Lucas Sipe

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Lucas Sipe

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Non-things: Upheaval in the Lifeworld

by Byung-Chul Han

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Apr 27, 2025 06:24PM

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Paradise Lost

by John Milton

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Apr 25, 2025 06:43AM

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Runaway Horses (The Sea of Fertility, #2)

by Yukio Mishima

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Reading for the 2nd time

read in March 2023

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Lucas Sipe said: " Superior to "Spring Snow", Mishima's "Runaway Horses" is a slow, thought provoking look into the heart of Japanese radical in the decade prior to World War II. Unlike in "Spring Snow", the ideas Mishima prompts his readers to consider are clear, rich Superior to "Spring Snow", Mishima's "Runaway Horses" is a slow, thought provoking look into the heart of Japanese radical in the decade prior to World War II. Unlike in "Spring Snow", the ideas Mishima prompts his readers to consider are clear, rich, and well worth thinking about. There are the themes between novels, those of re-birth, but "Runaway Horses" explores a whole host of other ideas that are dear to Mishima's own heart.

The idea of western corruption and the disgust any true patriot feels is at the heart of the novel. It's something Yishima himself absorbed. Isao mirrors many of Mishima's later thoughts on the same ideas so this in an interesting read not only as literature but also as reflection on a troubled mans own thinking. While certainly "right-wing", although that might be a useless term, Isao is mostly concerned with purity both in action and thought. Everyone can sympathize with the desire for purity even if we hardly ever match up to it. The degrading actions of others in the novels, such as Isao's father or Lt. Hori, highlights Isao's own beautiful purity and untimely end.

Reading this work I thought of Mishima's stand alone novel, "The Sailor Who Fell From Grace With The Sea", and similar ideas of purity and western corruption. "Runaway Horses" is a much more expressive and complex but they are very similar (see the connection with the sea). Of course, simialr flaws continute to haunt Mishima. His works tend to navel gaze and drone on (not in regards to plot but ideas). This novel and series is about a cycle, so it makes some sense, but I still find that once Mishima is "understood", for lack of a better word, it becomes harder to continue. "Runaway Horses", however, largely manages to avoid that trap by situating other characters follies, impurities, and own ideals against Isao's own. While slow plot wise, the result is a captivating foray into the mind of radical seeking to purge all (what he believes to be)corruption from a rotten society. The truth of the corruption, such as does it exist, is uninteresting to Isao, Mishima, and to the reader in "Runaway Horses" which is where I think some people can get lost with the text.

Not as easily lovable as "Spring Snow" because of the uncommon subject matter and slow plot, the sequal surpasses the original in this case. While it can't be fully understood on a single reading, it works enough on it's own that one should not be afraid of picking it up and getting started with Mishima. ...more "

Mar 16, 2023 12:13PM · see review

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