Japanese author Yukio Mishima (1925–1970) dedicated his life to understanding and expressing the self-destructive potential of narcissism, of hell-bent insincerity, which he himself was a victim of. Mishima was an obsessive body-builder and kendo practitioner, an active promoter of his image as a public intellectual, and a militaristic nationalist spectacle. Most importantly, he produced an intimidating collection of psychologically complex works of fiction.

Mishima’s novels are renowned for many reasons. One of which is his almost mystical ability to paint a scene, such as this personal favourite from his last work The Decay of the Angel (Seidensticker tr., page 236):

The lawn, with the hills behind it, blazed in the summer sun.

“We have had cuckoos since morning,” said the novice.

The grove beyond the lawn was dominated by maples. A wattled gate led to the hills. Some of the maples were red even now in the summer, flames among the green. Stepping-stones were scattered easily over the lawn, and wild carnations bloomed shyly among them. In a corner to the left were a well and a well wheel. A celadon stool on the lawn seemed so hot in the sun that it would surely burn anyone who tried to sit on it. Summer clouds ranged their dizzying shoulders over the green hills.

It was a bright, quiet garden, without striking features. Like a rosary rubbed between the hands, the shrilling of cicadas held sway.

There was no other sound. The garden was empty. He had come, thought Honda, to a place that had no memories, nothing.

The noontide of summer flowed over the still garden.

Even in the English translation, we get the sense that Mishima cares deeply about his craft and that he has a unique ability to capture what is beautiful or stunning. In his novels, this aesthetic rendering of nature is counterposed with the ugliness of human desire.

Noboru in The Sailor Who Fell from Grace with the Sea is hailed a hero after brutally murdering and disembowling a “beautiful kitten.” In Thirst for Love, Etsuko murders handsome Saburo with a harvesting hook when she realized his beauty is a mask for hollowness. Kiyoaki, in Spring Snow, only realizes his love for Satoko after she’s betrothed, and his passionate longing is only resolved by his death.

Photo by Elliott Erwitt.

For Mishima, all that is beautiful must die, and human ugliness must persist. I imagine the scene of Mizoguchi, the disturbed Buddhist acolyte in The Temple of the Golden Pavilion, watching the beautiful temple burn, satisfied with his destructive act. People are often propelled by feelings of jealousy, possessiveness, and snobbery. We hopelessly protect that which we feel is beautiful and pure by obliterating it, because once we obtain what we love it becomes tainted.

For Mishima, all that is beautiful must die, and human ugliness must persist.

For Mishima, this cycle of desire and destruction is a response to loss, betrayal, and loneliness, a sense of disconnect with society and with ourselves. The cultural consequence, in the wake of the atomic bombs, was a Japan weakened by narcissism.

Mishima’s literature seems to offer no solution to this problem of narcissism. In fact, Mishima’s own narcissism and fall into ideology lead to his sensationalized act of seppuku. However, I would offer a reading of Mishima’s literature that suggests radical empathy as an antidote.

Radical empathy being an authentic connection with others completely different from us. Mishima did not seem to think that empathy involved really understanding another person, in fact he probably believed this was impossible. Rather, radical empathy is almost a feeling, an emotional pull towards taking a leap of faith in believing the importance of others.

In the Sea of Fertility tetralogy, which includes Spring Snow and The Decay of the Angel, Honda (a possible stand-in for Mishima himself) witnesses his childhood friend Kiyoaki’s self-destruction. Honda never lets go of his memory of Kiyoaki, who in personality and status is completely apart from Honda, and fanatically pursues who he believes are reincarnations of Kiyoaki. This quest comes to a head at the end of The Decay of the Angel, when Honda concludes that it’s useless to try to rejoin Kiyoaki in the physical world, and he himself resolves his life in death.

Mishima contends that it is possible to “glitter with debauched loneliness.” Debauched loneliness, the perfect description of America’s current narcissistic crisis, can be countered by a commitment to empathy

We can respond to loneliness by taking on the persona of someone else, or inflating the grandeur of who we think we are. Both are acts of isolation, of blocking off others, that only worsen our alienated condition. In his landmark novel Confessions of a Mask, Mishima contends that it is possible to “glitter with debauched loneliness.” Debauched loneliness, the perfect description of America’s current narcissistic crisis, can be countered by a commitment to empathy, to community, to a shared understanding that life is confusing and we all have a part to play in making meaning from that chaos. Literature, Mishima seems to say, is a part of that process.