The Temple of the Golden Pavilion (Everyman's Library (Cloth))

Features

• Cover Type: Hard Cover with 304 pages
• Published by: Everyman's Library March 21, 1995
• Written in: English
• ISBN 10 Number: 0679433155
• ISBN 13 Number: 978-0679433156
• Book Dimensions: 8.3 x 5.2 x 0.9 inches
• Weighs: 14.7 ounces

Product Review
"Beautifully translated Mishima re-erects Kyoto, plain and mountain, monastery, temple, town, as Victor Hugo made Paris out of Notre Dame."

-- The Nation

"An amazing literary feat in its minute delineation of a neurotic personality."

-- Chicago Tribune

Translated from the Japanese by Ivan Morris


From the Trade Paperback edition.

Product Review
"Beautifully translated Mishima re-erects Kyoto, plain and mountain, monastery, temple, town, as Victor Hugo made Paris out of Notre Dame."

-- The Nation

"An amazing literary feat in its minute delineation of a neurotic personality."

-- Chicago Tribune

Translated from the Japanese by Ivan Morris --This text refers to the Paperback edition.

Reader Reviews
This review is from: The Temple of the Golden Pavilion (Paperback) The Temple of the Golden Pavillion is an excellent psychological novel. In this book, we can see how a mind can be driven along to evil through obsession. The main character of this book is Mizoguchi. He is the son of a poor rural priest. He is taken by his dying father to become an acolyte at the Temple of the Golden Pavillion. All throughout his childhood, his father had told him about the spledid beauty of this temple. Mizoguchi builds up an image of ideal beauty in his mind based on this Golden Pavillion. However, this ideal image causes him to feel disappointed in any supposed form of beauty, including women and even the actual physical Golden Pavillion. Nothing can live up to this image of supreme beauty. As he enters university, he comes under the influence of Kashiwagi, a fellow student with a very bitter view of life. Under this influence, Mizoguchi's dark feelings bubble up inside him. One of my favorite parts is Mizoguchi and Kashiwagi's discussion of knowledge and action. Kashiwagi asserts that an unbearable life can be made bearable by just having the knowledge that it is unchangable. However, Mizoguchi argues that knowledge is a dead thing, and that only action to change to change an unbearable life can make it bearable. This attitude leads him to his final desperate attack. I think that this book is particularly important in this age of terrorism. Often people ask why do terrorist do what they do, and they ask this because they don't understand the obsession (whether in ideal beauty as in this book, or with fundamentalist religion as in the case with terrorists), the hopelessness, and the desperation that they feel. I think if you read this book, you can understand how a mind is turned to evil acts through these means. Please read this book, if only to understand this point. A previous reviewer complained that ther isn't much action in this book, and that is true, but that's no reason to give it a low rating. It's a psychological novel about the process of a mind on the road to evil, so naturally the main part of the story takes place in the mind. If you want a novel with exploding cars, you should try a Tom Clancy novel instead. Comment (1) | | (Report this)