Just finished, after a long period of procrastination, Yukio Mishima’s Forbidden Colors. Since I was reading this book after having various discussions about translation practices and the ideal of translation, I frequently wondered, especially during the extremely abstruse passages, just what this or that word was in the original, or how something was phrased in the Japanese, and tried to guess at; but, this only was a somewhat productive activity because I do know some Japanese, and probably at some point will try reading the original.

Anyway, as for the story, an elderly writer, Hinoki Shunsuke, one day meets a peerlessly beautiful youth, Minami Yuichi. Shunsuke, BTW, is full of a misogynistic passion of revenge against all women. Yuichi is going to marry Yasuko, the former lover of Shunsuke, but confesses to Shunsuke that he is full of misgivings because he’s gay and finds it impossible to be sexually attracted to women. Shunsuke, struck by a flash of inspiration, tells Yuichi that he shall give him some money if he marries Yasuko and aids him in his scheme to take revenge on the female sex by seducing them without desire, throwing them into the hell of a passion that will never be reciprocated (I think: in some ways I’m vague about why exactly Shunsuke feels so wronged by women, given that he deliberately runs after women he has contempt for, and just what will make him satisfied.) So, Yuichi accepts his offer, and accepts Shunsuke’s instructions in attempting to seduce two of his former lovers. Meanwhile, Yuichi finally enters the secret world of homosexuality, and becomes a great object of desire. Basically, Yuichi is the center of the book; he possesses a perfect beauty, described like that of a young wolf’s, and everyone wants him. (In some ways, Yuichi reminds me of sort of an evil version of the hero of the Sound of the Waves, who was written as some kind of masculine ideal, or a perverse, homme fatal version of the incarnation in Runaway Horses.)

The most interesting parts of the book, I found, were the descriptions of the coffee houses, cruising areas, hotels, and underground parties that made up the underground gay milieu, and what must be Mishima’s philosophies about homosexuality. The recurring motif of the mirror (the constant discussions of the look seem to coincide interestingly with modern ideas about the so-called “male gaze,” and subject/object. Maybe throw in some Lacan also. I feel that maybe to really unpack this book I’d have to go through it with the eye to writing a paper about the symbology, because sometimes, as in the recurring firetrucks, things are a bit too blatant), the psychology of Yuichi, who becomes pathologically narcissistic (this isn’t a story about Forbidden Gay Love, in the sense that Yuichi is in love passionately with one person, himself) and rather sadistic over the course of the book, are also rather fascinating, but many of the more aesthetic portions about What is Beauty and The Nature of Art simple seemed obscure and indulgent; they’re perhaps one reason why this novel is so long.