Acts of Worship: Seven Stories (Japanese for Busy People)

When Mishima committed ritual suicide in November 1970, he was only forty-five. He had written over thirty novels, eighteen plays, and twenty volumes of short stories. During his lifetime, he was nominated for the Nobel Prize three times and had seen almost all of his major novels appear in English. While the flamboyance of his life and the apparent fanaticism of his death have dominated the public's perception of his achievement, Japanese and Western critics alike are in agreement that his literary gifts were prodigious. Mishima is arguably at his best in the shorter forms, and it is the flower of these that appears here for the first time in English. Each story has its own distinctive atmosphere and each is brilliantly organized, yielding deeper layers of meaning with repeated readings. The psychological observation, particularly in what it reveals of the turmoil of adolescence, is meticulous. The style, with its skillful blending of colors and surfaces, shows Mishima in top form, and no further proof is needed to remind us that he was a consummate writer whose work is an irreplaceable part of world literature.

this Collection Includes: Fountains In The Rain, Raisin Bread, Sword, Sea And Sunset, Cigarette, Martyrdom And The Title Story Acts Of Worship.

publishers Weekly

this Beautifully Translated Collection Contains Some Mishima's Finest Stories, None Of Them Previously Collected In An English Edition. In The Moving Title Story, The Loyal, Self-effacing Housemaid Of A Solitary Professor-poet Ferrets Out The Secret Of His Lifelong Sadness. Jack, In ``raisin Bread,'' A Pill-popping Failed Suicide At 22, His ``sole Aim To Become Quite Invisible,'' Is A 1950s Anti-hero Who Seems Very Contemporary. A Proud Youth In ``fountains In The Rain,'' Breaking Up With His Girlfriend, Becomes Captivated By A Splashing Fountain, Which We See As A Symbol Of His Own Flamboyant Egotism. ``sword,'' A Sweaty Plunge Into The World Of College Fencing, Pits Youth Vs. Age, Animal Pleasure Vs. Mental Rigor, Muscular Prowess Vs. Meditative Rapture. The Seven Stories Vary In Tone And Subject Matter, Yet Each Reveals Mishima's Total Control, His Gift For Striking Imagery And Psychological Insight. (nov.)

Translated from the Japanese Fountains in the rain -- Raisin bread -- Sword -- Sea and sunset -- Cigarette -- Martyrdom -- Act of worship The boy was tired of walking in the rain dragging the girl, heavy as a sandbag and weeping continually, around with him. http://www.archive.org/details/actsofworshipsev00mish