Confessions of a Mask
Confessions of a Mask is Japanese author Yukio Mishima's second novel. Published in 1949, it launched him to national fame though he was only in his early twenties.
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- Mishima's late-life militarism and his death tend to overshadow his early work. Both "Confessions of a Mask" and "Temple of the Golden Pavilion" are masterpieces, and you can see the raw impulses that motivated him, before he sublimated them to a political agenda.
- I had a similar experience growing up in the mostly white suburbs of Baltimore. We read Beloved junior year and it was absolutely devastating. It opened my eyes to the deep, unhealed wounds of slavery and that sort of tumultuous, all-consuming pain. It was a difficult book to read at that age—I can't imagine any age when it would be easy to read—and I appreciate that we were asked to sit with it.
Another book that had a similar effect on me was Yukio Mishima's "Confessions of a Mask" about a boy growing up gay in 1930–50s Japan. I don't know that he ever actually says he's gay and you get this feeling that he doesn't even have the language to describe himself, let alone any kind of framework or support network. It was described to me by the friend who recommended it as "devastatingly sad" and I agree. He was absolutely, completely, and utterly fucked from the moment he was born and there's nothing he could do about it. The book threw me off for weeks. I highly recommend it.
- It's hard to make specific recommendations without knowing what kinds of books you typically enjoy. That is, if you want "more like Murakami," that's one thing, but if you want "Japanese authors who write about things I normally enjoy," that's another. If you could explain what you enjoy, that would help us recommend more. :)
As a general shotgun approach at "who's who" in Japanese literature:
Kobo Abe's Woman in the Dunes is a story that's a bit bizarre/unreal; many people I know who like Murakami also like this.
Speaking of "bizarre," Yukio Mishima was quite a character -- aside from that, he was also quite a writer. Patriotism is a great short story from him that's pretty thought-provoking in a lot of ways.
Mishima's Confessions of a Mask is also another book I'd immediately recommend to people looking at Japanese literature. The protagonist is homosexual and somewhat deviant in a number of ways; the book looks at what it means to be "abnormal" and still have to fit into Japanese society (IIRC this was set in pre-war Imperial Japan).
For more modern stuff, Taiyo Fujii's Gene Mapper was a great read and a look at a future where genetic engineering/manipulation is the norm, especially for foodstuffs.
- For thise interested in Murakami's contemporaries, Banana Yoshimoto is an interesting case. I've only read one of her works, Kitchen, but the similarity is almost astonishing. They both cover themes of loss, a strong sense of a mystical undercurrent right underneath everyday life, and independent (but not necessarily rebellious) protagonists -- and, while it may be an artifact of translation, they have similarly uncluttered but lively prose. She came a bit after he did, in the late 80s, so maybe he influenced her.
In Chinese, Ge Fei's Invisibility Cloak -- while a much more recent work -- also comes to mind, although there's something harder and less dreamy about it. Invisibility Cloak is about a niche audio technician and hobbyist who gets involved with a strange underworld customer, and I'll leave it at that :)
If you like Murakami and want to dip a toe into "deeper" (or at least more prestigious and less popular) Japanese fiction, Kenzaburo Oe (Changeling, A Personal Matter) is a good starting point. If you want to go darker, a little more unhinged, and on the opposite end of the political spectrum, Yukio Mishima (Confessions of a Mask) is also good.
If you want to go even further back, Junichiro Tanizaki's The Makioka Sisters is an oddly enjoyable story of adult sisters and their shifting relationships -- if Proust is like a jungle, alive and profligate and almost obscenely lush, then Tanizaki is more like fresh-cut wood, clean and with a certain reserve and neutrality, but still alive.
I find Yasunari Kawabata the least accessible of all these writers, but he seems to be held in high esteem in Japan. His Snow Country is I'm guessing making references to things I don't understand, but it's at least pleasant to read, and the ending is (I'm told, and at least kind of feel, but not with any sophistication) a very nice example of ma, which Wikipedia tells me roughly means negative space.
Finally, to end an overlong post, I first heard of most of these things in Brian Phillips' excellent longform article connecting modern Japanese sumo, older Japanese literature, and Yukio Mishima's very strange attempted coup/suicide: http://grantland.com/features/sumo-wrestling-tokyo-japan-hak...
- I second Mishima, who has not let me down. I enjoyed "Confessions of a Mask", and plan to read "Temple of the Golden Pavilion" next and the last 2 books of his tetralogy.
By means of microscopic observation and astronomical projection the lotus flower can become the foundation for an entire theory of the universe and an agent whereby we may perceive the Truth. And first we must know that each of the petals has eighty-four thousand veins and that each vein gives eighty-four thousand lights.
- > Salve. Vita auctoris japonicis Yukio Mishima brevi scribe.
> Salve! Yukio Mishima fuit auctor et poeta Japonicus qui natus est in anno 1925 et mortuus est in anno 1970. Nomen eius verum erat Kimitake Hiraoka. Scripsit multos libros, quorum plures celebres sunt et internationale famam adepti sunt.
> Opus magnum Mishimae fuit tetralogia, cui nomen est "Sea of Fertility" quae constat ex libris quattuor: "Spring Snow," "Runaway Horses," "The Temple of Dawn," et "The Decay of the Angel." Inter libros Mishimae celeberrimi sunt "Confessions of a Mask," "Thirst for Love," et "The Sailor Who Fell from Grace with the Sea."
> Mishima erat etiam notus pro activismis suis politicis et socialibus, et obiit per seppukum (ritualis suicidium samurai) postquam tentavit militares et alios ad se adiungendum ad restaurandam imperium Iaponicum.
Seems accurate enough though the mentioned titles aren't originally English, of course.
