The Rachel Shihor Interview
Graphs, Maps, Trees
After reading Vollmann’s The Royal Family, and being extremely impressed, I decided to check out some of his literary influences, one of which is Japanese author Yukio Mishima. Vollmann cites Mishima’s tetraology, The Sea of Fertility, and I read Runaway Horses, the second book in the cycle.
I can recommend this book without reservation (more on that later), but let me just talk about Mishima for a moment. If there was ever an author that Vollmann would be in league with, Mishima is that man. Check this out:
Mishima was deeply attracted to the patriotism of imperial Japan, and samurai spirit of Japan’s past. However, at the same time he dressed in Western clothes and lived in a Western-style house. In 1968 he founded the Shield Society, a private army of some 100 youths dedicated to a revival of Bushido, the samurai knightly code of honour. In 1970 he seized control in military headquarters in Tokyo, trying to rouse the nation to pre-war nationalist heroic ideals. After failure Mishima committed seppuku (ritual disembowelment) with his sword on November 25, 1970. Before he died he shouted, ”Long live the Emperor.” On the day of his death Mishima delivered to his publishers the final pages of The Sea of Fertility, the author’s account of the Japanese experience in the 20th century.
Whoa there. Holy fuck.
I’m going to get a little speculative here. In past interviews, Vollmann has acknowledge the futility of trying to impact the world on a large scale, saying that he thinks the most he can hope for is to make a few individual lives better (like the Southeast Asian girl he kidnapped from a brothel). He has also said that he’s trying to figure out what to do. Is something like the above in his future?
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Hey Scott:
If you liked Mishima, you should also check out his play, Madam de Sade (once published by grove, maybe still?), and the movie about him with a score by Pihil Glass which is one of the most beautiful and least self-indulgent pieces of music Glass ever created.
Interesting Richard, I’ll give the play a shot. I’m a pretty big fan of Glass’s music, so that is also a good recommendation for me.
Maybe I’ll see the movie too. Mishima’s life seems like an interesting one. Runaway Horses gave me some insight into his whole notion of honor and seppuku, but I think I would still like to better understand his mind.
Two really great books by Mishima: Confessions of a Mask & Death in Midsummer and Other Stories. I got introduced to him in 1970 in, of all classes, a political science course in Comparative Poltical Systems of East Asia. We were assigned “Patriotism,” a story I’ve since taught a bunch of times. The Schrader film is pretty good.