The Sailor Who Fell from Grace with the Sea by Yukio Mishima

I must not be able to appreciate Japanese novels the way other people do. Perhaps if I read this book in a book group or had someone teach it to me, I could enjoy it. Reading it alone was very challenging. (It was translated by the same person who translated Oe's work.) The plot is centered around three people: Noboru, his mother Fusako, and her new boyfriend Ryuji. Noboru admires Ryuji because he is a sailor, but the beginning of the book has several plot strands. One is Ryuji's comfort in his independent life at sea, another is Fusako emerging from acting like a widow, and the other is Noboru's adolescent angst. It is this angst that is the most difficult to follow. This kid runs with others who are philosophically amoral and consider life to be some sort of trick on mankind. I wasn't really able to plow through their philosophical thoughts, mostly because I was distracted by their evilness. The chief of the boys' group states, "They [adults] think danger means something physical, getting scratched and a little blood running and the newspapers making a big fuss. Well, that hasn't got anything to do with it. Real danger is nothing more than just living. Of course, living is merely the chaos of existence, but more than that it's a crazy mixed-up business of dismantling existence instant by instant to the point where the original chaos is restored, and taking strength from the uncertainty and fear that chaos brings to re-create existence instant by instant. You won't find another job as dangerous as that. There isn't any fear in existence itself, or any uncertainty, but living creates it. And society is basically meaningless, a Roman mixed bath. And school, school is just society in miniature: that's why we're always being ordered around. A bunch of blind men tell us what to do, tear our unlimited ability to shreds." (p. 51) Could somebody please explain that to me???

I put the book down after I finished the first section called Summer. My mind wanted to finish the book since I knew others had enjoyed it, but my heart wasn't in it. Thankfully, it became due at the library and I had a valid reason to return it without finishing it.