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.
