Spring Snow or Confessions of a Mask are probably my favorite works by him.

His early stuff is really interesting (and in certain ways more complex) than his later post-Tatenokai founding works (Spring Snow and Maybe his last book, Decay of the Angel being exceptions).

Open question for all PoEsters: without giving away too many spoilers, do you think Mishima should have succeeded or failed during the Ichigaya coup? Not *could* he have, but *should* he have?

If you could rewrite history, how would you want the Tatenokai to have played out?

Honestly, I think it played out exactly to Mishima's expectations and desires for it. He knew he didn't have a chance of success (while I know it's gauche to read intent into an author's work, The Sea of Tranquility tetrology makes it hard not to). His disillusionment with both his life and contemporary society is palpable in The Decay of the Angel.

Mishima believed (quite correctly) that the Japan of the 1960s was practically unrecognizable from that of his youth, particularly in the wake of the New Left demonstrations and the rise of the Japanese Communist Party. That combined with his constant fear of growing old meant that he was easily able to rationalize killing himself in such a ritualized manner as the only means of staying "purely Japanese" or "eternally youthful" or any of a number of issues he had.

As to the question of whether or not it should have been successful, of course not. The Tatenokai was ridiculously right wing and out of touch with the push towards economic revitalization (not that those things can't be subject to critique, as the New Left movement was attempting). These are the kind of people who would call the history textbook amending, Nanjing denying, comfort women blaming right wing Diet members "stinking commies".

If you get fired from your job for watching Mishima at work I hope you're prepared to disembowel yourself on your boss's desk the next day.

Or as I call it, "Tuesday".