I'd like to start reading Mishima, but I only have enough money for one book at the moment (lots of bills this month.)
Which should I start out with, /lit/?
Spring Snow, The Sailor Who Fell from Grace with the Sea, or the Temple of the Golden Pavilion?
>>8242117
>reading degenerates
>reading nonwhites
Take the redpill
>>8242120
>Mishima
>nonwhite
Japanese are Aryan stormfaggot
>>8242117
Posting this arbitrarychart which you could have found in the sticky.
The Sailor who fell from grace with the sea is a good start to Mishima. One of my favorite stories. There's a chart floating around on the Wikia I believe which gives a pretty decent path to follow for Mishima.
Hope you like him.
>>8242139
I agree with this chart, but I also think you could start with Patriotism.
>>8242173
Dazai is really really easy to read. You could finish both of his major novels in a day. If you start with Mishima moving on to Dazai is a sigh of relief.
>>8242173
Dazai is a decent read, particularly his works Schoolgirl (Really short, but a tie for my favorite Dazai), and No Longer Human. His other novel, The Setting Sun, is also pretty decent, although like NLH, a bit of a downer. Soseki is also worth checking out, namely Botchan and Kokoro.
I started with Confessions of a Mask and enjoyed it immensely.
Read Col. Onoda's biography and tell me if it's any good.
He's the soldier who lived in the jungle of the Phillipines for like 30 years after the end of WW2 before he finally accepted that the war was over.
>>8242173
Soseki, Dazai and Kawabata for starters.
>>8242173
I like Kenji Miyzawa but he mostly did poetry and fables/kid stories
>>8242171
lol no
>>8242199
Same here.
Temple of the Golden Pavilion is also a good fist read, it might be a little less coded and more obviously Japanese in themes than Sailor.
>>8242173
It's pretty hard to go wrong with the Japanese. Asides from Murakami (Haruki that is) I have liked all I have read. My two favourites are probably Kawabata and Inoe. Tanizaki is quite similar to those two. Him along with Soseki and Akutagawa make up the obligatory Meiji era authors. As mentioned elsewhere Dazai is great.
Endo, while not as well known can be interesting (he has a couple of pretty weak novels). As a Roman Catholic all his novels are about east and west meeting which can be useful as a westerner getting into Japanese lit. Hearn, while not ethnically Japanese is a pretty interesting writer about Japan. As an American you get Japanese essays and stories writer for a western audience.
Oe can be a little weird, easily the most modern of all mentioned authors so far. I have not read anything of his that is bad, some of it quite good in fact, but a little weird. I'm about to start reading Abe, so I can't speak of the quality of his writing but he is often called Kafka of the east, which sounds pretty interesting. Plus I enjoyed the teshigahara movies based on his novels.
>>8242139
Where is Forbidden Colours?
>>8242117
Here's what I've read of Mishima
>Confessions of a Mask
Very personal, angsty book. All about him struggling with his sexuality. If you want to get into Mishima the man, start here.
>Temple of the Golden Pavilion
Where I started - edgy characters you may disagree with but I liked the writing better than Confessions.
>Sound of Waves
Underrated. More straightforward, classic village-boy-falls-in-love-with-girl-but-someone-disapproves story. If you're into that sort of stuff, or are looking for something less dark, start here.
>>8242139
So you shouldn't start with the Sea tetralogy? Guess it's good my copy of Spring Snow has been on my backlog for about a year.
Part of the reason I enjoyed the Golden Pavilion was the fact it was a fictionalized account of actual events. Plus then later on I got to visit the actual temple, which was pretty sweet. I could see why the protagonist became so obsessed over it at a younger age.
>>8242117
>only have enough money for one book at the moment
what is library
>>8247116
The sea tetralogy is a fine place to start with Mishima. Asides from a select few authors I think these charts of where to start are stupid. Mishima isn't a difficult writer and it really doesn't matter (for the most part) where you start. The only cautionary things I can give you is that The Sound of Waves is unconventional for a Mishima novel.
