Chapter 8 is the conclusion of the book, the chapter in which Mishima shows his own workshop as a novelist. About 5,700 characters, short, but in it Mishima’s own habits and tastes appear most plainly in the whole book. (Page numbers follow the edition described in the overview article.)
Extracting elements from the air
The chapter begins, “I am a novelist. I sit at my desk.” Mishima likens his work to that of a person who combines nitrogen and oxygen from the air into some drug: extracting some element from nothing in the air and fixing it in prose. There are days it goes, days it doesn’t. People often ask about the speed of his prose, he says, but how many pages a month one writes is nothing to boast of.
Speed and density
Mishima cites the story that Tanizaki Jun’ichirō wrote Mōmoku Monogatari shut in on Mount Kōya at a pace of roughly one or two pages a day, showing how painstakingly Tanizaki’s seemingly fluent prose was written. The strange thing about prose, Mishima says, is that prose written in a great hurry does not necessarily convey speed, and prose that looks speedy has been made over a long time.
So Mishima discusses the relation of “density” and “speed.” Write fast and density gets coarse, and to the reader the speed looks to fall. Write slowly and the prose is compressed, and to the reader the speed feels strong. As the prose with the swiftest speed, Mishima names Jean Cocteau’s Thomas l’imposteur; as a Japanese example, Ōgai’s Shibue Chūsai.
The declaration of not revising
Mishima’s method of revision is distinctive.
私は文章をあとから訂正するということをしません。（p.190）
(I do not go back and correct my prose afterward.)
Finished prose expresses the truth of what he thought and felt in each period, so to correct it after time has passed is impossible, Mishima says.
私にとっては推敲は、原稿用紙一枚一枚の勝負です。（p.190）
(For me, revision is a match played on each single sheet of manuscript paper.)
If within one sheet the prose sits in good order, has a certain density, and has no vague part, he goes on to the next.
Melting a mediocre line into the whole
Mishima says that when he wrote only short stories, having a mediocre line get into the prose was intensely unpleasant. But he came to see that this was, for a novelist, a pointless fastidiousness.
凡庸さを美しく見せ、全体の中に溶けこますことが、小説というこのかなり大味な作業の一つの大事な要素なのであります。（p.190）
(To make mediocrity look beautiful and melt it into the whole is one important element of this rather coarse-grained work called the novel.)
For instance, for a sentence like “The moon rose. The eaves grew bright. The two went out for a walk,” he could once not have written it without sprinkling in his own sensory discoveries. Now he spares effort there and puts himself into making “knots” here and there in the natural, flat prose. Too many knots would catch in the throat, he says (p. 190).
Mishima’s habits and tastes
After this, Mishima lists several of his habits and tastes. This part is the most personal account in the book.
- Wary of a too-individual appearance. If prose looks too individual, readers attend only to the author’s individuality and stop reading the story.
- Not repeating the same word. Having written “byōki” (illness), he tries next to write “yamai.”
- Fond of parallelism. He likes writing such as “She respected feeling and despised reason.” Like a preference in neckties, he cannot change it, he says.
- Values rhythm. Not 7-5 meter, but he demands a consistent rhythm. He swaps the pebbles in the flow to adjust the rhythm.
- Inserting the present tense among a run of past tenses. Because the Japanese verb comes at the end of a sentence, “…ta,” “…ta” easily run on. Inserting the present tense in moderation changes the rhythm.
- Avoiding “kanojo.” He feels the word “kanojo” is not yet ripe as Japanese. For a female character he repeats the name as often as needed.
- Not using “boku” in essays. He thinks it is a word to be used only in conversation.
- Not naming film actors in fiction. Because ten years on, no one will know who they are.
These are Mishima’s tastes, not rules of correct writing. Mishima himself says so — “this is like my taste in neckties.”
Dignity and grace
At the end of the chapter, Mishima says he places the highest goal of prose in “dignity and grace” (kakuchō to kihin). He respects prose with dignity and grace even if it is not accurate. To seek it in an age when Japanese grows ever more coarse may be anachronistic, he says; but “as your eyes get used to the dark, things become clear,” and it will surely become visible to the eyes of later generations.
His grounds are these.
具体的に言えば、文章の格調と気品とは、あくまで古典的教養から生れるものであります。（p.196）
(Concretely speaking, the dignity and grace of prose are, after all, born from classical cultivation.)
And the book ends with this sentence.
文体による現象の克服ということが文章の最後の理想であるかぎり、気品と格調はやはり文章の最後の理想となるでありましょう。（p.196）
(So long as the conquest of phenomena by style is the final ideal of prose, grace and dignity will surely be the final ideal of prose.)
What to keep in mind when reading
First, this chapter’s “rules” are Mishima’s personal taste. Mishima’s feelings about “kanojo,” “boku,” and actors’ names are those of one writer in 1959. Present-day writers need not adopt the same rules.
Second, “dignity and grace” is not defined in this book. Mishima says it is born of classical cultivation and will be visible to later generations, but gives no concrete standard. In that sense the conclusion is best read as a profession of Mishima’s belief.
Third, what Mishima says in this chapter will be tested again in the features on the works in the second half. How methods like “melting mediocrity” and “knots” actually appear in the works cannot be known without reading the works.
Summary
| Point | Detail |
|---|---|
| Working method | No later correction. Revision is a match per manuscript sheet |
| Density and speed | Write fast and density gets coarse; write slowly and speed is felt |
| Mediocrity | Make mediocrity look beautiful, melt it into the whole. Knots here and there in flat prose |
| Habits and tastes | No repeating words / parallelism / inserting the present tense / avoiding “kanojo” and “boku” |
| The final ideal | Dignity and grace. Born of classical cultivation. The conquest of phenomena by style |
In a nutshell — In the conclusion, Mishima spoke not of rules but of his tastes and beliefs. The final ideal of prose is dignity and grace, and it is born of classical cultivation.