The
Decay of the Angel (1972)
Yukio Mishima
Perhaps,
he sometimes thought, he was a hydrogen bomb equipped with consciousness. It
was clear in any case that he was not a human being.
On
November 25th, 1970, Yukio Mishima, after inking the final word of The Sea of Fertility tetralogy, drove
with a select few members of his private army/boy’s club to the Japan’s Eastern
Army Headquarters. There they kidnapped a general, bound him to a chair, and
standing on a balcony before the gathered crowd Mishima delivered a speech
about duty and honor and purity. The crowd, not understanding what they were
witness to, jeered him and he retreated inside. As he unbuttoned his coat
Mishima turned to one of his acolytes and said: “I don’t think they even heard
me.” And then, in the grand culmination of his life and his art, he committed
suicide by ritual disembowelment.
