Veiled messages?

The Sailor Who Fell from Grace with the Sea

Novella, Author: Yukio Mashima(1963)

Film version: 1976

Thanks to MEV for introducing this novella to me.

A little bit of background on the Nobel Prize-nominated writer opens a different perspective to the story altogether. Yukio Mashima had an illustrious life; born to a samurai family, living with an eccentric grandmother and later a disciplinarian father, failure to be drafted into the Imperial Army, his involvement in the performing arts and literary work, his fascination with the spirit of Japanese bravery and right-wing movement, a failed coup at overthrowing the Japanese Government and subsequent committing of seppuku in 1970.

In summary, this tale is about a 13-year-old boy, Noboru, whose father had died five years previously. He lives with his mother, Fusako, and a helper. Fusako has a novelty shop that deals with chic Western/modern haute culture. During Noboru's visit to a ship, a sailor, Ryuji, meets Fusako and gets close. Long story short, Ryuji and Fusako get romantically linked and has plans for marriage.

Noboru is a lonely child. His mother locks him inside his room, for he had once disappeared into the night to meet his friend. Noboru has a 'gang' at school - a group of five precocious and intelligent boys. They refer to each other as numbers, 1 to 5, Noboru being number 3. The pack leader, known as Chief, is a rich man's son who has a tight grip over the rest. A bit too intelligent for his age, Chief influences the rest with his Nietzchean look at life, about the purpose of it all and the nihilism that it brings. Chief once dissected a live cat to show the essence of life, the mighty raw power, and appreciate life's soul. 

A man needs to explore his full potential. There should not be any authoritative body to curtail his pursuit of greatness. In Chief's eyes, fathers, teachers and everyone do just that. They douse the spirit.

Noboru's keen pubescent mind yearns to analyse and make sense of things around him. In his locked room, he discovers a crack in the wall that opens to the adjoining room, his mother's. It is a kind of his pastime to peep into his sexually deprived young mother's bedroom. Noboru thinks his world is perfect; at least, that is what Chief tells him. Fathers are no good.

When Ryoji comes into Noboru's life, he is initially excited. Ryoji is the conduit to his fascination, the sea. Through Ryoji, he learns about the unknown and the dangers that the sea had to offer. Scaling the sea tests human power and resilience.

Watching Ryoji and Fusako engaged in passionate love-making through the cracked wall, and when Ryoji decides to hang his seaman cap, Noboru develops a kind of oedipal envy. He and his gang schemes a devious plan to kill Ryoji and reap out his heart like they did to the cat!

Many analysts had looked, some would say overanalysed, into this novella. Extrapolating things that happened in the author's life, seppuku and all, they posit that Mishimo is exploring the boundary of life and death. He is perhaps telling that Man has to be free from the trappings of life to explore his true potential. Maybe Man is unsure what he wants in life, like Ryoji, who runs away from land to the sea, escaping the miseries surrounding his early life, thinking that his true calling is the seas. After scaling the oceans, Ryoji finds that the unknown glory at the waters does not satisfy and yearns to stay put on dry land to start a family.

Some look at this novella as an allegory of the loss of Japanese values in society. Going to the sea was a Japanese thing to do, compared to when Emperor Meiji encouraged locals to go forth and explore after Commander Matthew Perry landed in Kyoto with what the Japanese thought was the celestial dragon. Ryoji was displaying his 'Japaneseness' by venturing out to the sea. Hence, Ryoji returning to land to marry Fusako, a lady who delved deep into Western merchandise, represents the post WW2 generation that traded traditional lifestyle to modernity. Hence, it had to be ended, the murder of Ryoji. So too with Mashimo, when he failed with his coup de tat of overthrowing the Japanese government. The honourable thing to do when he failed is performing his samurai duties, seppuku!

The film version has a slightly different feel to it. Unlike the book, where the story was set in Yokohama, this is done in Devon, UK. The lack of depth in the movie version is compensated by the appearance of the heart-throb of the 70s, Kris Kristofferson, and the liberal display of flesh by the leading actor, Sarah Miles, who plays the role of the mother.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.