Review: The Sound of Waves

The Sound of Waves by Yukio Mishima
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I have only read one other book by Mishima--The phenomenal, "The Sailor Who Fell From Grace With the Sea"--and I have to say, this book is a far cry from the brilliance of that novel. I say that only because of the characters presented here, with many of them, while affecting the plot in some way, don't feel all that important in the big scheme of things. For example, the protagonist's brother goes on a trip at one point in the novel and the overall impact of it has nothing to do with the rest of the book other than the fact that he got to see what the world was like outside of their puny fishing village. Yes, it speaks volumes to the setting Mishima strove so hard to set, but character-wise, it kind of falls flat.

That said, the story that lives in this small book (It's under 200 pages), is quaint enough to give it a read. The conflict never feels all that great, and like the small size of the book, the problems also seem quite small and minimalistic (I'm interested to see how they actually made five different films about this book). Overall, it's a fine read, but I wouldn't recommend it it everyone. If you're interested in Mishima, I suggest reading the aforementioned, "The Sailor Who Fell From Grace With the Sea". There's some heavy stuff in there. Looking forward to reading his Sea of Fertility tetralogy.

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