Rashmi bookmarks “Kinkaku-ji” (The Temple of the Golden Pavilion)

I am fascinated by Japan - a culture that has managed to race far ahead of the rest of the world in terms of technological development, and yet has managed to not just retain, but cherish a traditional way of life that dates back thousands of years.

I have been reading (English translations of) Japanese novels for about a year now, and will share some of my favourite ones with you. For today’s blog, I have chosen Yukio Mishima’s Kinkaku-ji (The Temple of the Golden Pavilion) translated by Ivan Morris.

Kinkaku-ji is based on the real-life event of 1950, when the ancient Zen temple of Kinkakuji in Kyoto was burned to the ground in a shocking act of arson by a young Buddhist acolyte. The novel is about a boy who grows up with a very definite idea of perfect beauty - and what transpires when he visits that manifestation and is finally face to face with the knowledge of what can and cannot be attained.

What I liked most about this work was the brilliant way in which the form and structure of one is reflected in the life and affairs of the other. At one end of the story sits paramount beauty - the temple of the golden pavilion. At the other, is the protagonist Mizoguchi; unsightly, stuttering, friendless and despised. Everything that transpires in his life is a reflection of that difference - of what he is, and of what he can never have. And when the two finally meet, it is not just a face-off between beauty and ugliness… it is a symbolic renunciation of all that has been established as pure and perfect; the ultimate act of rebellion by an outcast who decided to “plunge into an inner world of evil”. Through it all, is the constant rise and fall of hope and despair in his different relationships: with his father, his friend, his lover and his teacher.

One other point (and this by no means is a point specific to this novel, as - from what I have read - this is an inherent part of Japanese literature, the very mindset of Japanese writers) I enjoy the complete freedom of writing. There are no censors, there is no closed-mindedness. That is not to say that there is any morbid glorification either. It is what it is - no more, no less. If there is a scene wherein a woman gives her lover a farewell cup of tea and adds her breast milk to it, there is neither a sense of shining bravado at writing something “bold”, nor is there a sense of childish titillation. It just is. The scene calls for it, and so it is there. In Art - at least - we could all learn to be as open and accepting.

This was actually a flawless book for me. Mishima has created a poignant comparison between the glorious temple that was, and the glorious boy that never would be. It is the ultimate revenge story… followed by definitive irony in the mundane smoke on the hillside. “I wanted to live”, says Mizoguchi. Was his final decision, like so many others throughout his life, guided by plain cowardice? Or was there finally a confidence and a sense of victory that came of destroying all that had once rejected him?

“When you meet the Buddha, kill the Buddha”. In his own way, Mizoguchi does exactly that.