When I saw the movie a long, long time ago (didn't everyone who loved Kris Kristofferson?), I didn't know this was a book. I came across it recently in a used book shop. Trust me the book is just as disturbing as the film. ( )

I have long been a fan of the Sea of Fertility tetralogy but my reaction to this particular work is different: No. Just no. Simple and simplistic to a fault. The writing is unexceptional, the situation(s) unexceptional, and indeed the whole thing just struck me as unremarkable in every way. Even the protagonist, who is far better drawn than the secondary characters, stuck me as not very well filled out. Aspects of his thoughts and feelings were detailed even as a sympathetic or full understanding and motivations were absent. The mother and stepfather are so sketchily drawn as to be almost laughable. The story seemed overly plotted with the denouement inevitable from the first line. Because I am such a fan of the Sea of Fertility, I will pick up and try other works, but this left me enormously disappointed. ( )

Grande manejo das angústias existências de um adolescente, ainda sob o abismo da irresponsabilidade, equilibrando-se, e do adulto que não deixa de fantasiar, mas é interpretado como não fantasiando a realidade. Infelizmente, ao meu ver, por mais incrível que seja, o livro soa como pela metade. Por mais que eu entenda o final, acreditaria se enredar e desenvolver pra além da sugestão de uma glória fantasiada ( e por isso deixada não escrita). ( )

I don't like its sinister ending.

Intense, passionate prose that I couldn't put down. It felt surprisingly Western in both its style and allegory. I was reminded a bit of Graham Greene and Cormac McCarthy – a mundane story of a reality that is familiar and beautiful and strange all at once... then abruptly grotesque. I will definitely read more Mishima, but once again I've found an author who I wish I could read in his native tongue. Some lines were simply exquisite, even in English:

"An ugliness unfurled in the moonlight and soft shadow and suffused the whole world. If I were an amoeba, he thought, with an infinitisemal body, I could defeat ugliness. A man isn't tiny or giant enough to defeat anything."

"The parting, like the white fruit of an apple discoloring instantly around the bite, had begun three days before when they met aboard the Rakuyo. Saying goodbye now entailed not a single new emotion."

The final page ranks up there with the best finales I've ever enjoyed, as far as prose style. ( )