book gluttony at the end of the semester
reading: Acts of Worship by Yukio Mishima
listening: Strange Trails by Lord Huron
There's less than a month left of the semester, and in less than a week, I defend my thesis. I have just one major project to complete for one course, then have to grade my students' assignments. The light's at the end of the tunnel. Unfortunately things will get busy again just about as soon as everything is done--T and I are hoping to move out of state in early June. In the meantime, I've been culling my library of books I don't intend on (re)reading, deciding with T what furniture we want to move, sell, or store, and searching for apartment listings. There's also an official kibosh put on bringing "any more shit" into the house except that which we need. An irritating limitation for me because I'm a scavenger by nature and can't resist the pull of a cheap or free book. (There are currently several intriguing titles available on the free books shelf in my department; they entice me, but I resist.)
That said, I've slipped a couple times. Once I went to an arcade and didn't expect to win the claw machines. (T: So you were just burning money?!) I came home with two prizes--a Hello Kitty plush that I've since gifted to my sister, and an alligator plush larger than my torso that's perched on the hutch. (T likes the alligator, in spite of itself.) The other slip is a single book that represented a moment of weakness at the public library book nook, where they sell titles removed from circulation. (T: Seriously??? Me: It's about the influence of acid on folks music! Isn't that cool?)
Knowing I'm banned from bringing stuff into the house, but still unable to completely quell my desire to scavenge, I've really leaned in hard to my desire to go to the library that inevitably crops up at the end of the semester. Like clockwork, I find myself wandering the shelves and picking up whatever catches my eye. The comic section is my weakness, since so many comics published these days are pricey and it's hard for me to justify spending $35+ on a single book just because I'm a little interested in it. But I also love novels and nonfiction on just about any topic, especially if the author's one I'm familiar with, or if the title's been recommended. If I remember to bring a tote bag, it bulges with stacks of books.
When I get home, all I want to do is read the books I've hunted down. Sorry, students; sorry, grad seminar. Your responsibilities will have to wait until I finish this novel about a guy turning into a shark (Shark Heart by Emily Habeck--a quick, poetic, and delightful read).
I especially love books in translation, and for a moment, just kept finding and reading books written by probably/definitely gay men who died by suicide. The book I'm currently reading is Acts of Worship: Stories by Yukio Mishima, a queer guy by most definitions and someone who falls into the "suicidal novelist" category described above. He lived an interesting life--he was a Japanese nationalist who wanted to bring back the nation's empire, and he was a member of a far-right organization called the Shield. Said organization attempted to overthrow the Japanese Self-Defense Force and failed embarrassingly--supposedly, when Mishima tried to rally the SDF troops into reinstating the empire, they laughed at him. He died after this failed coup by ritual suicide (i.e., hara-kiri), which is exactly what you'd expect from such a fanatic.
At the same time, Mishima seemed to be fairly ambivalent about his politics and his place/role in society; in Confessions of a Mask--largely thought to be autobiographical--the main character is a gay man who struggles to fit in with other men and society generally. Certainly Mishima was aware that the nationalist movement he died for would not welcome him, and he'd be even more alienated, right? Confessions ends rather tragically, with him dutifully pursuing a woman, but it's a shallow relationship, lacking love and intimacy. Mishima had a wife and children; did he still feel like he was just going through motions with his family, too? The heteronormativity that would've been brutally enforced by any nationalist regime certainly wouldn't improve his disconnection from the world around him, though maybe he saw himself as a martyr, suffering because of his dedication to what he viewed as a greater cause. It's that grey area between his life, his politics, and his artistic expression that's so enticing to me.
Anyway--the foreword of this translation of Acts of Worship mentions nothing particularly explicit about Mishima's queer desires, and instead handwaves towards the "indulgences" that come to the forefront of the short story "Sword." It's a bit baffling that the translator seems discomforted by ascribing queerness to Mishima--like, when this guy writes about men, there's a distinct intimacy that's lacking in his descriptions of women who are supposed to be very beautiful.
"Raisin Bread" kind of encapsulates that homoeroticism among perfunctory heterosexuality. It's third person but largely from the perspective of Jack, a slight man who makes himself "like crystal" so he goes unnoticed. Whenever his friend, Gogi, is described, Gogi represents this intense masculinity that Jack can't live up to.
This passage about Gogi particularly astounds me: "The thing that bothered Jack about this entity called Gogi was its non-transparent quality. Whenever it planted itself in front of him, it shut off his own view of the world, clouding it with its sweaty, musky body the crystal that he always worked so hard to keep clear. Gogi's insistent flaunting of his strengths was intensely irritating. The insistent odor of his armpits, the hair that grew all over his body, the unnecessarily loud voice--everything made its presence as plain as filthy underwear even here in the darkness."
There's self-hatred here, for the presence Gogi commands in Jack's life. He can't ignore Gogi; he's infatuated. Recalling Mishima's description about the main character's sexual obsession with sweaty, male armpits in Confessions, I can't help but wonder if Jack's also meant to be some stand-in for Mishima.
Now, compare that to this one about the woman Gogi's brought home to fuck: "She was a stranger to him, and she was incredibly beautiful. / The face, even aware of being looked at despite the closed lids, was prim even in its intoxication, and the neat, well-shaped nose, though breathing heavily, retained a porcelain stillness. The hair, which covered half her forehead, fell in attractive waves. Beneath the slight swell of her closed eyelids the eyeballs moved secretly and sensitively, the long, regular lashes held profoundly closed. The lips were exquisitely fashioned and the dimples into which they narrowed at the ends were as pristine as though carved there a moment before."
Generic, generic, generic. She's a doll--a beautiful but profoundly un-erotic object, lacking even a name. It's difficult to tease out how much of Mishima's intense focus on describing Gogi's body so intimately is because of his homosexual tendencies, or his nationalistic worship of masculinity. Is this woman's lack of individuality and embodiedness representative of the misogyny inherent to nationalism, or Mishima's lack of interest in women? (A mix of both? Perhaps.)
Anyway, I'm not trying to make this blog post into an in-depth analysis of Mishima's work. I haven't even finished this story collection. But I can't stop thinking about these contrasts and contradictions in Mishima and his work. I can't stop engorging myself on these borrowed books, and I just keep finding more and more titles I want to read.
And, I still have to grade my students' essays.
- Marc