Book Reviews — Yukio Mishima

10 February 2026

Ok. Starting this up as a general thoughts dump for some of the books I got from the library today. Starting with Yukio Mishima's Sound of Waves (1954).

Sound of Waves

2026-02-10 17:20

First thing I noticed was how positive the author biography on the inside back cover was written. His failed coup d'etat and resulting suicide was glossed over almost entirely, his death being qualified only as a "tragic" end to his life, sometime in the 1970s.

On to the novel itself, so far, just one chapter in, the setting is interesting, I like how much time is spent on the geographical features of Utajima. I like how he describes both the fisher boy, and the description of the unknown girl being done solely from that character's perspective was also interesting. I look forward to seeing how these characters develop.

Truthfully, this post is mostly done as a test for making a reviews section of the blog. It's going to be pretty manual, I fear, but that's okay. I might split this off into its own thing soon.