The Temple of the Golden Pavilion - Yukio Mishima (Part I)

The Temple of the Golden Pavilion - Yukio Mishima (Part I)

I picked up this book at Kinokuniya New York because I thought that I needed to return to read more fiction. Perhaps fiction could give me some flavor in my everyday life at school. Honestly, I felt that this book made me think a lot only after the first day of reading.

The story is centered around a boy, Mizoguchi, who is obsessed with the golden temple in Kyoto. Events in the story are based on the 1950 Burning of the Golden Temple incident when an unmemorable monk burned down the temple because he thought that Buddhism was becoming too commercialized; there were too many tourists and outsiders coming in. In the story, Mizoguchi is an unattractive boy who could not stop stuttering. He claims that it is his stuttering that delays and fails to communicates his inner emotions to the outside world. Thus, he becomes isolated from everyone else. Nevertheless, this does not stop him from having a passionate attraction to the golden temple. While reading the first few pages of the book there were tidbits of thoughts that came to my mind:

The Beauty in The Temporary Nature of Things

Japan refined an aesthetic theory that held true for many of its art: things are more beautiful when we know that one day it will perish. Cherry blossoms are an example of this as they bloom and wither away in just a few weeks. During the war, Mizoguchi is somehow convinced that the temple will definitely be engulfed by the sea of flames that was started by American B-29 bombers. However, Kyoto is spared. By the end of the war, Mizoguchi becomes disappointed because the temple is safe from the bombing. I guess his wishing for the destruction of something that he passionately finds attractive is a way to fully realize the temple’s beauty. However, I often wonder about the amount of time that something needs to be built and destroyed. Is it a few weeks? A few years? A few decades? Or does it need to be within a human’s memory? There are many aesthetically pleasing things outside the human memory that stood the ‘test of time.’ I think this poses an interesting question in architecture. How can one create a monument that withstands the test of time and at the same time maintain its beauty. I don’t think the temporary nature of things is the sole reason things are beautiful. There must be something else that is unrelated to time.

Value as an Observer

Due to his stuttering, Mizoguchi is bullied and made fun of by people around him. However, he states that he will not pursue talents in artistic creation to make up for his flaws. In this way, he is merely an observer of beauty and not a creator of it. So much scientific and actual literature has gone into showing that value comes from a creation of something. Does Mizoguchi get any value from merely observing something? He does not have anything that adds value to himself. Is observing, then, something valuable in itself? My father gets a lot of satisfaction from just listening to classical music both on record and in concerts. He does not play instruments anymore. However, he is still very happy when sharing his passion on social media. But Mizoguchi does not really share his passion. It remains caged inside him. With his stuttering, I doubt that it will come out.