I just feel that this very novel of Yukio Mishima is quite different from his other works. While the others, in my opinion, pensively tell gloomy brains of adults, this small and cute novel tells about the multi-layered thoughts of naively serious young kid.
The kid sees his mother sleeping with a sailor a few times and breaks his heart. Is he jealous because someone ’steals’ his mom? No. To him, a sailor is an ideal being on earth, and seeing a sailor sleeping with his mom and later deciding to get married with her, and therefore planning to stay away from the sea, the grand symbol of freedom, this kid–oh sorry I forgot to tell you, his name is Noboru–feels displeased.
So distressed as noboru might be, he and his gang planned to do some harm to the sailor. like what? In the name of shockability, I hold myself from telling it.
The point is, this time, Mishima is quite different from the mishima of the tetralogy the sea of fertility. He’s just being different, and difference, in this case, is not bad, indeed.
