The Temple of the Golden Pavilion ( Kinkaku-ji)

was published in 1956 and translated into English by Ivan Morris in 1959.
Characters
Mizoguchi ()
Mizoguchi's father
Mizoguchi's mother
Uiko (), the girl who is "cursed" by him
Tsurukawa (), his kind friend, a fellow acolyte
Kashiwagi (), his evil friend, a student at Otani University
Father Tayama Dosen, the Superior at Rokuon-ji
Father Kuwai Zenkai, who visits (ch. 10)
the American soldier and his girlfriend (ch. 3)
the girl whom Kashiwagi tricks (ch. 5)
the girl from Kashiwagi's boarding-house (ch. 5)
the woman from Tenju Hermitage
the naval cadet (ch. 1)
the prostitute Mariko (ch. 9)
Plot
Childhood
The protagonist, Mizoguchi, is the son of a consumptive Buddhist priest who lives and works on the remote Cape
Nariu on the north coast of Honsh. As a child, the narrator lives with his uncle at the village of Shiraku ( ),
near Maizuru.
Throughout his childhood he is assured by his father that the Golden Pavilion is the most beautiful building in the
world, and the idea of the temple becomes a fixture in his imagination. A stammering boy from a poor household,
he is friendless at his school, and takes refuge in vengeful fantasies. When a naval cadet who is visiting the school
makes fun of him, he vandalises the cadet's belongings behind his back. A neighbour's girl, Uiko, becomes the
target of his hatred, and when she is killed by her deserter boyfriend after she betrays him, Mizoguchi becomes
convinced that his curse on her has been fulfilled.
His ill father takes him to the Kinkaku-ji for the first time in the spring of 1944, and introduces him to the Superior,
Tayama Dosen. After his father's death, Mizoguchi becomes an acolyte at the temple. It is the height of the war, and
there are only three acolytes, but one is his first real friend, the candid and pleasant Tsurukawa. During the 19445
school year, he boards at the Rinzai Academy's middle school and works at a factory, fascinated by the idea that the
Golden Pavilion will inevitably be burnt to ashes in the firebombing. But the American planes avoid Kyoto, and his
dream of a glorious tragedy is defeated. In May 1945, he and Tsurukawa visit Nanzen-ji. From the tower, they
witness a strange scene in a room of the Tenju-an nearby: a woman in a formal kimono gives her lover a cup of tea
to which she adds her own breast milk.
After his father dies of consumption, he is sent to Kinkaku-ji. On the first anniversary of his father's death, his
mother visits him, bringing the mortuary tablet so that the Superior can say Mass over it. She tells him that she has
moved from Nariu to Kasagun, and reveals her wish that he should succeed Father Dosen as Superior at Rokuon-ji.
The two ambitionsthat the temple be destroyed, or that it should be his to controlleave him confused and
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ambivalent. On hearing the news of the end of the war and the Emperor's renunciation of divinity, Father Dosen
calls his acolytes and tells them the fourteenth Zen story from The Gateless Gate, "Nansen kills a kitten", which
leaves them bemused. Mizoguchi is bitterly disappointed by the end of hostilities, and late at night he climbs the
hill behind the temple, Okitayama-Fudosan, looks down on the lights of Kyoto, and pronounces a curse: "Let the
darkness of my heart [...] equal the darkness of the night which encloses those countless lights!"
Friendship with Kashiwagi
During the winter of that year, the Temple is visited by a drunk American soldier and his pregnant Japanese
girlfriend. He pushes his girlfriend down into the snow, and orders Mizoguchi to trample her stomach, giving him
two cartons of cigarettes in exchange for doing so. Mizoguchi goes indoors and obsequiously presents the cartons
to the Superior, who is having his head shaved by the deacon. Father Dosen thanks him, and tells him he has been
chosen for the scholarship to Otani University. A week later the girl visits the temple, tells her story, and demands
compensation for the miscarriage she has suffered. The Superior gives her money and says nothing to the acolytes,
but rumours of her claims spread, and the people at the temple become uneasy about Mizoguchi. Throughout 1946
he is tormented by the urge to confess, but never does so, and in the spring of 1947 he leaves with Tsurukawa for
Otani University. He starts to drift away from Tsurukawa, befriending Kashiwagi, a cynical clubfooted boy from
Sannomiya who indulges in long "philosophical" speeches.
Kashiwagi boasts of his ability to seduce women by making them feel sorry for himin his words, they "fall in
love with my clubfeet." He demonstrates his method to Mizoguchi by feigning a tumble in front of a girl. She helps
him into her house. Mizoguchi is so disturbed that he runs away, and takes a train to the Kinkaku-ji to recover his
self-assurance. In May, Kashiwagi invites him to a "picnic" at Kameyama Park, taking the girl he tricked, and
another girl for Mizoguchi. When left alone with the girl, she tells him a story about a woman she knows who lost
her lover during the war. He realises that the woman she is talking about must be the same one he saw two years
before through a window of Tenju Hermitage. Mizoguchi's mind fills with visions of the Golden Pavilion, and he
finds himself impotent. That evening a telegram arrives at the university bearing news of kindly Tsurukawa's death
in a road accident. For nearly a year, Mizoguchi avoids Kashiwagi's company.
In the spring of 1948 Kashiwagi comes to visit him at the temple, and gives him a shakuhachi as a present. He takes
the opportunity to demonstrate his own skill as a player. In May he asks Mizoguchi to steal some irises and cat-tails
for him from the temple garden. Mizoguchi takes them to Kashiwagi's boarding-house, and while discussing the
story of Nansen and the kitten, Kashiwagi starts to make an arrangement, mentioning that he is being taught
ikebana by his girlfriend. Mizoguchi realises that this girlfriend must be the woman he saw at Tenju Hermitage.
When she arrives, Kashiwagi breaks up with her, and they quarrel. She runs away and Mizoguchi follows, telling
her that he witnessed her tragic scene two years ago. She is moved, and tries to seduce him, but again he is assailed
by visions of the temple, and he is impotent.
Enmity with Father Dosen
In January 1949 Mizoguchi is walking through Shinkyogoku when he thinks he sees Father Dosen with a geisha.
Momentarily distracted, he starts to follow a stray dog, loses it, and then in a back alley he runs into the Superior
just as he is getting into a hired car with the geisha. He is so surprised that he laughs out loud, and Father Dosen
calls him a fool. Over the next two months Mizoguchi becomes obsessed with reproducing Dosen's brief expression
of hatred. He buys a photograph of the geisha and slips it into Dosen's morning newspaper. The Superior gives no
sign of having found it, but secretly places the photo in Mizoguchi's drawer the next day. When Mizoguchi finds it
there, he feels victorious. He tears it up, wraps the shreds in newspaper with a stone, and sinks it in the pond.
As Mizoguchi's mental illness worsens, he neglects his studies. On 9 November 1949, the Superior reprimands him
for his poor work. Mizoguchi responds by borrowing 3000 from Kashiwagi, who characteristically raises 500 of
the money by taking back and selling the flute and dictionary he had given as presents. He goes to Takeisao-jinja (a
shrine also known as Kenkun-jinja) and draws a mikuji lot which warns him not to travel northwest. He sets off
northwest the next morning, to the region of his birth, and spends three days at Yura (now Tangoyura), where the
sight of the Sea of Japan inspires him to destroy the Kinkaku.
He is retrieved by a policeman, and on his return he is met by his angry mother, who is relieved to learn that he did
not steal the money he used to flee. Obsessed by the idea of arson, one day he follows a guilty-looking boy to the
Sammon Gate of the Myshin-ji, and is amazed and disappointed when the boy does not set it alight. He compiles a
long list of old temples which have burnt down. By May his debt (with 10% simple interest per month) has grown
to 5100. Kashiwagi is angry, and comes to suspect that Mizoguchi is considering suicide. On 10 June Kashiwagi
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complains to Father Dosen, who gives him the principal; afterwards, Kashiwagi shows letters to Mizoguchi that
reveal the fact that Tsurukawa did not die in a road accident, but committed suicide over a love affair. He hopes to
discourage Mizoguchi from doing anything similar. For the last time, they discuss the Zen story of Nansen and the
kitten.
Final events
On 15 June, Father Dosen takes the unusual step of giving Mizoguchi 4250 in cash for his next year's tuition.
Mizoguchi spends it on prostitutes in the hope that Dosen will be forced to expel him. But he quickly tires of
waiting for Dosen to find out, and when he spies on Dosen in the Tower of the North Star, and seems him crouched
in the "garden waiting" position, he cannot account for this evidence of secret shame, and is filled with confusion.
The next day he buys arsenic and a knife at a shop near Senbon-Imadegawa, an intersection 2 km to the southeast
of the temple, and loiters outside Nishijin Police Station. The outbreak of the Korean War on 25 June, and the
failure of Kinkaku's fire-alarm on 29 June, seem to him signs of encouragement. On 30 June a repairman tries to fix
it, but he is unsuccessful, and promises to return the next day. He does not come. A strange interview with the
visiting Father Kuwai Zenkai, of Ryuho-ji in Fukui Prefecture, provides the final inspiration, and in the early hours
of 2 July Mizoguchi sneaks into the Kinkaku and dumps his belongings, placing three straw bales in corners of the
ground floor. He goes outside to sink some non-inflammable items in the pond, but on turning back to the temple
he finds himself filled with his childhood visions of its beauty, and he is overcome by uncertainty.
Finally he remembers the words from the Rinzairoku, "When you meet the Buddha, kill the Buddha", and he
resolves to go ahead with his plan. He enters the Kinkaku and sets the bales on fire. He runs upstairs and tries to
enter the Kukkych, but the door is locked. He hammers at the door for a minute or two. Suddenly feeling that a
glorious death has been "refused" him, he runs back downstairs and out of the temple, choking on the smoke. He
continues running, out of the temple grounds, and up the hill named Hidari Daimonji, to the north. He throws away
the arsenic and knife, lights a cigarette, and watches the pavilion burn.
Confessions of a Mask
On its publication in 1949, "Confessions of a Mask" established Yukio Mishima as the rising star on the Japanese
literary scene. The book had shocked members of the literary establishment with its candor and explicitness, but it
remained the topic of conversation in the Japanese newspapers throughout the summer and fall of 1949. Despite the
book's disturbing subject matter, the literary establishment in Japan had to admit that it was an very important piece
of writing. Yasunari Kawabata was echoing a common sentiment when in December of 1949 he published a short
article entitled "Mishima : The hope of 1950".
"Confessions of a Mask" is divided into four chapters.
Chapter one deals with the life of the narrator, whose name is Kochan, from his birth up till pre-adolesence.This
chapter largely deals with Kochan's family history as well as his awareness that he must hide his true self in order
to survive.
Chapter two begins with Kochan at about the age of 12 and follows him through middle school while his sexuality
is developing. This part of the book is where he first becomes aware of his homosexuality as well as the
sadomasochistic fantasies that he has been having since childhood. He develops a fascination with his friend Omis
body during puberty, he believes that everybody around him is also hiding their true feelings from each other,
everybody participating in a reluctant masquerade. Kochan begins having regular fantasies that involve violence,
death and torture. In one particular graphic section of a chapter he daydreams about cannibalism. The daydream
begins with him sitting waiting for dinner to be served. The dinner is being held in a secret basement. Kochan goes
into the kitchen to see when the meal will be ready when he sees one of his fellow classmates being led into the
kitchen from an upstairs staircase. When the unsuspecting student arrives at the bottom of the stairs, the cooks grab
him by the throat and strangle him. The student is stripped naked and laid on a silver platter. The section culminates
with the murdered student being brought before Kochan and set in front of him in the middle of the table where he
then carves the murdered student's body into small slices with sharp knives.
It is just before the above scene in the novel (page 92-93 of the New Direction edition) that Kochan first discusses
his idea about a "murder theater". In the "murder theater" young men would battle like roman gladiators for the
Kochan's amusement. In this "theater", the participants could only use knives or spears (exploding weapons such as
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guns were not allowed) and these weapons had to be aimed at the stomach to prolong the agony and suffering of
those involved. Torture devices were not allowed either since they would not produce a sufficient outpouring of
blood.
Chapter three picks up with Kochan in his middle to late teens. He is now in high school during the time period of
the Second World War. Kochan is trying very hard to prove his "normality" by trying to force himself to have a
romantic interest in women although he often admits to himself that he has never had these feelings towards any
woman. Towards the end of the chapter he meets the sister of a school friend. Her name is Sonoko. He pretends to
have a romantic interest in her, even though he is constantly telling himself that he is not attracted to her sexually.
The young girl falls in love with him, only to have him eventually reject her interest.
In the last chapter of "Confessions of a Mask" Kochan is finishing up college. The Second World War is starting to
come to an end. As the chapter begins, Kochan tells the reader that his sister who he was very close to died from
disease during the war and he was very surprised to find how deeply her death affected him. Sonoko becomes
engaged and marries shortly after the death of Kochan's sister. Kochan meets Sonoko again in passing several years
later. Kochan has now graduated from college and is working for government ministry. Sonoko's husband also
works for a government ministry, so their paths cross often. Sonoko and Kochan starting meeting for drinks in the
afternoon. At one meeting Sonoko asks Kochan why he didn't want to marry her. Kochan gives the same excuse
that he had given her years ago, that he was too young and not finished with his education. Sonoko confesses to
feelings of guilt about their afternoon meetings. She feels as if something might develop between the two of them.
Kochan keeps wanting to see Sonoko even though he is not sexually attracted to her.
The story ends with the two of them walking down the street and passing a dance hall. They go inside. The hall is
filled with a rough looking crowd. As Kochan and Sonko are sitting at a table, Kochan realizes that he should not
have brought Sonoko to this place. As he is looking around he sees a group of tough looking men talking to some
young women. One of the men is a gangster type who is stripped naked to the waist. He is wrapping a waist band
tightly around his body. Kochan can't take his eyes off the young man. He starts having fantasies that the young
man will go out into the street and get into a knife fight with another gang member where he will then be brought
back inside the dance hall with his belly cut open and his half naked body covered in sweat and blood. Sonoko is
aware of the intense attention that Kochan is giving the young man. She then knows why Kochan didn't want to
marry her. The two of them leave dance hall.