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Bezig met laden... Confessions of a Mask (origineel 1949; editie 1958)door Yukio Mishima (Auteur)
Informatie over het werkBekentenissen van een gemaskerde door Yukio Mishima (1949)
Japanese Literature (17) 1940s (45) » 15 meer Best of World Literature (120) Best LGBT Fiction (64) Favourite Books (1,169) Books about World War II (132) 20th Century Literature (690) Readable Classics (98) Overdue Podcast (509) Bezig met laden...
Meld je aan bij LibraryThing om erachter te komen of je dit boek goed zult vinden. Op dit moment geen Discussie gesprekken over dit boek. Mishima is famous for all the wrong reasons - mainly as a fascist who committed seppuku after a failed military coup - but he's also famous for frequenting Nichome, strenuously denied by his widow, of course. A fascinating character, nonetheless, and this is the first of his books that I've gotten around to reading. As per the above, this particular novel about a boy dealing with dark sadistic sexual fantasies about other boys comes across as semi-autobiographical, although there's strictly no evidence of such. Certainly Mishima was familiar with putting on a mask, or public face. It's also a good look at war-time Japan, incidentally. The translation was a bit strained at times - for instance, I could see the translator struggling to come up with an idiomatic translation of Japanese set phrases like 'ittekimasu' that have no equivalent in English. At another point, the text mentions "H. prefecture near Osaka" and I just wondered why they didn't write "Hyogo". Perhaps when the book was translated in the 50s they didn't think people would be able to handle all the foreign names, a trend that I think has changed since then. I guess I'd read it in Japanese, but my level - and patience to read all the kanji - is still a bit too low for that. Escrita en 1949,Confesiones de una máscara es la más representativa de las novelas de Yukio Mishima (Tokio, 1925-1970), y en ellas se narran las peripecias de un adolescente que descubre sus inclinaciones homosexuales y que por ello se ve obligado a representar una complicada comedia para subsistir, a colocarse una máscara con la que aparentar “normalidad” cuando en lo más profundo de su ser se reconoce como un joven diferente, aislado y alejado de los patrones socialmente aceptados. Esta novela biográfica constituye un elaborado y original estudio de la homosexualidad “vista desde dentro”, y en cada una de sus páginas queda de manifiesto la enorme valentía de su autor al describir con todo lujo de detalles las fantasías sádica del protagonista, su irreprimible atracción por la belleza, la sangre y la muerte, su fetichismo sin límites...
"In 'Confessions of a Mask' a literary artist of delicate sensibility and startling candor, has chosen to write for the few rather than the many." Onderdeel van de uitgeversreeks(en)PrijzenErelijsten
Confessions of a Mask tells the story of Kochan, an adolescent boy tormented by his burgeoning attraction to men: he wants to be "normal." Kochan is meek-bodied, and unable to participate in the more athletic activities of his classmates. He begins to notice his growing attraction to some of the boys in his class, particularly the pubescent body of his friend Omi. To hide his homosexuality, he courts a woman, Sonoko, but this exacerbates his feelings for men. As news of the War reaches Tokyo, Kochan considers the fate of Japan and his place within its deeply rooted propriety. Confessions of a Mask reflects Mishima's own coming of age in post-war Japan. Its publication in English--praised by Gore Vidal, James Baldwin, and Christopher Isherwood-- propelled the young Yukio Mishima to international fame. Geen bibliotheekbeschrijvingen gevonden. |
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Google Books — Bezig met laden... GenresDewey Decimale Classificatie (DDC)895.635Literature Literature of other languages Asian (east and south east) languages Japanese Japanese fiction 1945–2000LC-classificatieWaarderingGemiddelde:
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It in his early adulthood, when the narrator is convincing himself that he is his mask — that what he should want and what he does want are one in the same, that I was finally all in. I found it such a compelling portrayal of that compulsive heteronormativity — that everyone else assumes he is straight and he himself assumes/convinces himself he is straight and the cracks at the seams are getting wider but his circular self-assessments just get tighter. And even the narrator’s occasional admissions of the difference of his desires are so hemmed in by the rigid models of “inversion” — there are only two types of invert, according the authorities of the time, or at least those available to our narrator.
So yes, in the end, I loved this. I am getting more and more curious about reading more about Mishima as a person. I shall have to see if there are any good biographies available. ( )