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As is often the case with some of my reviews – Outline, by Rachel Cusk comes to mind – this review of Confessions of a Mask, by Yukio Mishima, is not just a review. It’s also an opportunity for me to explain something about how literature is supposed to operate.

And here’s the (meta-)lesson: There’s no “supposed to” in literature.

Yukio Mishima’s Confessions of a Mask – in a meta-textual twist, having this very element as the core of its plot – demonstrates how awfully things can fall apart once you begin following rules and supposed-tos.

Mishima’s novel is probably one of the most difficult books I’ve ever thought to review. Not only does it defy categorization, but reading it I wonder whether we could even call it “a novel”. In that regard, it’s very similar to Invisible Cities, by Italo Calvino.

Review of Confessions of a Mask: Genre, Plot, Narrative

There are no supposed-tos in literature. As a result, I feel silly talking about genre. Moreover, to a great extent, genres as we understand them are somewhat Eurocentric.

In any case, with this in mind, we could say that Mishima’s Confessions of a Mask is a literary-fiction novel. After all, it talks about some very universal human experiences: love, identity, one’s place in society. It’s also symbolic in various ways, and has incredibly realistic characters.

Yet, no matter how much I try to describe what Confessions of a Mask really is, in terms of neatly placing it next to other works, my attempt just seems to fall short.

In a way, I’m not even sure I could call it “a novel”.

Worry not; it’s not some opaque, experimental work of fiction that makes little sense but for its own author.

Confessions of a Mask follows a perfectly clear trajectory, in terms of narrative journeying. There is a logical sequence between events.

I should also mention here that Mishima’s prose is absolutely stunning – props to Meredith Weatherby, the translator, as well. The descriptions are matchless, and the language beautiful in a deeply philosophical way: not always sense-making, but aesthetically it’s incomparable. If this rings a bell, this is what’s at the very core of negative capability.

The language is also fascinatingly modern; you’d never believe the novel was written in 1949. In that regard, it strongly reminded me of The Bell Jar, by Sylvia Plath.

The plot is very simple – another marker of literary fiction: The protagonist, already as a little boy in pre-WW2 Japan, discovers that his desires and inner thoughts do not… well, again, I could here say something like “coincide with society’s”, but it’s not that simple. Let’s talk a bit about characters, to see why.

Review of Confessions of a Mask: Characters

I’m about to talk about characters, in an attempt to talk about plot. That should give you a hint of how complex a book Confessions of a Mask really is.

Confessions of a Mask revolves around the protagonist’s basically futile attempts at understanding his own place in the world. Put somewhat crudely, he is gay – at a time where the word “gay” meant “happy”.

I use the word crudely because the novel goes far, far beyond the story of a young man who realizes he’s attracted to men, rather than women.

The whole point of the story, in actual fact, is the immense difficulty we face in establishing our own identity.

Like a wave incessantly reaching the shore only to retreat back into the ocean, the protagonist goes through increasingly more complex and sophisticated insights into understanding, followed by ever-deeper realizations of his failure to comprehend anything at all.

No Neat Separations

His psyche is in a constant war with himself, but that, too, is a misnomer. There aren’t two neatly separated sides, polar opposites that offer naive dilemmas. In the world of Confessions of a Mask there is no such thing as “straight or gay”, “happy or sad”, “brave or coward”.

It’s utterly sacrilegious to use an excerpt from my own texts to make the point, but the parallel is too good to pass. The quoted paragraph is from my novel The Other Side of Dreams.

Although Ahmed was left alone, he really wasn’t. Inside his mind a gory battle was underway, with thousands of soldiers hacking each other to pieces. There were no armies involved, no sides at all. Only countless individuals, all fighting everyone else: all the people he’d ever met in his life, but also those he’d heard of; all the instances of himself during his lifetime, and mostly those he wished he were. Stripping down everything dressed on him like a Nessian tunic, what would he find but want? Perchance that was his Sisyphean torment; an eternity of being envious.

This is what the protagonist of Confessions of a Mask feels, almost all of the time.

Review of Confessions of a Mask: General Impression

One of the best books I’ve ever read. How’s that for a “general impression”?

I really don’t feel a review of Confessions of a Mask can properly reveal the genius of Yukio Mishima. Anyone familiar with Mishima’s life can definitely see parallels between Mishima and the protagonist – whose name is Kochan, the diminutive of Mishima’s real name, Kimitake.

On the other hand, as it often is in literature, seeing too strong autobiographical referencesYou might want to take a look at the concept of post-autonomy for more on this. is risky, in terms of literary criticism. More importantly, it’s pointless. The story is neither about Kochan, the protagonist, nor about Mishima; rather it is about all “Kochans” and “Mishimas”, in Japan and elsewhere, in the 1940s and always.

The main character’s anguish, despair, and utter inability to establish the border between (self-)deception and reality are heartbreaking. Against the canvas of WW2 Japan, descending further and further into numbness and mental surrender, the pigments of Mishima are vivid but not sharp, contrasting but not separate, dark but not unrewarding.

Ultimately, Confessions of a Mask poses a question most, if not virtually all of us, are too scared to ask.

Am I a mask?