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The Sound of Waves (Vintage International) Kindle Edition

by Yukio Mishima (Author), Meredith Weatherby (Translator) Format: Kindle Edition

4.4 770 ratings

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A timeless story of first love set in a remote fishing village in Japan. • "A story that is both happy and a work of art.... Altogether a joyous and lovely thing." —The New York Times

A young fisherman is entranced at the sight of the beautiful daughter of the wealthiest man in the village. They fall in love, but must then endure the calumny and gossip of the villagers.

Editorial Reviews

From Library Journal

Written in 1956 and 1959, respectively, this duo represent a hit and a miss. LJ's reviewer found Waves amateurish (LJ 8/56), while Temple was praised by another LJ reviewer (LJ 5/15/59) and Japanese critics, who voted it one of the ten best novels of the year.
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Review

"A story that is both happy and a work of art.... Altogether a joyous and lovely thing."
—The New York Times

"Of such classic design its action might take place at any point across a thousand years."
—San Francisco Chronicle

"Mishima is like Stendhal in his precise psychological analyses, like Dostoevsky in his explorations of darkly destructive personalities."
—Christian Science Monitor

From the Inside Flap

ote fishing village in Japan, The Sound of Waves is a timeless story of first love. A young fisherman is entranced at the sight of the beautiful daughter of the wealthiest man in the village. They fall in love, but must then endure the calumny and gossip of the villagers.

From the Back Cover

ote fishing village in Japan, The Sound of Waves is a timeless story of first love. A young fisherman is entranced at the sight of the beautiful daughter of the wealthiest man in the village. They fall in love, but must then endure the calumny and gossip of the villagers.

About the Author

YUKIO MISHIMA was born in Tokyo in 1925. He graduated from Tokyo Imperial University’s School of Jurisprudence in 1947. His first published book, The Forest in Full Bloom, appeared in 1944 and he established himself as a major author with Confessions of a Mask (1949). From then until his death he continued to publish novels, short stories, and plays each year. His crowning achievement, The Sea of Fertility tetralogy—which contains the novels Spring Snow (1969), Runaway Horses (1969), The Temple of Dawn (1970), and The Decay of the Angel (1971)—is considered one of the definitive works of twentieth century Japanese fiction. In 1970, at the age of 45 and the day after completing the last novel in the Fertility series, Mishima committed seppuku (ritual suicide)—a spectacular death that attracted worldwide attention.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

1

UTA-JIMA—Song Island—has only about fourteen hundred inhabitants and a coastline of something under three miles.

The island has two spots with surpassingly beautiful views. One is Yashiro Shrine, which faces northwest and stands near the crest of the island. The shrine commands an uninterrupted view of the wide expanse of the Gulf of Ise, and the island lies directly in the straits connecting the gulf with the Pacific Ocean. The Chita Peninsula approaches from the north, and the Atsumi Peninsula stretches away to the northeast. To the west you can catch glimpses of the coastline between the ports of Uji-Yamada and Yokkaichi in Tsu.

By climbing the two hundred stone steps that lead up to the shrine and looking back from the spot where there is a torii guarded by a pair of stone temple-dogs, you can see how these distant shores cradle within their arms the storied Gulf of Ise, unchanged through the centuries. Once there were two "torii"; pines growing here, their branches twisted and trained into the shape of a torii, providing a curious frame for the view, but they died some years ago.

Just now the needles of the surrounding pine trees are still dull-green from winter, but already the spring seaweeds are staining the sea red near the shore. The northwest monsoon blows steadily from the direction of Tsu, making it still too cold to enjoy the view.

Yashiro Shrine is dedicated to Watatsumi-no-Mikoto, god of the sea. This is an island of fishermen and it is natural that the inhabitants should be devout worshippers of this god. They are forever praying for calm seas, and the very first thing they do upon being rescued from some peril of the sea is to make a votive offering at the sea-god's shrine.

The shrine possesses a treasure of some sixty-six bronze mirrors. One is a grape-design mirror from the eighth century. Another is an ancient copy of a Chinese mirror of the Six Dynasties period, of which there are not more than fifteen or sixteen in all Japan; the deer and squirrels carved on its back must have emerged centuries ago from some Persian forest and journeyed halfway around the earth, across wide continents and endless seas, to come finally to rest here on Uta-jima.

The other most beautiful view on the island is from the lighthouse near the summit of Mt. Higashi, which falls in a cliff to the sea. At the foot of the cliff the current of the Irako Channel sets up an unceasing roar. On windy days these narrow straits connecting the Gulf of Ise and the Pacific are filled with whirlpools. The tip of the Atsumi Peninsula juts out from across the channel, and on its rocky and desolate shore stands the tiny, unmanned beacon of Cape Irako. Southeast from the Uta-jima lighthouse you can see the Pacific, and to the northeast, across Atsumi Bay and beyond the mountain ranges, you can sometimes see Mt. Fuji, say at dawn when the west wind is blowing strong.

When a steamship sailing to or from Nagoya or Yokkaichi passed through the Irako Channel, threading its way among the countless fishing-boats scattered the length of the channel between the gulf and the open sea, the lighthouse watchman could easily read its name through his telescope. The Tokachi-maru, a Mitsui Line freighter of nineteen hundred tons, had just come within telescopic range. The watchman could see two sailors dressed in gray work-clothes, talking and stamping their feet on the deck. Presently an English freighter, the Talisman, sailed into the channel, bound for port. The watchman saw the sailors clearly, looking very tiny as they played quoits on the deck.

The watchman turned to the desk in the watchhouse and, in a log marked "Record of Shipping Movements," entered the vessels' names, signal marks, sailing directions, and the time. Then he tapped this information out on a telegraph key, warning cargo owners in the ports of destination to begin their preparations.

It was afternoon and the sinking sun had been cut off by Mt. Higashi, throwing the vicinity of the lighthouse into shadow. A hawk was circling in the bright sky over the sea. High in the heavens, the hawk was dipping now one wing and then the other, as though testing them, and, just when it seemed about to plummet downward, instead it suddenly slipped backward on the air, and then soared upward again on motionless wings.

After the sun had completely set, a young fisherman came hurrying up the mountain path leading from the village past the lighthouse. He was dangling a large fish in one hand.

The boy was only eighteen, having finished high school just last year. He was tall and well-built beyond his years, and only his face revealed his youthfulness. Skin can be burned no darker by the sun than his was burned. He had the well-shaped nose characteristic of the people of his island, and his lips were cracked and chapped. His dark eyes were exceedingly clear, but their clarity was not that of intellectuality‹it was a gift that the sea bestows upon those who make their livelihood upon it; as a matter of fact, he had made notably bad grades in school. He was still wearing the same clothes he fished in each day‹a pair of trousers inherited from his dead father and a cheap jumper.

The boy passed through the already deserted playground of the elementary school and climbed the hill beside the watermill. Mounting the flight of stone steps, he went on behind Yashiro Shrine. Peach blossoms were blooming in the shrine garden, dim and wrapped in twilight. From this point it was not more than a ten-minute climb on up to the lighthouse.

The path to the lighthouse was dangerously steep and winding, so much so that a person unaccustomed to it would surely have lost his footing even in the daytime. But the boy could have closed his eyes, and his feet would still have picked their way unerringly among the rocks and exposed pine roots. Even now when he was deep in his own thoughts, he did not once stumble.

A little while ago, while a few rays of daylight yet remained, the boat on which the boy worked had returned to its home port of Uta-jima. Today, as every day, the boy had gone out fishing on the Taihei-maru, a small, engine-powered boat, together with its owner and one other boy. Returning to port, they transferred their catch to the Co-operative's boat and then pulled their own up onto the beach. Then the boy started for home, carrying the halibut he was going to take shortly to the lighthouse. As he came along the beach the twilight was still noisy with the shouts of fishermen pulling their boats up onto the sand.

There was a girl he had never seen before. She leaned resting against a stack of heavy wooden frames lying on the sand, the kind called "abacuses" because of their shape. The fishing-boats were pulled up onto the beach stern-first by means of a winch, and these frames were placed under the keels so they went sliding smoothly over one after another. Apparently the girl had just finished helping with the work of carrying these frames and had paused here to get her breath.

Her forehead was moist with sweat and her cheeks glowed. A cold west wind was blowing briskly, but the girl seemed to enjoy it, turning her work-flushed face into the wind and letting her hair stream out behind her. She was wearing a sleeveless, cotton-padded jacket, women's work-pants gathered at the ankles, and a pair of soiled work-gloves. The healthy color of her skin was no different from that of the other island girls, but there was something refreshing about the cast of her eyes, something serene about her eyebrows. The girl's eyes were turned intently toward the sky over the sea to the west. There a crimson spot of sun was sinking between piles of blackening clouds.

The boy could not remember ever having seen this girl before. There should not have been a single face on Uta-jima that he could not recognize. At first glance he took her for an outsider. But still, the girl's dress was not that of outsiders. Only in the way she stood apart, gazing at the sea, did she differ from the vivacious island girls.

The boy purposely passed directly in front of the girl. In the same way that children stare at a strange object, he stopped and looked her full in the face.

The girl drew her eyebrows together slightly. But she continued staring fixedly out to sea, never turning her eyes toward the boy.

Finishing his silent scrutiny, he had gone quickly on his way. . . .

Product details

ASIN ‏ : ‎ B00C0AM2M2
Publisher ‏ : ‎ Vintage; Reprint edition (April 9, 2013)
Publication date ‏ : ‎ April 9, 2013
Language ‏ : ‎ English
File size ‏ : ‎ 2656 KB
Text-to-Speech ‏ : ‎ Enabled
Screen Reader ‏ : ‎ Supported
Enhanced typesetting ‏ : ‎ Enabled
X-Ray ‏ : ‎ Not Enabled
Word Wise ‏ : ‎ Enabled
Sticky notes ‏ : ‎ On Kindle Scribe
Print length ‏ : ‎ 194 pages

Best Sellers Rank: #384,482 in Kindle Store (See Top 100 in Kindle Store)
- #130 in Japanese Literature
- #1,062 in Classic Literary Fiction
- #1,112 in Classic American Literature

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4.4 770 ratings

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Yukio Mishima

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Yukio Mishima (三島由紀夫 Mishima Yukio?) is the pen name of Kimitake Hiraoka (平岡公威 Hiraoka Kimitake?, January 14, 1925 – November 25, 1970), a Japanese author, poet, playwright, actor, and film director. Mishima is considered one of the most important Japanese authors of the 20th century. He was considered for the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1968 but the award went to his fellow countryman Yasunari Kawabata. His works include the novels Confessions of a Mask and The Temple of the Golden Pavilion, and the autobiographical essay Sun and Steel. His avant-garde work displayed a blending of modern and traditional aesthetics that broke cultural boundaries, with a focus on sexuality, death, and political change. Mishima was active as a nationalist and founded his own right-wing militia. He is remembered for his ritual suicide by seppuku after a failed coup d'état attempt, known as the "Mishima Incident".

The Mishima Prize was established in 1988 to honor his life and works.

Bio from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. Photo by Shirou Aoyama (http://www.bungakukan.or.jp/) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.

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Christopher O'Riley

Every Mishima I read becomes my new favorite.

Reviewed in the United States on October 8, 2019

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It's fair to say that this past year, my reading life has been dominated by Japanese writers. I've been a late enthusiast of Haruki Murakami's work, but I've happily read all of it in the last three years. Just before the New Year I was introduced to the work of Yasunari Kawabata through which I was swept, awe-struck through his whole ouevre. Soon after that, I read my favorite book of all time, Natsume Soseki's I Am A Cat. Of course I read him through, though crest-fallen at the lesser prominence of felines in his later novels. Despite that, Soseki was my favorite Japanese writer, but perhaps my favorite writer of all.
Kawabata's colleague, confidant and competitor, ultimately prevailing in his winning of the Nobel Prize for Literature, Yukio Mishima, was someone I'd heard of but never assayed.
Yukio Mishima is my favorite writer. I was fully committed to bingeing his work after my introduction via Michael Gallagher's supremely sympathetic English translation of The Sea of Fertility's first volume, Spring Snow. Committed as I was, I read his earliest novels, Confessions of a Mask (1949) and the formidable Forbidden Colours (1951-53). I found Alfred H. Mark's translation of Colours irritatingly clunky in a way that made me suspect I was misapplying the abrupt and awkward prose to Mishima's immature work. My acquaintance with Meredith Weatherby's astonishing translation of Confessions of a Mask thoroughly disabused me of any feeling of young Mishima's shortcomings or brashness, properly laying the blame on the lame Alfred Marks. I own the next in chronological line of Mishima's work, Thirst For Love (1950), but, Marks having been the sole translator of that early work, I think I'll save it for a later date.
Luckily, the inestimably talented and sympathetic translative ear of Meredith Weatherby was the English voice of The Sound of Waves (1954) which I've now read in a white heat. Mishima has written widely for the stage, and in this book and in the few others I've read, I am struck by his gifted command in shaping dramatic situations, dynamics both personal and elemental, as the ambience and engine of his narrative. I have also been overwhelmed with his imagery, wherever I've encountered it, with his empathetic descriptions of the sea and surf.
After the homoerotic cosmopolitan immersions of contemporary Tokyo that are Mishima's Mask and Colours, it was bracing to say the least to find ourselves landed in the simpler setting of a humble fishing village on the small Japanese island, Uta-Jima (invoked as the first sonority, the first word of the novel)
I have always been arrested by the fierce intensity and laminate beauty of Mishima's water imagery, but The Sound of Waves is a whole redolent universe of such astonishing evocation. It is also an unabashed, intimately compassionate and compelling love story of two children of the island, Shinji, a young apprentice fisherman, and a daughter of the diving class of island women, Hatsue. As with Confessions of a Mask, one innate talent of Mishima is in his depiction of young love, of emergent sexuality. I am confident there has never been such a master of this dynamic of innocence and awakening since Vladimir Nabokov.
As much of the novel takes place in the sea, with its dangers and daring, its implacable strength and eternity, much of the dramatic and emotional action takes place within the torii of the modest pinnacle of the island, the Yoshiro Shrine. And the true nexus of intrigue and destiny takes place at the electrical shrine dispelling darkness, danger and mystery, the lighthouse.
A writer friend of mine, someone who'd been badgering me to continue with the Three-Body Problem trilogy, when I apologized that I could not abandon my Mishima n=binge, understood, saying that it was a problematic calculus, Cixin Liu's prophecies and epiphanies coming once every 100 pages, arriving in Mishima with every phrase.
Every characterization is true. There are no mechanistic caricatures like in a Dickens novel. Even when making right decisions, the frailty and foibles of those molding the fate of the protagonists may not state their judgements in ways that fulfill our own sense of justice and morality, but justice prevails nonetheless, and the characters and their colloquy are always true to themselves.
There are cliff-hangers in this love story, matters of bravery and menace, revelations of dark and ungenerous natures, the sanity and sanctity of suicide, morality of simple origins, intrinsic fear of modernity. The book is rich and enriching.
I feel like every Mishima book I read will become my new favorite. That's an unfair presumption but nonetheless true with The Sound of Waves.

21 people found this helpful

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Chad M. Supp

A love poem to an island.

Reviewed in the United States on February 16, 2016

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Mishima's love poem to an island, wrapped in a traditional story of young, forbidden love. This was my first Mishima. Like the best poets, Mishima paints vivid pictures of the natural world. The island of Uta-jima comes alive on the pages, its surrounding waters equal parts beautiful and dangerous, its beaches diverse, its ecosystem unique. The love story is familiar, especially for those of us who grew up in small communities where farming and gossip are the primary local trades. For the most part, Mishima likes his characters, even the ones who clearly are not the heroes. In fact, he may like his characters a bit too much, at least in this early stage of his career, as the heroes are somewhat overloaded with virtue. It was also odd to me, that we learn so much about the breasts of the female inhabitants of Uta-jima. But I'm fond of breasts, and you could do worse than have someone of Mishima's capabilities describe them for you.

10 people found this helpful

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Stephen

A Graceful Story

Reviewed in the United States on May 4, 2024

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Absolutely charming story graced by pen and ink sketches. I loved this book, with it’s simple story of a romance set against beautifully written descriptions of Island scenery and te surrounding sea.

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renee scupien

This is a book, you do not actually hear waves

Reviewed in the United States on February 8, 2024

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Good book. Title is a bit deceiving

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Fred O

Mishima was great indeed!!!

Reviewed in the United States on December 12, 2014

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This book is about love in its purest form, but oddly enough it doesn't hit you over the head with it: a testament to Mishima's beautiful writing and also to the deeper meaning of the story. The main characters Shinji and Hatsue are traditional in every sense and he is drawn to her at first sight, then comes a chance for them to get it on but they don't, even though everyone thinks they did, no thanks to the antagonists Chiyoko who has been westernized along with Yasuo who tries to get it on with Hatsue in a not so traditional way. Mishima was certainly disillusioned with his changing Japan and longed for a return to its traditional roots and this book shows that, as good old tradition triumphs in the end and the antagonists come to some sort of realization of the error of their ways. And like i said, this is the beauty of Mishima's writing, in that first and foremost this is a romance about two teenagers falling in love, but by the end you realize that it is so much more. Mishima was great indeed.

7 people found this helpful

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Harry

Too perfect - bring on the real Mishima

Reviewed in the United States on November 21, 2012

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This was a nice (short) read - and `nice' is not a word that usually comes to mind when reading the works of Yukio Mishima. The Sound of Waves doesn't have the suicides and violence of other Mishima works - something I don't miss - but it also lacks his usual depth of character study and glorious prose - that I do miss. The key characters are altogether too nice, too perfect. Shinji, the handsome, brave, self-effacing youth who never told a deliberate lie until page 156 of the book - and Hatsue, much the same, but with perfectly perky breasts. It seemed that Mishima grew tired of these too perfect creations and rushed the book to its happy conclusion. I kept anticipating the emergence of a savage twist, but it was not to be - all was happiness and light. I suppose Mishima may have written this as an allegory for what he (perhaps) secretly hoped his life could be - and I think John Nathan explained in Mishima's biography that he was influenced by a fascination with Greek legends and sculpture at this time - but thankfully he returned to the Mishima we love with later works.

Can't say I would recommend this book, other than as an interesting part of Mishima's canon of work. The Vintage International edition is worth reading for their hilarious profile of Mishima - `born into a samurai family, imbued with the code of complete control over mind and body and loyalty to the Emperor' - utter nonsense!

One person found this helpful

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The Butcher

Interesting book, great love story.

Reviewed in the United States on October 28, 2021

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Very interesting love story from a country and standpoint I've never come across before. But it did reinforce the great truth that love is the same world wide...and so is the meanest of others, that sometimes accompanies it. But thankfully, love does prevail.

2 people found this helpful

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Amazing book for a rainy day

Must read

Reviewed in the United States on October 12, 2023

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Amazing book for a rainy day

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Harman Hundal

Kys

Reviewed in India on October 18, 2018

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Yet to read the book but the quality of the book is bad some words are misprinted and the cover was folded

2 people found this helpful

Kilt_monster

Eloquent, simple, nice to read!

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on August 11, 2015

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Simple, easy to read, nice plot, nice descriptions of the island where the adventure takes place and the ins and outs of day to day life.

This is the tale of a young man falling in love with a rich magnates daughter. He has to overcome grand expectations, virulent rumours, being outcast and his humble roots to win her hand and get off the breadline. He does so through good character, hard graft and honesty! All of this is set on a small Japanese island where thefts don't happen, fishing and peal diving is the principle occupation and where mainland Japan seems far, far away. For characters we have an innocent girl, a strong posturing young man, a proud hawkish mother, an overbearing father and hooligan rich kid... all the people you could want for a moving plot!

A few bits are a tad loose but what can I say, it is undeniably a good read.

Amazon Customer

Good as new

Reviewed in Canada on April 17, 2023

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*Haven't read the book yet* (thats why I didn't put 5 stars yet)
Ordered it used and the quality is good as new. No damage at all. Even in better condition than my own used books. Would recommend buying second hand :)

Thomas A. Regelski

love story

Reviewed in Germany on July 8, 2023

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Low key (Japanese styoe) love story. Little drama, mainly predictable

reader 451

Sea breeze of a tale

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on March 26, 2015

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Mishima's best is no-doubt the sea of fertility tetralogy, but The Sound of Waves is a pleasant short novel, or long novella, less gloomy and wistfully, even uplifting, somewhat like After the Banquet but in an entirely different setting. This has Shinji, an uneducated young fisherman on an island off the coast of Japan pursue the daughter of the community headsman, the overbearing owner of several vessels. The girl, Hatsue, a former pearl diver, is well disposed, but her father is in no mood to condone anything so newfangled as a love match. Yet tradition also involves respect for courage and character, virtues in which Shinji is not lacking, and perhaps all is not as hopeless as it looked. Nor does The Sound of Waves, in spite of first appearances, present the picture of a traditional Japan stuck in its ways. On the contrary, set in the 1950s, it has its characters do such things as listen to the radio and take bus trips to Tokyo. Indeed, subtly, what Mishima brings to light is the picture of a country that is fast changing yet retaining, at least in pockets such as the island of Utajima, its traditional values. Beautifully written, this novel will serve as a good introduction to the author, or alternatively as a fine piece for anyone who has read his more major works.

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