Fountains in the Rain
"More than two decades after his death," writes Susan J. Napier in the Dictionary of Literary Biography, "Mishima Yukio is arguably still the most famous writer modern Japan has produced." Mishima's admirers point to "the brilliance of his style, the power of his imagination, and the fascination and variety of his themes... all of which are in marked contrast to much of postwar Japanese fiction." Mishima's work is probably better known to English-speaking readers than any other Japanese writer's work. Several collections of Mishima's short stories were translated while he was still alive, but in 1989 seven stories that had never before been translated were collected in Acts of Worship. In reviewing this volume, Roy Starrs wrote, ' 'This present sampling . . . will provide a tantalizing glimpse for the Western reader of some of these still undiscovered riches. For in no art did Mishima perform better than in the art of the short story.
In fact, he achieved the kind of mature mastery, even perfection, in his short stories that always seems to elude him in his novels." Despite such kudos and despite inclusion in anthologies and college syllabi, Mishima's "Fountains in the Rain'' has elicited little critical attention in English. Its most in-depth analysis comes from Mishima's translator, John Bester, who wrote the preface to Acts of Worship. "Fountains in the Rain," with a hero so like many of Mishima's male characters, invites further investigation.Yukio Mishima was born as Hiroka Kimitake in Tokyo, Japan, in 1925. His ancestors were of the upper samurai class, and his grandmother encouraged his interest in Kabuki theater and in the notion of an aristocratic past. Mishima attended an elite school, but his early literary inclinations were not encouraged at his school, which emphasized physical activity over intellectual activity, and Mishima was often made to feel like an outsider by his classmates. Mishima began writing stories in middle school.
When he was sixteen, his first piece of short fiction, "Hanazakari no mori" ("The Forest in Full Flower") was published in nationalist literary magazine. It quickly sold out its first edition. It focuses on the narrator's aristocratic ancestors. Mishima's teachers encouraged his involvement with the Nihon Romanha, a group of Japanese romantics who insisted on the uniqueness of the Japanese people and their history and culture. Mishima avoided military service in World War II because he was misdiagnosed as having tuberculosis. In 1947 Mishima received his law degree from Tokyo University. He took a position with the Finance Ministry but resigned less than a year later in order to devote himself full-time to his writing. In 1948 his first novel, Tozoku was published. Soon thereafter he was invited to join the group that published a literary magazine. In 1949 the autobiographical novel Confessions of a Mask was published, and it became a best seller and established Mishima's reputation as an important voice in Japanese fiction. In 1952 Mishima traveled abroad, which inspired his next writings.
Throughout the decade he continued to publish novels, essays, No (also known as "Noh") plays, and stories. His work also began to be translated into other languages for foreign readers. By the early 1960s, some people thought that Mishima had passed the peak of his literary career, but he became more of a public figure than ever. In 1967 he spent a month training with the Self Defense Forces, and the following year, he formed a private army called the Shield Society. It was sworn to defend the emperor. By the late 1960s, Mishima had become increasingly consumed by the desire to revive the traditional values and morals of Japan's imperialistic past. He believed that his country was being corrupted by Westernization.
His subsequent works, which include novels, short stories, and an essay collection, reflect this political belief as well as his belief in self-sacrifice in order to achieve spiritual fulfillment. His final tetralogy, The Sea of Fertility, was published in monthly installments from 1965 until the day of Mishima's death in 1970. He believed that this tetrology was the product of all he had learned as a writer. He told friends that when he finished, there would be nothing left for him to do but kill himself. On November 25,1970, Mishima and members of the Shield Society took over headquarters of the Japanese Self-Defense Forces in Tokyo in what he called an attempted "Showa Restoration."After unsuccessfully trying to get the soldiers to listen to him, Mishima committed seppuku, or the ritual suicide of the samurai warrior.
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