I recently bought 2 Yukio Mishima books on Ebay in drunken haze. What am I in for?

Mishima, I think, is a good writer; not the best japanese writer of '900. he wrote in a very classic way with bombastic (is it the right word?) sentences and deep description of the characters. another of his most important feature is that in every book he put the concept of love and death, sensuality and violence. he wrote about the wrong part of the mind even in the banal life of everyday. I read 15 or 20 books of him, and the only one I can remeber is different is the voice of the wave, that's a love story in a locked out world, all of the ugly things of the world touch the characters less than in others books, maybe is the sweetest one; I think is good, but the real Mishima is another thing. confessions of a mask is considered one of his masterpieces, in that book there's something about the real life of Mishima; the story told is the life of a young japanese boy who discover himself gay. I'm sorry to say that I found boring all of the books that are considered the Mishima's masterpieces, even the confession, I think is a long and useless bildungsroman.

anyway, don't worry about my consideration, I think Mishima is a good author and every book is good to start know him.

I have found this for you,

Yukio Mishima was one of the most accomplished and celebrated writers to come out of post-war Japan. He has been compared to Ernest Hemingway and Marcel Proust. The subject matter of his books and the specifics of his life caused him to be the source of a great deal of controversy,both in Japan and throughout the world. He has been the subject of several works of literary criticism,at least one biography, and his life was the subject of a film by the filmmaker Paul Schraeder entitled "Mishima:A Life in Four Chapters" .Mishima was the author of hundreds of plays,stories,essays and novels,but he was best known as the author of the "Sea of Fertility Tetralogy". Although he was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize for literature three times,the ideas behind both his writings and his life are greatly misunderstood in the west.

Ritual suicide

On November 25, 1970, Mishima and four members of the Tatenokai, under pretext, visited the commandant of the Ichigaya Camp - the Tokyo headquarters of the Eastern Command of Japan's Self-Defense Forces. Inside, they barricaded the office and tied the commandant to his chair. With a prepared manifesto and banner listing their demands, Mishima stepped onto the balcony to address the soldiers gathered below. His speech was intended to inspire a coup d'etat restoring the powers of the emperor.... I thought I remembered the name... Ya, way good writer if you want a sneek up on you mental whiplash... once you have figured out where he's coming from, his whole writing changes, and you can re-read his works several times... and get something new every time... is that not the highest praise an author can get?

ME!

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Here's a small taste.

I'm not familiar with him, really.

"Yukio Mishima in his The Way of the Samurai comments, "Hagakure insists that to ponder death daily is to concentrate daily on life. When we do our work thinking that we may die today, we cannot help feeling that our job suddenly becomes radiant with life and meaning." His comment emphasizes the positive aspect of what otherwise seems morbid and pessimistic. And it is to be remembered that although he was a writer - not a warrior - he wrote eloquently on the very day that he planned and executed his own death."

I've read "The Sailor Who Fell With Grace From the Sea" twice. I had to reread it to make sure that these were really the worst children I ever heard about. Yes, they were the worst children you could ever imagine. It's a wonderful book.

Honestly I had to read one for one of my uni classes and hated it! Sorry!