baby we back 

interesting to know your take on mishima! ive read 2 by him, the sailor who fell from grace, and the golden pavilion. i still generally think these 2 books are good, but unfortunately ive found that i can never truly bring myself to like his works tho. mostly because mishima's authorial self always intrudes upon his work. in general, its always hard for me to vibe well with books that lacks subtlety / an air of ambiguity. and its not so much that i dont like books that present perspectives which oppose mine. its more so that im always rather turned off when authors utilize characters or literary devices as mere strawmen of their own personal convictions / opinions, and when its so in ur face / not masked elegantly. ive previously has this same problem w dostoevsky for instance (the brothers karamazov). but its especially even more noticable with mishima. and it made it all the more harder to just ignore them bcs he unironically held pretty disturbing beliefs during his life lol (the fascism, the pro-japanese imperialism, the misogyny, among others). when u briefly recounted the plot of life for sale, my complicated feelings for mishima immediately came back to me. i might be wrong bcs i havent read it ofc, but im pretty sure that it was his attempt to use surrealism to deal with his inner conflict when his first suicide attempt failed. he was v occupied with self-mythologizing himself at that time. the big part of this mythology he carefully constructed was indeed suicide, or more precisely, having one's own say in determining death (as it speaks volumes of one's own "manhood", again inseparable with fascists' romanticization of "the self" etc). the exact same themes exist in the 2 books ive read as well. in the golden pavilion, its so much more about mishima projecting his idealization of 'the man' and 'the self' on the buddhist monk who actually did incinerate kinkaku-ji in the past. while in the sailor who fell from grace, again it echoed the themes that are more similar to the ones in life for sale. esp in that book ive found mishima's personal intrusion on the story to be much noticeable, blatant, and uncomfortable. i think i will still try to tackle his other books perhaps in the future. bcs im very interested to read spring snow and confessions of a mask! but ive been putting off reading him again for a while now, bcs i read the previous 2 books back to back and it kinda messed w my head ngl lol. anyway sorry for basically commenting a whole ass essay lmao, i just find the topic v fascinating!

i'm catching up on many videos!!! that cocktail bar is so chic!!!! i need to watch more movies!!!!!! your love of movies is inspiring!

Loved this cozy video-and the sweater as a scarf is something I need to try!

Aw it made me smile to see you so happy with your friend at the end of the vlog. ❤😊

Mishima is proof that the pretty ones are always just a little bit psychotic lol. Also the vibes of that cocktail bar at the end are immaculate!

Your video montage is so good

Kudos…mind boggling, yes!

Were you watching RU-vid and reading at the same time? How??? I really loved The Sailor Who Fell From Grace with the Sea, but only recently found out how weird Mishima is. Also, I am also always behind on Booktube, case in point

yeah kudos seemed a bit out of place in the trilogy. that ending though lol so out of pocket. but you're right, kudos sets up her later works. the major concern in kudos is with female empowerment. faye has leveled up (since her separation-divorce-home rennovation) and can stare patriarchy/misogyny square in the face and wait for the "stream of machismo" (iykyk haha) to end.