Over the past week, I’ve been reading the Japanese writer Yukio Mishima’s early work Confessions of a Mask in its original Japanese version. Mishima is known for his highly articulate and decorative writing style with a rich and extensive vocabulary, using numerous archaic literary words, many of which are of classic Chinese origin.
Although I’m a native speaker of Japanese, I come across a few unknown words literally on every page of this novel, requiring me to look them up in the dictionary to be able to progress through the novel. Not that I’m complaining, though—it’s not often that I read a book that bombards me with highly elegant, nuanced, and sophisticated words, providing me with a rare opportunity to broaden my vocabulary in my mother tongue in a substantive manner.
Mishima authored Confessions of a Mask in 1949—merely four years after the end of WWII—at the young and tender age of 24. The novel was an overnight sensation, launching him on a highly prolific and successful trajectory in the Japanese literary scene.
Confessions of a Mask was shocking to many because of its subject matter—homosexuality—a delicate topic that other novelists had hitherto avoided dealing with in such an open and brazen way. Mishima was widely rumored to be gay, and this novel was considered semi-autobiographical with numerous elements of the story coinciding with his own experiences.
The novel starts when the protagonist, Kochan, was a young boy, and follows his life journey as he grows into a mature man, going through a historical period that spans across pre- and post-WWII days in Japan. At a very young age he becomes aware that his sexual attraction was toward men rather than women, and experiences an unrequited love for Omi, his male classmate in secondary school.
When Kochan is in college, he develops a feeling of platonic love of sorts for Sonoko, a younger sister of Kusano, his close friend. However, much as he tries to fall genuinely in love with Sonoko, he can’t feel anything by way of carnal attraction toward her—a kiss with her leaves him with no passionate feeling at all—such that when he is pressed to make a decision about whether to marry her, he has to decline in the end. Disheartened, Sonoko goes on to marry another man.
Subsequently, Kochan continues his life, but as a lonely man with his mind completely shut off. He laments the fact that he is henceforth incapable of opening his heart and falling in love with anyone, and that he will spend the rest of his days wearing a mask, hiding his true self and pretending to be “normal,” hence the title Confessions of a Mask. The story thus comes to its tragic end.
As a gay man, I find this kind of storyline deeply depressing, and yet it makes me grateful that I’m now living in an era and place where I can be open about my sexuality, without being required to wear a mask of any sort. It must have been suffocating for gay men to act in conformity with the rest of society back in the day, and this novel provides me with a glimpse into what it feels like to live with one’s sexuality permanently suppressed.
Despite its prose that is sometimes arcane and riddled with difficult words, Confessions of a Mask is more than fascinating to keep me moving through the pages. I expect to finish reading it in just a few days, making it the first Mishima book for me to read in its entirety. I look forward to reading more masterpieces by this highly talented author and enjoying the depth and richness of his inner world.
