Death in Midsummer
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Summary
Editor's review
From the bewilderment of a boy's first brush with the adult world in “The Cigarette” to the subtle reflections on history and memory in “The Pine of the Detached Palace”; from the philosophical meditation on freedom and constraint in “Wings” to the dissolution of the boundary between reality and illusion in “The Circus”—in these stories Mishima had already begun to construct the core themes of his literary world: the antagonism between body and spirit, the cruelty of beauty, and the tragic essence of existence itself.
Especially noteworthy is the narrative experimentation of “Death in Midsummer.” Here Mishima breaks with the lyrical conventions of the traditional I-novel, adopting instead a scalpel-like precision that distills emotion into austere images and restrained rhetoric. This stylistic self-consciousness anticipates the mature style of The Temple of the Golden Pavilion and The Sea of Fertility, in which Japanese classical beauty and Western modernism are fused into one.
For Chinese-language readers, this translation, published by Shanghai Translation Publishing House, preserves the distinctive rhythm of what Jun'ichirō Tanizaki praised as “Mishima's style”: beneath plain vernacular prose pulses a classical cadence, and within delicate psychological portrayal emerges a metaphysical questioning. These stories, though compact, are like finely honed blades, each opening a corner of the abyss of human nature—worth reading and rereading for the aesthetic ambition and philosophy of life that lie behind the words.
Who it's for
A good fit for
- Readers interested in the development of postwar Japanese literature
- Literary scholars seeking to understand the formation of Mishima's early style
- Readers drawn to austere aesthetics and existentialist themes
- Newcomers wishing to encounter Mishima's style through short fiction
Not a good fit for
- Readers seeking light entertainment
- Readers impatient with psychological portrayal and philosophical reflection
Reading tips
- Reading in chronological order of composition is recommended, to observe the evolution of Mishima's style
- Note how Mishima varies the motif of “death” across the different pieces
- Read alongside Mishima's contemporaneous novel Confessions of a Mask to grasp the coherence of his creative work
About the publisher
Shanghai Translation Publishing House is a Chinese publisher oriented mainly toward translation and publishing. Its publications cover foreign literature, world classics and classic works, as well as social culture, folk literature and classical poetry. The database contains 2,618 titles, including Never Let Me Go, Les Misérables (2 volumes), Don Quixote (illustrated collector's edition), The Complete Comedies of Molière (4 volumes), The Complete Novels of Kafka (3 volumes), The Collected Works of Dostoevsky (9-volume set), Reason and Persons, and Oedipus Rex (Translation Classics). Its author resources include foreign writers such as Kazuo Ishiguro, Victor Hugo, Cervantes and Molière, as well as translators such as Zheng Kelu, Sun Jiameng, Li Jianwu and Zhang Kun. The publisher has brands such as "Translation Classics Selections" and "Translation Documentary," and emphasizes translated works in foreign literature and the humanities and social sciences, while also publishing bilingual dictionaries and foreign-language educational books. Public information is limited; the above is based on the book information in the database.
Contents
- 版权信息
- 香烟
- 春子
- 一
- 二
- 三
- 四
- 五
- 马戏团
- 翅膀
- 戈蒂埃风格的故事
- 离宫的松树
- 猜字谜
- 仲夏之死
- 焰火
- 显贵
- 上
- 中
- 下
- 葡萄面包
- 一
- 二
- 三
- 四
- 雨中的喷水
FAQ
Where does Death in Midsummer stand in Yukio Mishima's career?
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About the author
Yukio Mishima (1925–1970) was a Japanese novelist and playwright, born Hiraoka Kimitake in Tokyo and a graduate of the Faculty of Law at the University of Tokyo. He established his literary standing with Confessions of a Mask in 1949, and went on to explore beauty, desire and death in a coolly refined and intensely aesthetic style. His major works include The Temple of the Golden Pavilion, The Sound of Waves and the tetralogy The Sea of Fertility, whose volumes Spring Snow, Runaway Horses and The Decay of the Angel are available in Chinese. He was nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature several times. On 25 November 1970 he committed seppuku at a Self-Defense Forces base, and his life and writing have remained a subject of public discussion. The library holds 84 of his works, mostly under foreign literature, young adult literature and classics.
Chen Dewen is a Chinese translator known chiefly for rendering Japanese literature into Chinese, though his personal details are limited: his birth year, native place and educational background are not clearly documented. Judging from the sixty-eight titles held in the collection, his work centers on introducing foreign literature and classic works, with representative translations including Yukio Mishima's Spring Snow, The Decay of the Angel, Runaway Horses and Forbidden Colors in the Zitu Classic Library series, as well as Kawabata Yasunari's Snow Country and The Old Capital. These translations mainly serve Chinese readers of modern and contemporary Japanese fiction, focusing on major works by writers of high literary standing. Available materials do not systematically record his translation style or views on translation, and the repeated appearance of Snow Country may reflect different editions or reprints, a point that requires further verification. Overall, Chen Dewen's translations offer Chinese-language readers a readable channel into classic Japanese literature.
