Bunshō Tokuhon 1: The Whole Book
Not a book that teaches how to write. Mishima Yukio's Bunshō Tokuhon (1959) was written to lead readers from "ordinary readers" to "attentive readers." The whole shape of its eight chapters and appendix, read through Chapters 1, 4, 5, 6, 8 and the Q&A.
Reading Mishima Yukio's Bunshō Tokuhon — A Guide to Prose, Written by a Writer for Readers
It is not a book that teaches how to write. Mishima Yukio's Bunshō Tokuhon (Reader on Prose) was written to lead readers of fiction from the "ordinary reader" to the "attentive reader." We check the whole shape of this book of eight chapters and an appendix, by size and structure, and see that Chapters 2, 3, and 7 make up about sixty percent of it.
From Ordinary Reader to Attentive Reader — Reading Chapter 1, "The Purpose of This Bunshō Tokuhon"
The reader who "reads fiction of any kind that comes to hand," and the one "for whom the world of fiction is real." Mishima Yukio divides readers into these two kinds and declares he writes his Bunshō Tokuhon to lead the former to the latter. We read Chapter 1 in order: practical prose and prose for appreciation, his memory of the Ministry of Finance, and his doubts about school composition teaching.
Prose That Walks, Prose That Dances — Reading Chapter 4, "The Prose of Drama"
Fiction without dialogue is called dull, yet plays made only of dialogue are avoided. Mishima Yukio unties this contradiction with the image of "waves and spray," and argues that dialogue in drama is an entirely different thing from dialogue in fiction. Does drama have a style? We read Chapter 4 through to its ending: "the prose of fiction is walking; the prose of drama is dancing."
The Handmaid of Logic, and Eight-Tenths Merit — Reading Chapter 5 (Criticism) and Chapter 6 (Translation)
Can criticism be a work of art? Is it enough for a translation to be faithful to the original? Mishima Yukio sees in the prose of criticism a relation between "logic" and "sensibility," and asks of the prose of translation that it can be read as Japanese. We read the two short chapters in succession.
Making Mediocrity Look Beautiful — Reading Chapter 8, "Prose in Practice — Conclusion"
In the last chapter, Mishima Yukio talks not of theory but of what happens at his desk. The speed and density of prose, why he does not revise, why he avoids "kanojo," why he keeps film actors' names out. And the "dignity and grace" he names as prose's final ideal. We read the ending of the book.
Answers to Fifteen Questions — Reading the Appendix, "Questions and Answers"
"Who is the first beauty of fiction?" "On dialect in prose." "What is a good metaphor?" The appendix of questions and answers speaks in a looser tone than the main text, giving Mishima Yukio's views in answer to fifteen questions. From five of them we pick up practical wisdom and small quirks hard to see in the main text.
How to Read This Book — What Still Reads, What Is of Its Time, and What to Check Against the Works
How much of what Bunshō Tokuhon says can still be read today, and from where is it one novelist's taste of 1959? Within the range we read — Chapters 1, 4, 5, 6, 8 and the appendix — we separate the readable parts from the parts of their time, and write out the points to check in the features on the works to come.