Mishima Yukio Sun and Steel

In this fascinating book one of Japan's best known-and controversial-writers created what might be termed a new literary form. It is new because it combines elements of many existing types of writing yet in the end fits into none of them. At one level it may be read as an account of how a puny bookish boy discovered the importance of his own physical being the "sun and steel" of the title are themselves symbols respectively of the cult of the open air and the weights used in bodybuilding. At another level it is a discussion by a major novelist of the relation between action and art and his own highly polished art in particular. More personally it is an account of one individual's search for identity and self-integration. Or again the work could be seen as a demonstration of how an intensely individual preoccupation can be developed into a profound philosophy of life.