myself right anymore. This man produced upwards of
thirty plus novels over the course of his career, poems, plays,
(11:34):
critical essays as well, Yes, very importantly critical essays. Yes,
one of the most obvious kind of I guess doorways
into his ideology and his thinking comes from his long
form essay Son and Steel, which the read the listeners
can't see it. But if you look at the cover
of this book, and this is a Japanese modern writer's addition,
(11:54):
it's an English translation from a Japanese print by Kodansha Um.
He is shown Uh in traditional uh Samurai underclothes, clutching
a katana which he is pulling from the scabbard absolutely yoked,
which is like another thing we'll talk about later. Right now,
this this I love that you're showing us to cover here,
(12:14):
and folks, uh, do check it out on your browser
choice you get a sense of this this Um I've
always thought that humans are the stories they tell themselves,
for good or for ill. Right, you're building your own mythology.
And this cover photograph stands and start contrast to Mishama's
early childhood. So we said he's born January four, Zach.
(12:47):
In some of your research, you introduce us to his grandmother,
and he starts out kind of sheltered under a little
bit of an authoritarian regime. I was I was startled
to learn that the grandmother takes him in because she
(13:07):
says he can't live with his parents. Uh, it's the
situation is too dangerous, based apparently on the fact that
the home as a second floor. Yes, it's all very
um strange stuff and that sheltering that sort of like
comes down a lot to like a sort of physical constitution. Like. Um,
it's just it's it's very very interesting when you kind
(13:29):
of dig into this sort of like cloistered environment that
he comes out in. Um. He is socialized almost only
with with with girls. He is kept in her sort
of drawing room, surrounded by the sort of objects since
the aesthetics of femininity and things like that. It's very
very interesting sort of how much this kind of the
(13:50):
room itself is a kind of metaphor for psychology, kind
of like looking inward, constructing a sense of self. And
I'm by no means like a psychologist or even like
a Mishima X spurt, Like I don't want to sort
of prop myself up as such, but you know, it's
it's pretty common knowledge that our experiences and you definitely
sort of like barn to who we become as adults.
And it seems to me that this is sort of
(14:11):
the beginning of all of that. And I think also
like those ties to the sort of old Japan which
his grandmother represented and held onto a deeply classist woman,
for instance, would not take him to the theater because
they'd be rubbing like elbows with the rabble and things
like that. So without past times, without a sort of
means of socialization that most people would find conventional, he
(14:32):
instead turns to these interior flights of fancy sort of
the poetry, the writing um. And if I may read
from the opening of A Son and Steel for just
a moment, just to get his own sort of um,
please do two cents on it. Max, Let's get some music.
So this is on page eight of Sun and Steel.
(14:54):
When I examined closely my early childhood, I realized that
my memory of words reaches back farther than the memory
of the lush and the average person. I imagine the
body precedes language. In my case, words came first of all. Then, belatedly,
with every appearance of extreme reluctance and already clothed in concepts,
came the flesh. It was already as goes without saying,
(15:15):
sadly wasted by words. First comes the pillar of plain wood,
then the white ants that feed on it. But for me,
the white ants were there from the start, and the
pillar of plaine would emerge tardily, already half eaten away.
And it's sort of obviously lovely sort of metaphorical passage there,
but also indicative of like an intense neurosis and anxiety
(15:40):
surrounding this tension between being a man, specifically a man
of action and a man of letters, which is a
tension that comes up over and over and over again. So,
I mean, the grandmother was concerned about him living with
his parents because she thought he was too soft basically,
and they were gonna like break him, right, and so
(16:01):
she wanted to kind of handle him with a little
bit more not kids gloves exactly, but you know, put
him down a path that maybe more suited his constitution,
which was a little more feminine and a little bit
less you know of that kind of warrior class mentality
kind of right. And then you know, when she passes away,
he is returned to his parents, and all of the
(16:21):
progress that she has made they essentially attempt to undo
before his very eyes. Right. Absolutely, As father is um
obviously a very intense figure in his life, as with
many people, UM, but it was not particularly enamored with
(16:41):
his son's personality proclivities talents. Uh. And I used the
word talents because these talents emerge like very early, um,
especially with regards to poetry twelve, when he when he's
when he's transferred back to live with his birth parents,
grandmother's yeah, and he's you know, he's already kind of
laying in that sandbox that that so many people who
(17:03):
who don't have that kind of physical acumen find themselves,
you know, like the aesthetics, the arts literature, you know,
like and those things. But oh absolutely yeah. Um. And
you know, and eventually we all go through the phase
where we start lifting a lot of weights, you know,
and uh and I love it. Yeah, we all want
to become people of action to some degree. Even later,
(17:24):
when he you know, finds some success, his father still
is like, nah, man, this isn't this isn't a real thing.
And I don't care what quote unquote level of success
and admiration you have achieved. What you're doing is you know,
worthless essentially, you know. I mean this is like a
classic overbearing, mean spirited kind of disciplinary and parent attitude
(17:48):
when a kid goes away, that that that branches off
from the path of the parent expects that even when
they see that you succeeded, they still can't give you
that praise and um kind of you know pat on
the back that that you probably need. Incredibly passive aggressive
as well. Um. And when when Misha was like fifteen
or sixteen, he writes them a letter, he doesn't just
(18:10):
sort of come out right at dinner, you know, he says,
I hear that some high and mighty writers speak of
you as a genius or precocious, or some kind of
devia it or just unpleasant. I think it is high
time you took stock of yourself. And this is like
a letter I wrote you, and I wrote you a note,
and I just want you to take that into consideration,
which has to be one of those things, just like,
come on, man, we could have had a conversation about
(18:31):
this over tie or something. Whenever I need to pick
up from either Ban or Nolan something, I write it
as a letter and millet to them. It's usually really
passive aggressive. It's nice to uh. It's nice to get
mail that is in junk mail or a bill though,
so keep it up, Max. One thing I think will
be helpful for all our ridiculous historians looking for maybe
(18:52):
a more modern analog. Sadly a lot of people have
a tension with their parents. But a more modern analog
of this sort of Persona and Japan would be the
so called carnivores. Right. This is a term uh. It's
a social term for uh, like the meat eaters, the
guys who have steak right, the salary men who um
(19:12):
who keep their keep their house, tightly regimented, keep their
spouse in quote unquote their place, and they have these
concrete expectations that are pretty pretty carved out in stone
before the kids born, like what your role is supposed
to be, what you're supposed to do and win. And
(19:34):
so to Mishima's father, this is and at like almost
absolute waste of twelve years. There's other stuff he should
have learned. And yes he is writing him these honestly,
like these emotionally abuse of letters, let's be honest. But
he also is doubling down, right, Zach. He is doing
(19:56):
crazy stuff to sort of man up the boy. You know, like,
uh what what There's this scene where he's holding in
close to speeding trains, right, That's that's a real thing,
and that's something that you know, you can say you're
a tough love parent or authority figure all the livelong day,
(20:17):
but when you get that close to throwing your kid
into train, I think that's the time for the father
to take stock of himself. That seems a little deviant
to me, absolutely, And so much of that relationship, you know,
has to do with these very classical ideas of masculinity
that you know, you're talking about the carnivores, the stuff
of her lip, right, the sort of social like the
(20:39):
emotional kind of negation and things like that. It's a
very kind of I think it's a common archetype across cultures,
you know, the sort of authoritarian, stiff upper lip father.
But it's also worth noting that these sorts of personalities
also kind of they mask and insecurity and of itself.
And you know, um aside in Japan, the rates generally speaking,
(21:02):
like salary men very very high, um as far as
like people who commit suicide because that lifestyle, however, it
brings productivity, However, it's sort of reproduces certain home styles
and certain economic incentives and things like that, it's still
personally very corrosive, difficult to maintain. Well, I mean it's unrealistic. Yeah,
(21:24):
it's such a it's such an ideal. And I started
watching this show um Industry, which is about like, you know,
kind of young people coming up in the stock you
know market in London, and um no spoilers, but there's
something that, you know, really horrible that happens to a
character because they just can't keep up the dance, like
they're they're so worried about letting down you know, their
(21:46):
mentor or or letting down their parents or whatever it
might be, that they're putting themselves in psychological harm's way,
you know, like every single day. And there's some people
that can deal with it better than others, and maybe
some people that kind of deal with it through drug
abuse us sir alcoholism or whatever it might be, or
just becoming completely hardened and sociopathic. And I think that's
sort of the culture that creates those kind of figures.
(22:11):
You know, when you have this very regimented society, you
you either end up with people that are like mentally
unwell or that just harden themselves so much they just
become kind of, you know, not good people. Yeah, but
regimented society is inherently an exclusionary society, absolutely, And that's
sort of I don't want to get too into the
(22:33):
weeds about this sort of thing, but um, I mean
it is a sort of type of social Darwinism, uh
and something that you know, capital requires something that empire,
specifically in the context of Japan in this case requires
you know, because at this point, Japan, before the end
of World War two, is still an imperial power. Um,
(22:54):
there's the sort of patriarchal figure is very, very much
at the center of things, because at the point, you know,
the emperor is not only the head of state, but
a spiritual figure, if only in a sort of pageant
and ritual um. A lot of people like to say,
you know, the Japanese literally believed that hiro Hido was
the incarnation of of God um or something along those lines.
(23:15):
Would really like, that's mostly a sort of pageant, but
still something that's so necessary to the structure. And one
of the things I will say again, I want to
reiterate this is not unique to Japan. I'm not engaging
in an orientalism. This was the same type of mindset
that led to fascism in Italy. Mussolini is a father figure.
It will do say it's definitely something that seems to
(23:36):
be at the center of nearly all patriarchal society. And
it's difficult to make heads or tails of these sorts
of things because so much of the world has changed
over the course of the last fifty some odd years
with regards to our relationship and our skepticism to those
ways of living, those types of ideologies, and you get
the impression that Mishima is such um a conflicted figure
(23:58):
because he also has a it of that ingrained skepticism
and his himself. So many of those characters not only
are beneficiaries but also people who succumb to these types
of systems and ideals. Can I ask really quickly, you know,
since obviously he's returned back to his parents. His father
seems like a bit of a bastard, but also cut
from the mold that we're describing of that more traditional
(24:21):
kind of macho Japanese, you know, mindset of like what
what men should be. Why did he let his son
go live with his grandmother in the first place if
he felt so strongly about this, and possibly was he
not wise to how she was going to raise him.
Was there a need that arose or they couldn't take
care of him just or or is there also just
(24:43):
sort of a deference to you know, parents where she
stepped in and said, I want this to happen, and
you're gonna do it because i'm your mother or i'm
you know, you're elder. It seems to be exactly that
she just sort of put her foot down, was like,
this boy will not climb to the second floor landing.
He will instead live in my drawing room where he
will be safe and kept. Um. That seems to be
(25:04):
the the sort of context of the thing. Yeah, and
we an interesting inversion of those dynamics, right, and then
again that's part of the the regimented society, right, there
is respect for the elders, so ultimately they can have
a sort of veto power the similar to the way
(25:26):
the guy who blows leaves outside of uh, outside of
my window every Monday morning can make himself known in
this I I gotta tell you, I'm never recording there's this,
but so I want to acknowledge that, folks. But there's
something that I think is really interesting, not just about
(25:50):
this part of his life. This is a bit of
a segue. Uh. We as students, whereas readers, have a
unique in site into Mishima's life because he tells his
own story in an incredibly interesting way, decades before people
start making thinly veiled autobiography a genre in film. Mishima
(26:18):
has his breakout work in the literary scene. Right, it's
Confessions of a Mask And if you go to the bookstore,
it's in the novel section, but it's you know, it's
a novel that draws like the very least you can
say is it draws a great deal on his personal history,
(26:40):
his story, and so people are again they are taken
to these really interesting emotional explorations that you mentioned at
the top of the show's act. But these explorations are
taking you into the mind of the author. And maybe
you can tell us a little bit about this first novel,
(27:02):
or this first breakout novel, just so people can see
how closely this cleaves to the true story. So obviously,
as you've already pointed out, it's a sort of kind
of autobiography what we would now call auto fiction, this
kind of thinly veiled fictionalized version of of events or um,
(27:28):
I guess, um his own personality. Is there really something
else that you could compare that too, maybe that others
in the audience might be familiar with. I mean, I
think that Proust is kind of known for having done
these sorts of things very early on in the Remembrance
of Times pastor I can't remember the full title, but
you can make sponsor say that sort of thing. Similar
(27:49):
argument with some early Joyce, maybe like Stephen Hero which
becomes Confessions of the Artists. Um as a young man
got it no. And I think this is a This
is something that has increasingly become very very popular as
a sort of literary genre. Books by Ben Lerner and
Teju Cole and things like that are very closely associated
(28:11):
with this auto fiction movement, where generally speaking, the narrator
is a stand in for the author and in some
cases shares the author's name outright, despite the fact that
some of the things have been sort of twisted to
be made a bit more fictional. So Confessions of a
Mask is I think indicative of a broader tendency within
literary production that that's been with us since the beginning
(28:33):
of Letters, right, the fact that the artists can and
should not separate themselves from their own experiences, and in fact,
their own experiences can be this sort of stuff of
art and a sort of necessary means of understanding not
only the world but themselves, and hopefully you know, through
the audience, right, building that sense of empathy and intimacy
with them, forcing them into a place where they begin
(28:55):
to understand things. And I think this is where, like
Mishima as a literary figure is most kind of powerful,
This person who understands acutely the sense of being cleaved
in half identity wise, this person who, on the one hand,
has this kind of secret inner life, and these obligations
to be ambitious, to to sort of be the figure
(29:18):
of masculinity, to submit to military service if necessary, all
of these things that are just sort of warring inside
of him because not only of his upbringing, but also
because of you know, the fact that he's he's building tastes,
He's building this this reality for himself that's so at
odds with what's actually going on in the world around him.
Like when we said cloistered earlier, not only by class,
(29:39):
but also by the physical space of the room Japan
at this time during his childhood. People talk about, you know,
the wartime period specifically most of the time, but much
of the early twentieth century is a period of imperial expansion,
wars elsewhere, um, violent protests, and political turmoil at home.
(30:00):
Mean the elements within the government staging their own coude
a toss, an incredibly fraught time to be alive, even
before the war happens, and that retreat to that room,
trying to find oneself in that space life is theater.
All of those things seems to be at first something
that really gives him a sense of confidence in himself,
(30:21):
but then of course ultimately morphs into something that is
again a bit more corrosive, a bit more psychologically damaging. Yeah. Here,
there's there's something I think is key to this auto
fiction approach in his in his breakthrough novel, which is
it gives you a bit of a fig leaf. It
(30:42):
gives you a bit of a defense or a buffer.
Maybe we could say, uh, some kind of a safety
switch one can pull if something about your life appears
controversial against the norm, or to deviate from these Uh, again,
pretty concrete visions of what proper society should be. What
(31:06):
we're talking about specifically here is that Confessions of a
Mask goes through childhood up to the adolescence of the
protagonist and then reveals his awakening, Like this is all
about arriving at one's identity as a young adult ultimately,
(31:30):
and in this in this spirit, in this evolution one
of the I hesitate to call it climactic moments, but
there's this realization that this protagonist is attracted to people
of the same sex. That's how you would have put
it at this time. And this is obviously a controversial
(31:52):
identity right in in this immediately post war Japan, because
there's still a lot of traditions have been carried over,
even if those are being intensely interrogated at this time
due to the horrors of World War Two. But now,
I I wonder Zach how society received this novel, because
(32:13):
it was it was quite successful. But was there any
calculus on Mishima's part to have that that safety net
where one could say, well, this is just a novel. Honestly,
I think it's a bit the opposite. He sort of
leaned into it pretty much immediately. Um, and sort of
one of the things that it, you know, attracts you
(32:33):
iconoclastic personalities in the first place, as they're willingness to
kind of swim against the current, to sort of be
the person to put their foot down and say no, actually,
this is who I am. However, mediated his own image
is Um, he very much kind of leaned into his
status as a kind of on fontoib like a sort
of like almost like a Rombo figure, this person of
ambiguous sexuality, and but also this kind of like later on,
(32:56):
this adventurous personality, right like Rombo went overseas and and
and at all these adventures after he quit writing. I
call them adventures. They're not great things. Look it up.
It's not the best. But you know, he he very
much as tailored as the image is, right, it wasn't
tailored in service of kind of tamping him down or
making him more palatable to the public. In fact, it
(33:16):
was something different. Like I said, he kind of he
he fashioned himself as this like defeat dandy, this cosmopolitan figure,
this kind of sexually ambiguous person. And that's definitely something
that I think is appealing to a lot of people,
because so much of our own identities are unclear to us.
To see somebody lean into those ambiguities with such not
(33:40):
only say confidence, but also like contempt for what others
thought of it um is very interesting. And it's it's
doubly interesting because of how sensitive he's portrayed in the
film with regards to these sorts of things, like the
sort of public life aspect of it is one thing,
but he was very very aware of what it was
(34:02):
that he was feeling, very very aware of sort of
his place within that milieu as well, which I find
incredibly interesting. And he definitely wanted to be famous, oh absolutely,
and to to to that end, he reminds me of like,
you know, Andy Warhol type to a degree. I mean,
Andy Warhol was sort of cre curated this image of
himself as this sort of like, uh, this similarly kind
(34:25):
of dandy effect, well dressed, you know, kind of cosmopolitan
weirdo who very much wanted to be famous. He also
reminds me a bit of Truman capote Um to a degree.
And I think they actually crossed paths to uh at
some point, like in nineteen fifty seven when Mishima came
to the United States and apparently, you know, was not
(34:47):
given the royal treatment let's just say by Truman capote
or at least he claimed so. I believe in exchange
for a time where Campodi came to Japan maybe and
then Mishima kind of gave him tours around and all
of that, and he felt like he didn't get the
same treatment in return. Truman Capodium historically great friend, a
great person to yeah, yeah, beautiful, famous for he wrote
(35:15):
a couple of books, and he also never forgave other
people for existing. It was just too egregious to him.
Murdered by Death is a good film, I mean, you know,
and That's the thing too, is thankfully we've gotten away
from this sort of personality in the arts, like romanticizing
the person for whom everything is, Yeah, exactly. Thankfully art
(35:40):
seems to be trending towards a more empathetic, intimate direction.
Some people decry that sort of thing, but I think
it's ultimately good to have these writers taken down a peg.
You know. There's also there's really uh fastening here when
we look at the fame level, the chase for fame
and being image call just to the level uh to
(36:01):
like Maschima level. Uh, he is he is becoming a
study in contradiction right to the outside observer. Without knowing
the inner workings of the fellow's mind, ourselves, we can
say that he was he was doing a lot. I'm
not gonna say too much, but he's doing a lot.
(36:23):
Uh renaissance writer, you know, a literary icon by the
nineteen sixties. And this is when he starts, uh, this
is when he starts getting more a little bit more
macho man. Right. He starts working out to earn that
photograph on the cover this of the translation to Zach
(36:46):
showed us uh, and he continues saying, look, yes, I'm
getting in shape, i am getting swollen. I work out
three times a week. I'm also not gonna hide my
sexual or orientation. So for a lot of the more
traditional observers in Japanese society, this guy is just not
(37:08):
computing right, like, why are you so manly? Why are
you getting so buff when you're not obeying what we
see as proper social roles. There's that, and I think
there's also this tendency to sort of lean into one
of the things that, especially the right wing that he
(37:28):
became associated with later on down the line, we're critical
of him for it was like this sort of fostering
of a cult of personality, this um, this kind of
emphasis on image, and this emphasis on kind of propping
himself up as a figurehead of something. Um In mind,
you that Japan has a very sort of individualist kind
of character, as many sort of you know, we'll say,
(37:52):
as many capitalist countries do. But people were very skeptical,
not not necessarily just because of that sexual ambiguity, but
also he was a try hard. He was always somebody
who was putting himself out there. He was always sort
of flying in the face of convention and and and
sort of like received modes of like our understandings of
like humility. Right, Like, it's not enough that we read you.
(38:14):
We have to see you in movies, We have to
listen to your music. Could you maybe take it down
a notch? He's like like have like a written by,
produced by, composed by based on theme tune originally whistled by,
but actually a really good writer. No, and that's that
(38:35):
that's what makes you begrudge him even further. Right, are
you bad mouthing Garth Marenguey. I will say that admitting
that you've written more books than you've read is a
bad look. Well, yes, but I think that's masterful comedy.
Oh it's great now that that that that guy really
is the satirical kind of apex of what we're describing here.
(38:55):
And and to your point, Zach, that Mishima actually was
good at all of these things. That's something that will
also piss people off, you know what I mean. We
can almost stomach a try hard hack better than we
can someone that is really good and makes it points
out kind of how mediocre a lot of other you know,
like kind of multi disciplinary artists are. Oh absolutely, And
(39:16):
I just imagine you know nominated for the or like
sort of considered for the Nobel Prize throughout the sixties,
incredibly like mattenee Idle, attractive, uh, sort of very focused
on physical fitness, and then increasingly politically involved in a
way because of his visibility and his sort of like
just individual charisma and magnetism. Obviously that's going to rebel
(39:39):
out of the old guard the wrong way. Yeah. And additionally,
so we we do see some glimpses of I would
say painful inner life because around this time when he's
uh you know, when he's doing too much, as some
people would say, when he's being a bit of a
pick me in the world. Uh, he also agains creating
(40:01):
these images that can seem to contain suicidal ideation. And
it's easy to dismiss those in the beginning as simply
being edgy committing seppuku. Uh, images of like I'm drowning
and stuff. These are coming out around, like coming out
in the same era as real thirst trap pictures that
(40:22):
you would call him these days where he's in a
speed oh and some motorcycle gear. But he's dangerous. Uh.
This this is something we've been teasing for a little
bit now. His growing political ideations, is growing fascination with
(40:42):
the past of Japan and his own burgeoning concepts about nationalism.
And say what you want about Mishima. Obviously we think
he's a fantastic writer, but see what you want about
his personality. You can never say that he did half measures.
This guy was all gas, no breaks whenever he was
(41:04):
interested in something. So it's not as if he just
gave one interview and said, I'm kind of embracing nationalism.
How far did he go? Zach? Is that for part two?
I think that's probably good for part two. But one
of the things I will also say about the sort
of political awakening as sort of contrasted by the rest
of his life, he forgot to mention that he was
(41:24):
a model in things like that. We can't necessarily speculate
too much about where he was going with regards to
sort of where he ended up at the time. So
to put to put more frankly, in Confessions of a Mask,
there's a scene where he describes this sort of homosexual
awakening as a sort of encounter with a painting of
(41:45):
Saint Sebastian sort of strung up to a tree littered
with arrows that that that painting would be reproduced several
times in photographic form with Mishima is the subject, and
this sort of drive towards like destruction, self destruction, UM,
all of those things sort of becomes very obvious in
(42:07):
the sort of the suicidal character of many of these photographs,
so much so that the turn that happens next uh,
and those photographs are roughly contemporary with what at the
end of his life, um, But even before then, this
kind of fashioning himself is like this sort of um,
this bright star that's burning out quickly, this kind of
doomed um figure begins in the sixties and then ultimately
(42:31):
comes to it's uh, it's ultimate bloody outcome. And there's
a lot to be said about that, a lot of
speculation as to why the political turn happens and its
relationship to ultimately what does transpire in nineteen seventy, which
I think is a good place to sort of pick
up with episode two. Agreed, Agreed, So we are going
(42:53):
to come to our own, uh, our own brief conclusion, thankfully,
not a bloody conclusion. This is the end of part
one of Yukio Mishima The Bizarre Final Years, and Zach
thank you so much for coming on the show. I
was I was super gassed about this, Noel. I believe
you were as well, because we really, like we've been
(43:16):
teasing this for months. Man. I think I I hope Noel,
that our fellow ridiculous historians didn't suspect we were only
blowing smoke. Yeah. He gives to another school, right. Uh yeah,
our our our new research associate with Zach is from Canada.
He doesn't come around now. He's real. Uh, he's you.
Thank you, Sach. Also, just thank you, I think our
(43:37):
listeners thank you for some of the amazing topics you found.
Really has kind of turned a corner a little bit
of a of a refresh of of the show and ore.
We've been really super excited to do some of these
and this one is no exception. So UM look forward
to having you back on part two. Absolutely, thank you
all for having me. I look forward to the conversation.
It gets really fascinating. All right, do hear that? We
(43:59):
got a second eight, So we're gonna call it a day.
Thanks as always to our super producer, Mr Max Williams.
No relation, you can verify that, right, zach Um. No
relation except in the great tapestry of humanity. Oh shucks,
I don't I don't know. I just believe that Zach
is my long lost little brother. I love it. We
(44:19):
can we can act accordingly. We can act accordingly. We
we we can, we can chosen family. That's what I
like to call it. We are the stories we tell ourselves.
We are the stories we tell ourselves. But then we
also do have obligatory family like Alex Williams, who composed
our theme. Huge thanks to Christophersciotis here in spirit, Eve,
Jeff Coats here spirit as well, and um who else
(44:41):
Jonathan Strickland. Big thanks to Jonathan Strickland, a k a.
The Quister. We're not gonna say his name anymore because
it seems to have He seems to obey beetlejuice rules
on the show and handyman rules. And we wanted to
save you, as you know, this is your first time
as a gay s Zach, but we do we know
(45:01):
your return for part two. We can't wait to explore
more in the future. In the meantime of folks. While
you're waiting, check out check out the work of Michinema.
Check out some of those pictures. Let us know what
you think on our Facebook page, Ridiculous Historians Gaghetti Images
is a pretty spectacular collection that you can browse. Uh.
(45:22):
And then you can also get sticker shock when you
see they want five dollars for the full resolution one
to printing your publication, which you can look through. There's
some incredible images of these kind of jacked, you know,
Martyred kind of you know tableaus that Mishima was was
very fond of. Uh. And it'll be a really good
primer and set up for part two. You might even
(45:44):
see some pictures of a militia. Spoilers we'll see next time. Books.
For more podcasts from my Heart Radio, visit the I
heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to
your favorite shows.
Ridiculous History is a production of I Heart Radio. Welcome
(00:27):
back to the show, Ridiculous Historians. Thank you, as always
so much for tuning in. Let's hear it for the man,
the myth legend, our super producer, Mr Max Williams, whoa
Max is the Best. They call me ben joined as
always with my rider Die nol No. This one has
been a long time in the making, my friend. Yeah,
(00:49):
and I'm sorry for my lackluster Max is the Best
because you know, usually obviously I do my little like
you know, crowd noise and worshipful of Max because that
is what he is do. But today we're kind of
talking about someone that sort of stepped out, uh, to
to meet what they thought were their public um, the people,
(01:10):
to to to greet them and present them with the
brave new world, a new way of doing things, and
were met with sad trombones. Uh that they're that elicited
about the most sad trombone reaction one could possibly um
react with, which is committing ritual suicide. Uh pretty heavy spoiler. Yeah,
well you know, I mean, I mean, let's just a
(01:31):
little bit of a trigger warning because it is. Yeah,
this episode is it is. It's got some uh bombast,
it's got some iconoclastic kind of behavior, it's got literature,
it's got culture of the Japanese variety, and it really
also is an interesting story of kind of East meets
West in terms of a Japanese you know, writer who
(01:53):
really did kind of make a name for themselves in
the United States. We are of course talking about the
bizarre final year is of Yukio Mishima. Yeah, I see
this as um. I see this as a telling illustration,
a telling example of how different your favorite artists lives,
(02:15):
maybe than what you initially perceive. You might have a
favorite musician who all of a sudden, apparently out of
the blue, comes comes with some political stance that really
surprises you, or a sculptor perhaps, or as in this case,
and author. So we are not diving into this alone.
This is a two part episode. This is our whole week.
(02:36):
It's Mishama Week. Here at Ridiculous Historians and Folks, we
are joined for the first time on air with one
half of our brand new research associate team. Let's hear
it for the one and only Mr Zach Williams. No
(02:57):
relations Hi, everybody, keep for having me. It's a it's
doctor Zach Williams. As a matter of fact, I'm kidding.
I'm kidding. Don't please, don't do that. I'm joking. You
did parody parody. One night over sleep down, a doctor appeared,
but this was no normal doctor. Who's there? It's Zack
(03:20):
Zach who the doctor named Zach. And he's here to
bill your scraps just for Colledge. Pett is a cat
teaching history books and stuff. Let's go with other things. Yeah,
(03:43):
that'll work, Zack. Do you really think you're gonna get
out of this now? You? You big leaguus in this way, Doc,
doctor Zach. I like doctor Zach because it sounds like
both kind of formal and informal. Because Zach I've always
just thought as a real fun love and kind of
(04:04):
name because I think of Zach Morris from Saved by
the Bell. I'm sure you don't love that comparison, but
it is what it is. We're we're glad, We're glad
to have you, Zach. And this is a this is
a topic that is near and dear to your heart
and to a mutual friend of ours, a friend of
the show, Peyton Fisher, who turned me onto the film.
Uh Mishima many many many years ago. Um, how did
(04:24):
you kind of come to appreciate and and even know
about this very kind of divisive figure. Well, I've always
been attracted to iconoclasm generally speaking. And uh, at the
time that I first encountered mishmast fiction, I was in
a creative writing program and undergrad I was trying to
be a poet and a fiction writer and just seeking
(04:45):
out things of a sort of like late modernist postmodernist
spent which is sort of like my wheelhouse at the time.
And I'd always had a sort of like affinity for
for for Japanese aesthetics and culture. And I read his
book The Sound of Waves, which I thought was like
a very standard kind of coming of age story that
kind of celebrated this very traditional idea of masculinity and
(05:05):
sort of like being a man working hard to get
what it is that you wanted despite your poverty or
something like that. It's a very bootstraps Romeo and Juliette
style story. But one of the things that really struck
me was one of the characters in that book, whose
name escapes me now because it's been so long since
I read it, but she's in love with this uh.
This lead character Shinji, and has gone to university, comes
(05:25):
back find that he's in love with Um, the daughter
of of like a shipping baron um named hut Sue,
and basically contrives to break up their relationship by spreading
rumors about her um ill repute will say, her sort
of promiscuity. And one of the things that's so interesting
about that book is that it really comes alive in
(05:46):
the sections where you're kind of stewing alone with this
character kind of thinking about her motivations and her kind
of guilt and shame over having come between these two people,
And there's this really interesting sort of psychological kind of
depth to those moments that isn't quite present in the
plot of the rest of the book. I was like, well,
it's very interesting kind of approach to this character, this
(06:08):
idea of like you could have contempt for somebody while
also having some sort of empathy. It's empathy, but also
you know, you're relating to them in a really in
a real way. Because we we can all be spiteful,
kind of backbiting, conniving people when we're not getting the
things that we want. We feel like we've been denied
of something. So I thought, Wow, that's actually a really
lovely sort of section of the book. And then I
(06:29):
saw the film Mishima Life in Four Chapters, because I'd
read the book cold and found all of this stuff
about this fellow, all of these contradictions a true postmodern figure,
if you could ever think of one, because so much
of his life is shrouded in like this sort of
public persona, this performance, but also the ambiguities of his
private life, the ambiguities of his political affiliations in ideology,
(06:51):
whether or not those things we're actually like serious kind
of pursuits or or just another part of the window dressing.
And I always find that sort of thing very, very fascinating,
like somebody who turns their life into a sort of
theater and object of art, and in many cases much
to their own detriment, which is definitely kind of like
the cautionary tale of this story. I think, yeah, agreed,
(07:12):
And if we and also when we look at the
life of someone who is uh universally considered to be
one of the most important writers in Japan during this
time period, we see that he lives through some crazy
events in history, I think we're right to have that
(07:34):
disclaimer trigger warning here. But there's a lot that goes
into that final act. Uh. Like many many authors then
and now, this guy takes a pen name the Mishima
Yulkyo we know now was not born Mishima Yukio. Correct. Yeah,
he was born a Hiraka Kimitake. And one of the
(07:56):
funny things about any sort of encounter with Japanese literature,
you end up with his um, especially early translations in
the twentieth century. There's always this weird orientalism to it
um And at one of the front notes, the author
bio in a fairly recent vintage edition of The Sea
of Fertility Books lists of this like a like a
sort of like a son of a samurai family. Everyone's
(08:20):
very quick to kind of play up these associations between
like the old samurai and the sort of this sort
of modernist writer and things like that. Of course, a
lot of that comes from the turn in his politics
near the end of his life, but it's a very
interesting kind of thing to see him having sort of
come out from under this um. It's sort of like
old money um. They were vassals of the Maiata clan,
(08:43):
for instance, in the northwestern regions of Japan, and naturally
his family very impressive, comes from this incredibly impressive background,
and you have this young man who, ostensibly, in his
younger years as a child, very quiet, subdued, isolated, not
part securely impressive by any means, um sort of frail
(09:03):
and constitution and asthmatic um, definitely not the picture of
masculinity that you would expect from like you know, the
vassals of old samurai, you know, sort of families and
things of that nature. So it's a very interesting kind
of thing to sort of see him make a new
version of himself from out of his failures to embody
these um, these very kind of auspicious beginnings. And I
(09:27):
think too it's also a very kind of apt metaphor
for the transitional period that Japan would find itself in
later on, in the forties and fifties and in the sixties,
where things become very very fraught. Indeed, and uh, it's
always something that I find myself drawn to, is uh.
This sort of failure. Failure is a theme not only
in literary production, but also in like the production of
(09:48):
the stuff of life and sort of like making one's
own self and identity also Japan on me, I've always
been fascinated by their sort of mix of you know,
such you know, steeped tradition in and like this kind
of like almost you know, um surf and vassal kind
of you know, militarized highly almost like medieval kind of structure.
(10:09):
And then you know, after the bomb is dropped and
all of that, then they have to kind of reimagine
themselves culturally in this almost like kind of futurist kind
of mode. Uh. And so it really is this very
fascinating mix that I think creates some really incredible culture,
whether it's you know, literature or on anime or technology
or whatever it might be. It is a culture that
(10:30):
literally has had to reinvent itself. But then of course
there are always echoes of of the past as well.
So I think you know, Mishima kind of like embodies
that to a degree as well, in terms of kind
of being this modern figure but also being this kind
of like person that came from those those ancient traditions. No. Absolutely,
And it's worth noting too that before all of this
(10:51):
um this business with you know, the suicide, the sort
of stage coup data which we'll get too later. UM
a very cosmo allaton Um polly math like he was.
He was a lyricist and singer and actor, a poet,
a novelist, short story writer. UM, a theater director and writer.
He had his own theater groups. He was all over
(11:13):
the place. I can't imagine um a more prolific figure
from that time. And you know, naturally nowadays people have
hard time finding even time to read much less. Right.
You know, I've succumbed to the pressures of work, and
I barely myself right anymore. This man produced upwards of
thirty plus novels over the course of his career, poems, plays,
(11:34):
critical essays as well, Yes, very importantly critical essays. Yes,
one of the most obvious kind of I guess doorways
into his ideology and his thinking comes from his long
form essay Son and Steel, which the read the listeners
can't see it. But if you look at the cover
of this book, and this is a Japanese modern writer's addition,
(11:54):
it's an English translation from a Japanese print by Kodansha Um.
He is shown Uh in traditional uh Samurai underclothes, clutching
a katana which he is pulling from the scabbard absolutely yoked,
which is like another thing we'll talk about later. Right now,
this this I love that you're showing us to cover here,
(12:14):
and folks, uh, do check it out on your browser
choice you get a sense of this this Um I've
always thought that humans are the stories they tell themselves,
for good or for ill. Right, you're building your own mythology.
And this cover photograph stands and start contrast to Mishama's
early childhood. So we said he's born January four, Zach.
(12:47):
In some of your research, you introduce us to his grandmother,
and he starts out kind of sheltered under a little
bit of an authoritarian regime. I was I was startled
to learn that the grandmother takes him in because she
(13:07):
says he can't live with his parents. Uh, it's the
situation is too dangerous, based apparently on the fact that
the home as a second floor. Yes, it's all very
um strange stuff and that sheltering that sort of like
comes down a lot to like a sort of physical constitution. Like. Um,
it's just it's it's very very interesting when you kind
(13:29):
of dig into this sort of like cloistered environment that
he comes out in. Um. He is socialized almost only
with with with girls. He is kept in her sort
of drawing room, surrounded by the sort of objects since
the aesthetics of femininity and things like that. It's very
very interesting sort of how much this kind of the
(13:50):
room itself is a kind of metaphor for psychology, kind
of like looking inward, constructing a sense of self. And
I'm by no means like a psychologist or even like
a Mishima X spurt, Like I don't want to sort
of prop myself up as such, but you know, it's
it's pretty common knowledge that our experiences and you definitely
sort of like barn to who we become as adults.
And it seems to me that this is sort of
(14:11):
the beginning of all of that. And I think also
like those ties to the sort of old Japan which
his grandmother represented and held onto a deeply classist woman,
for instance, would not take him to the theater because
they'd be rubbing like elbows with the rabble and things
like that. So without past times, without a sort of
means of socialization that most people would find conventional, he
(14:32):
instead turns to these interior flights of fancy sort of
the poetry, the writing um. And if I may read
from the opening of A Son and Steel for just
a moment, just to get his own sort of um,
please do two cents on it. Max, Let's get some music.
So this is on page eight of Sun and Steel.
(14:54):
When I examined closely my early childhood, I realized that
my memory of words reaches back farther than the memory
of the lush and the average person. I imagine the
body precedes language. In my case, words came first of all. Then, belatedly,
with every appearance of extreme reluctance and already clothed in concepts,
came the flesh. It was already as goes without saying,
(15:15):
sadly wasted by words. First comes the pillar of plain wood,
then the white ants that feed on it. But for me,
the white ants were there from the start, and the
pillar of plaine would emerge tardily, already half eaten away.
And it's sort of obviously lovely sort of metaphorical passage there,
but also indicative of like an intense neurosis and anxiety
(15:40):
surrounding this tension between being a man, specifically a man
of action and a man of letters, which is a
tension that comes up over and over and over again. So,
I mean, the grandmother was concerned about him living with
his parents because she thought he was too soft basically,
and they were gonna like break him, right, and so
(16:01):
she wanted to kind of handle him with a little
bit more not kids gloves exactly, but you know, put
him down a path that maybe more suited his constitution,
which was a little more feminine and a little bit
less you know of that kind of warrior class mentality
kind of right. And then you know, when she passes away,
he is returned to his parents, and all of the
(16:21):
progress that she has made they essentially attempt to undo
before his very eyes. Right. Absolutely, As father is um
obviously a very intense figure in his life, as with
many people, UM, but it was not particularly enamored with
(16:41):
his son's personality proclivities talents. Uh. And I used the
word talents because these talents emerge like very early, um,
especially with regards to poetry twelve, when he when he's
when he's transferred back to live with his birth parents,
grandmother's yeah, and he's you know, he's already kind of
laying in that sandbox that that so many people who
(17:03):
who don't have that kind of physical acumen find themselves,
you know, like the aesthetics, the arts literature, you know,
like and those things. But oh absolutely yeah. Um. And
you know, and eventually we all go through the phase
where we start lifting a lot of weights, you know,
and uh and I love it. Yeah, we all want
to become people of action to some degree. Even later,
(17:24):
when he you know, finds some success, his father still
is like, nah, man, this isn't this isn't a real thing.
And I don't care what quote unquote level of success
and admiration you have achieved. What you're doing is you know,
worthless essentially, you know. I mean this is like a
classic overbearing, mean spirited kind of disciplinary and parent attitude
(17:48):
when a kid goes away, that that that branches off
from the path of the parent expects that even when
they see that you succeeded, they still can't give you
that praise and um kind of you know pat on
the back that that you probably need. Incredibly passive aggressive
as well. Um. And when when Misha was like fifteen
or sixteen, he writes them a letter, he doesn't just
(18:10):
sort of come out right at dinner, you know, he says,
I hear that some high and mighty writers speak of
you as a genius or precocious, or some kind of
devia it or just unpleasant. I think it is high
time you took stock of yourself. And this is like
a letter I wrote you, and I wrote you a note,
and I just want you to take that into consideration,
which has to be one of those things, just like,
come on, man, we could have had a conversation about
(18:31):
this over tie or something. Whenever I need to pick
up from either Ban or Nolan something, I write it
as a letter and millet to them. It's usually really
passive aggressive. It's nice to uh. It's nice to get
mail that is in junk mail or a bill though,
so keep it up, Max. One thing I think will
be helpful for all our ridiculous historians looking for maybe
(18:52):
a more modern analog. Sadly a lot of people have
a tension with their parents. But a more modern analog
of this sort of Persona and Japan would be the
so called carnivores. Right. This is a term uh. It's
a social term for uh, like the meat eaters, the
guys who have steak right, the salary men who um
(19:12):
who keep their keep their house, tightly regimented, keep their
spouse in quote unquote their place, and they have these
concrete expectations that are pretty pretty carved out in stone
before the kids born, like what your role is supposed
to be, what you're supposed to do and win. And
(19:34):
so to Mishima's father, this is and at like almost
absolute waste of twelve years. There's other stuff he should
have learned. And yes he is writing him these honestly,
like these emotionally abuse of letters, let's be honest. But
he also is doubling down, right, Zach. He is doing
(19:56):
crazy stuff to sort of man up the boy. You know, like,
uh what what There's this scene where he's holding in
close to speeding trains, right, That's that's a real thing,
and that's something that you know, you can say you're
a tough love parent or authority figure all the livelong day,
(20:17):
but when you get that close to throwing your kid
into train, I think that's the time for the father
to take stock of himself. That seems a little deviant
to me, absolutely, And so much of that relationship, you know,
has to do with these very classical ideas of masculinity
that you know, you're talking about the carnivores, the stuff
of her lip, right, the sort of social like the
(20:39):
emotional kind of negation and things like that. It's a
very kind of I think it's a common archetype across cultures,
you know, the sort of authoritarian, stiff upper lip father.
But it's also worth noting that these sorts of personalities
also kind of they mask and insecurity and of itself.
And you know, um aside in Japan, the rates generally speaking,
(21:02):
like salary men very very high, um as far as
like people who commit suicide because that lifestyle, however, it
brings productivity, However, it's sort of reproduces certain home styles
and certain economic incentives and things like that, it's still
personally very corrosive, difficult to maintain. Well, I mean it's unrealistic. Yeah,
(21:24):
it's such a it's such an ideal. And I started
watching this show um Industry, which is about like, you know,
kind of young people coming up in the stock you
know market in London, and um no spoilers, but there's
something that, you know, really horrible that happens to a
character because they just can't keep up the dance, like
they're they're so worried about letting down you know, their
(21:46):
mentor or or letting down their parents or whatever it
might be, that they're putting themselves in psychological harm's way,
you know, like every single day. And there's some people
that can deal with it better than others, and maybe
some people that kind of deal with it through drug
abuse us sir alcoholism or whatever it might be, or
just becoming completely hardened and sociopathic. And I think that's
sort of the culture that creates those kind of figures.
(22:11):
You know, when you have this very regimented society, you
you either end up with people that are like mentally
unwell or that just harden themselves so much they just
become kind of, you know, not good people. Yeah, but
regimented society is inherently an exclusionary society, absolutely, And that's
sort of I don't want to get too into the
(22:33):
weeds about this sort of thing, but um, I mean
it is a sort of type of social Darwinism, uh
and something that you know, capital requires something that empire,
specifically in the context of Japan in this case requires
you know, because at this point, Japan, before the end
of World War two, is still an imperial power. Um,
(22:54):
there's the sort of patriarchal figure is very, very much
at the center of things, because at the point, you know,
the emperor is not only the head of state, but
a spiritual figure, if only in a sort of pageant
and ritual um. A lot of people like to say,
you know, the Japanese literally believed that hiro Hido was
the incarnation of of God um or something along those lines.
(23:15):
Would really like, that's mostly a sort of pageant, but
still something that's so necessary to the structure. And one
of the things I will say again, I want to
reiterate this is not unique to Japan. I'm not engaging
in an orientalism. This was the same type of mindset
that led to fascism in Italy. Mussolini is a father figure.
It will do say it's definitely something that seems to
(23:36):
be at the center of nearly all patriarchal society. And
it's difficult to make heads or tails of these sorts
of things because so much of the world has changed
over the course of the last fifty some odd years
with regards to our relationship and our skepticism to those
ways of living, those types of ideologies, and you get
the impression that Mishima is such um a conflicted figure
(23:58):
because he also has a it of that ingrained skepticism
and his himself. So many of those characters not only
are beneficiaries but also people who succumb to these types
of systems and ideals. Can I ask really quickly, you know,
since obviously he's returned back to his parents. His father
seems like a bit of a bastard, but also cut
from the mold that we're describing of that more traditional
(24:21):
kind of macho Japanese, you know, mindset of like what
what men should be. Why did he let his son
go live with his grandmother in the first place if
he felt so strongly about this, and possibly was he
not wise to how she was going to raise him.
Was there a need that arose or they couldn't take
care of him just or or is there also just
(24:43):
sort of a deference to you know, parents where she
stepped in and said, I want this to happen, and
you're gonna do it because i'm your mother or i'm
you know, you're elder. It seems to be exactly that
she just sort of put her foot down, was like,
this boy will not climb to the second floor landing.
He will instead live in my drawing room where he
will be safe and kept. Um. That seems to be
(25:04):
the the sort of context of the thing. Yeah, and
we an interesting inversion of those dynamics, right, and then
again that's part of the the regimented society, right, there
is respect for the elders, so ultimately they can have
a sort of veto power the similar to the way
(25:26):
the guy who blows leaves outside of uh, outside of
my window every Monday morning can make himself known in
this I I gotta tell you, I'm never recording there's this,
but so I want to acknowledge that, folks. But there's
something that I think is really interesting, not just about
(25:50):
this part of his life. This is a bit of
a segue. Uh. We as students, whereas readers, have a
unique in site into Mishima's life because he tells his
own story in an incredibly interesting way, decades before people
start making thinly veiled autobiography a genre in film. Mishima
(26:18):
has his breakout work in the literary scene. Right, it's
Confessions of a Mask And if you go to the bookstore,
it's in the novel section, but it's you know, it's
a novel that draws like the very least you can
say is it draws a great deal on his personal history,
(26:40):
his story, and so people are again they are taken
to these really interesting emotional explorations that you mentioned at
the top of the show's act. But these explorations are
taking you into the mind of the author. And maybe
you can tell us a little bit about this first novel,
(27:02):
or this first breakout novel, just so people can see
how closely this cleaves to the true story. So obviously,
as you've already pointed out, it's a sort of kind
of autobiography what we would now call auto fiction, this
kind of thinly veiled fictionalized version of of events or um,
(27:28):
I guess, um his own personality. Is there really something
else that you could compare that too, maybe that others
in the audience might be familiar with. I mean, I
think that Proust is kind of known for having done
these sorts of things very early on in the Remembrance
of Times pastor I can't remember the full title, but
you can make sponsor say that sort of thing. Similar
(27:49):
argument with some early Joyce, maybe like Stephen Hero which
becomes Confessions of the Artists. Um as a young man
got it no. And I think this is a This
is something that has increasingly become very very popular as
a sort of literary genre. Books by Ben Lerner and
Teju Cole and things like that are very closely associated
(28:11):
with this auto fiction movement, where generally speaking, the narrator
is a stand in for the author and in some
cases shares the author's name outright, despite the fact that
some of the things have been sort of twisted to
be made a bit more fictional. So Confessions of a
Mask is I think indicative of a broader tendency within
literary production that that's been with us since the beginning
(28:33):
of Letters, right, the fact that the artists can and
should not separate themselves from their own experiences, and in fact,
their own experiences can be this sort of stuff of
art and a sort of necessary means of understanding not
only the world but themselves, and hopefully you know, through
the audience, right, building that sense of empathy and intimacy
with them, forcing them into a place where they begin
(28:55):
to understand things. And I think this is where, like
Mishima as a literary figure is most kind of powerful,
This person who understands acutely the sense of being cleaved
in half identity wise, this person who, on the one hand,
has this kind of secret inner life, and these obligations
to be ambitious, to to sort of be the figure
(29:18):
of masculinity, to submit to military service if necessary, all
of these things that are just sort of warring inside
of him because not only of his upbringing, but also
because of you know, the fact that he's he's building tastes,
He's building this this reality for himself that's so at
odds with what's actually going on in the world around him.
Like when we said cloistered earlier, not only by class,
(29:39):
but also by the physical space of the room Japan
at this time during his childhood. People talk about, you know,
the wartime period specifically most of the time, but much
of the early twentieth century is a period of imperial expansion,
wars elsewhere, um, violent protests, and political turmoil at home.
(30:00):
Mean the elements within the government staging their own coude
a toss, an incredibly fraught time to be alive, even
before the war happens, and that retreat to that room,
trying to find oneself in that space life is theater.
All of those things seems to be at first something
that really gives him a sense of confidence in himself,
(30:21):
but then of course ultimately morphs into something that is
again a bit more corrosive, a bit more psychologically damaging. Yeah. Here,
there's there's something I think is key to this auto
fiction approach in his in his breakthrough novel, which is
it gives you a bit of a fig leaf. It
(30:42):
gives you a bit of a defense or a buffer.
Maybe we could say, uh, some kind of a safety
switch one can pull if something about your life appears
controversial against the norm, or to deviate from these Uh, again,
pretty concrete visions of what proper society should be. What
(31:06):
we're talking about specifically here is that Confessions of a
Mask goes through childhood up to the adolescence of the
protagonist and then reveals his awakening, Like this is all
about arriving at one's identity as a young adult ultimately,
(31:30):
and in this in this spirit, in this evolution one
of the I hesitate to call it climactic moments, but
there's this realization that this protagonist is attracted to people
of the same sex. That's how you would have put
it at this time. And this is obviously a controversial
(31:52):
identity right in in this immediately post war Japan, because
there's still a lot of traditions have been carried over,
even if those are being intensely interrogated at this time
due to the horrors of World War Two. But now,
I I wonder Zach how society received this novel, because
(32:13):
it was it was quite successful. But was there any
calculus on Mishima's part to have that that safety net
where one could say, well, this is just a novel. Honestly,
I think it's a bit the opposite. He sort of
leaned into it pretty much immediately. Um, and sort of
one of the things that it, you know, attracts you
(32:33):
iconoclastic personalities in the first place, as they're willingness to
kind of swim against the current, to sort of be
the person to put their foot down and say no, actually,
this is who I am. However, mediated his own image
is Um, he very much kind of leaned into his
status as a kind of on fontoib like a sort
of like almost like a Rombo figure, this person of
ambiguous sexuality, and but also this kind of like later on,
(32:56):
this adventurous personality, right like Rombo went overseas and and
and at all these adventures after he quit writing. I
call them adventures. They're not great things. Look it up.
It's not the best. But you know, he he very
much as tailored as the image is, right, it wasn't
tailored in service of kind of tamping him down or
making him more palatable to the public. In fact, it
(33:16):
was something different. Like I said, he kind of he
he fashioned himself as this like defeat dandy, this cosmopolitan figure,
this kind of sexually ambiguous person. And that's definitely something
that I think is appealing to a lot of people,
because so much of our own identities are unclear to us.
To see somebody lean into those ambiguities with such not
(33:40):
only say confidence, but also like contempt for what others
thought of it um is very interesting. And it's it's
doubly interesting because of how sensitive he's portrayed in the
film with regards to these sorts of things, like the
sort of public life aspect of it is one thing,
but he was very very aware of what it was
(34:02):
that he was feeling, very very aware of sort of
his place within that milieu as well, which I find
incredibly interesting. And he definitely wanted to be famous, oh absolutely,
and to to to that end, he reminds me of like,
you know, Andy Warhol type to a degree. I mean,
Andy Warhol was sort of cre curated this image of
himself as this sort of like, uh, this similarly kind
(34:25):
of dandy effect, well dressed, you know, kind of cosmopolitan
weirdo who very much wanted to be famous. He also
reminds me a bit of Truman capote Um to a degree.
And I think they actually crossed paths to uh at
some point, like in nineteen fifty seven when Mishima came
to the United States and apparently, you know, was not
(34:47):
given the royal treatment let's just say by Truman capote
or at least he claimed so. I believe in exchange
for a time where Campodi came to Japan maybe and
then Mishima kind of gave him tours around and all
of that, and he felt like he didn't get the
same treatment in return. Truman Capodium historically great friend, a
great person to yeah, yeah, beautiful, famous for he wrote
(35:15):
a couple of books, and he also never forgave other
people for existing. It was just too egregious to him.
Murdered by Death is a good film, I mean, you know,
and That's the thing too, is thankfully we've gotten away
from this sort of personality in the arts, like romanticizing
the person for whom everything is, Yeah, exactly. Thankfully art
(35:40):
seems to be trending towards a more empathetic, intimate direction.
Some people decry that sort of thing, but I think
it's ultimately good to have these writers taken down a peg.
You know. There's also there's really uh fastening here when
we look at the fame level, the chase for fame
and being image call just to the level uh to
(36:01):
like Maschima level. Uh, he is he is becoming a
study in contradiction right to the outside observer. Without knowing
the inner workings of the fellow's mind, ourselves, we can
say that he was he was doing a lot. I'm
not gonna say too much, but he's doing a lot.
(36:23):
Uh renaissance writer, you know, a literary icon by the
nineteen sixties. And this is when he starts, uh, this
is when he starts getting more a little bit more
macho man. Right. He starts working out to earn that
photograph on the cover this of the translation to Zach
(36:46):
showed us uh, and he continues saying, look, yes, I'm
getting in shape, i am getting swollen. I work out
three times a week. I'm also not gonna hide my
sexual or orientation. So for a lot of the more
traditional observers in Japanese society, this guy is just not
(37:08):
computing right, like, why are you so manly? Why are
you getting so buff when you're not obeying what we
see as proper social roles. There's that, and I think
there's also this tendency to sort of lean into one
of the things that, especially the right wing that he
(37:28):
became associated with later on down the line, we're critical
of him for it was like this sort of fostering
of a cult of personality, this um, this kind of
emphasis on image, and this emphasis on kind of propping
himself up as a figurehead of something. Um In mind,
you that Japan has a very sort of individualist kind
of character, as many sort of you know, we'll say,
(37:52):
as many capitalist countries do. But people were very skeptical,
not not necessarily just because of that sexual ambiguity, but
also he was a try hard. He was always somebody
who was putting himself out there. He was always sort
of flying in the face of convention and and and
sort of like received modes of like our understandings of
like humility. Right, Like, it's not enough that we read you.
(38:14):
We have to see you in movies, We have to
listen to your music. Could you maybe take it down
a notch? He's like like have like a written by,
produced by, composed by based on theme tune originally whistled by,
but actually a really good writer. No, and that's that
(38:35):
that's what makes you begrudge him even further. Right, are
you bad mouthing Garth Marenguey. I will say that admitting
that you've written more books than you've read is a
bad look. Well, yes, but I think that's masterful comedy.
Oh it's great now that that that that guy really
is the satirical kind of apex of what we're describing here.
(38:55):
And and to your point, Zach, that Mishima actually was
good at all of these things. That's something that will
also piss people off, you know what I mean. We
can almost stomach a try hard hack better than we
can someone that is really good and makes it points
out kind of how mediocre a lot of other you know,
like kind of multi disciplinary artists are. Oh absolutely, And
(39:16):
I just imagine you know nominated for the or like
sort of considered for the Nobel Prize throughout the sixties,
incredibly like mattenee Idle, attractive, uh, sort of very focused
on physical fitness, and then increasingly politically involved in a
way because of his visibility and his sort of like
just individual charisma and magnetism. Obviously that's going to rebel
(39:39):
out of the old guard the wrong way. Yeah. And additionally,
so we we do see some glimpses of I would
say painful inner life because around this time when he's
uh you know, when he's doing too much, as some
people would say, when he's being a bit of a
pick me in the world. Uh, he also agains creating
(40:01):
these images that can seem to contain suicidal ideation. And
it's easy to dismiss those in the beginning as simply
being edgy committing seppuku. Uh, images of like I'm drowning
and stuff. These are coming out around, like coming out
in the same era as real thirst trap pictures that
(40:22):
you would call him these days where he's in a
speed oh and some motorcycle gear. But he's dangerous. Uh.
This this is something we've been teasing for a little
bit now. His growing political ideations, is growing fascination with
(40:42):
the past of Japan and his own burgeoning concepts about nationalism.
And say what you want about Mishima. Obviously we think
he's a fantastic writer, but see what you want about
his personality. You can never say that he did half measures.
This guy was all gas, no breaks whenever he was
(41:04):
interested in something. So it's not as if he just
gave one interview and said, I'm kind of embracing nationalism.
How far did he go? Zach? Is that for part two?
I think that's probably good for part two. But one
of the things I will also say about the sort
of political awakening as sort of contrasted by the rest
of his life, he forgot to mention that he was
(41:24):
a model in things like that. We can't necessarily speculate
too much about where he was going with regards to
sort of where he ended up at the time. So
to put to put more frankly, in Confessions of a Mask,
there's a scene where he describes this sort of homosexual
awakening as a sort of encounter with a painting of
(41:45):
Saint Sebastian sort of strung up to a tree littered
with arrows that that that painting would be reproduced several
times in photographic form with Mishima is the subject, and
this sort of drive towards like destruction, self destruction, UM,
all of those things sort of becomes very obvious in
(42:07):
the sort of the suicidal character of many of these photographs,
so much so that the turn that happens next uh,
and those photographs are roughly contemporary with what at the
end of his life, um, But even before then, this
kind of fashioning himself is like this sort of um,
this bright star that's burning out quickly, this kind of
doomed um figure begins in the sixties and then ultimately
(42:31):
comes to it's uh, it's ultimate bloody outcome. And there's
a lot to be said about that, a lot of
speculation as to why the political turn happens and its
relationship to ultimately what does transpire in nineteen seventy, which
I think is a good place to sort of pick
up with episode two. Agreed, Agreed, So we are going
(42:53):
to come to our own, uh, our own brief conclusion, thankfully,
not a bloody conclusion. This is the end of part
one of Yukio Mishima The Bizarre Final Years, and Zach
thank you so much for coming on the show. I
was I was super gassed about this, Noel. I believe
you were as well, because we really, like we've been
(43:16):
teasing this for months. Man. I think I I hope Noel,
that our fellow ridiculous historians didn't suspect we were only
blowing smoke. Yeah. He gives to another school, right. Uh yeah,
our our our new research associate with Zach is from Canada.
He doesn't come around now. He's real. Uh, he's you.
Thank you, Sach. Also, just thank you, I think our
(43:37):
listeners thank you for some of the amazing topics you found.
Really has kind of turned a corner a little bit
of a of a refresh of of the show and ore.
We've been really super excited to do some of these
and this one is no exception. So UM look forward
to having you back on part two. Absolutely, thank you
all for having me. I look forward to the conversation.
It gets really fascinating. All right, do hear that? We
(43:59):
got a second eight, So we're gonna call it a day.
Thanks as always to our super producer, Mr Max Williams.
No relation, you can verify that, right, zach Um. No
relation except in the great tapestry of humanity. Oh shucks,
I don't I don't know. I just believe that Zach
is my long lost little brother. I love it. We
(44:19):
can we can act accordingly. We can act accordingly. We
we we can, we can chosen family. That's what I
like to call it. We are the stories we tell ourselves.
We are the stories we tell ourselves. But then we
also do have obligatory family like Alex Williams, who composed
our theme. Huge thanks to Christophersciotis here in spirit, Eve,
Jeff Coats here spirit as well, and um who else
(44:41):
Jonathan Strickland. Big thanks to Jonathan Strickland, a k a.
The Quister. We're not gonna say his name anymore because
it seems to have He seems to obey beetlejuice rules
on the show and handyman rules. And we wanted to
save you, as you know, this is your first time
as a gay s Zach, but we do we know
(45:01):
your return for part two. We can't wait to explore
more in the future. In the meantime of folks. While
you're waiting, check out check out the work of Michinema.
Check out some of those pictures. Let us know what
you think on our Facebook page, Ridiculous Historians Gaghetti Images
is a pretty spectacular collection that you can browse. Uh.
(45:22):
And then you can also get sticker shock when you
see they want five dollars for the full resolution one
to printing your publication, which you can look through. There's
some incredible images of these kind of jacked, you know,
Martyred kind of you know tableaus that Mishima was was
very fond of. Uh. And it'll be a really good
primer and set up for part two. You might even
(45:44):
see some pictures of a militia. Spoilers we'll see next time. Books.
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