The Speaker: Paul McCarthy
The Book Break will focus on the title story in a new anthology of short fiction by Yukio Mishima, published in January in honor of Mishima's birth centenary by Penguin Classics in the UK and Vintage Books in the US. There are fourteen stories in all, by various translators, but our speaker will talk only about the longest and most controversial one, which he translated.
Mishima’s place as a brilliant writer of novels, short stories, plays, memoirs and essays is secure. He was nominated for the Nobel Prize, although it went instead to his mentor Yasunari Kawabata. Mishima's ideological legacy is far more controversial than his literature. To simplify: He thought that, although Japan certainly took the wrong path in the 1930s, the many fundamental changes to Japanese society and culture that were enforced by the American Occupation went too far. In particular, he deplored the reduction of the emperor’s role to a purely symbolic one, deprived of its traditionally sacral character, and also the ambiguous restriction of Japan’s “right to self-defense,” and hence to conventional armed forces, properly so called. In the story “Voices of the Fallen Heroes,”Mishima dramatizes two negative turning points: the suppression of an attempted coup in February of 1936 and the execution of its leaders; and the declaration that the emperor was fully human rather than quasi-divine, in 1946, under Occupation influence. The spirits of the executed coup-leaders and those of the kamikaze pilots near the war’s end express their sorrow and outrage at these two events in passionate poetry delivered during a Shinto séance.
Paul McCarthy's academic background was in English literature as an undergraduate at the University of Minnesota and in Japanese literature and religion as a graduate student at Harvard University. He wrote his Ph.D. dissertation on Jun’ichirō Tanizaki and translated Tanizaki's memoirs and many works of fiction over the years. He met Yukio Mishima in the mid-to-late 1960s, but is only now translating his literature. He is planning an anthology of Mishima’s nonfiction work: memoirs, essays, and lectures.
Doors open at 5:45 pm with a casual “meet the author/cocktail time” from 6:00 pm. Dinner will be served from 6:30 pm and the talk begins at 7:15 pm.
The menu is Pastrami and Tuna Salad, Sauteed Salmon with Ratatouille, Bread, Today's Dessert, Coffee or Tea, and One beverage of choice (orange juice, oolong tea, red or white wine, beer). A vegetarian option is available. Please inform the club of food restrictions when reserving (front@fccj.or.jp). Price: 3,000 yen for members, 4,000 yen for non-members.
This Book Break will not be available for online attendance.
The member reservation deadline is 2 pm September 5, non-members must reserve and pay by Tuesday, September 2, 2025.
No cancellations after Tuesday, September 2.
Library, Archives & Workroom Committee
(The talk will be in English)