The Sailor Who Fell From Grace with the Sea

The Sailor Who Fell From Grace with the Sea is a novel by Japanese author Yukio Mishima, which was published in Japan in 1963 and translated into English two years later by John Nathan. The novel follows two main characters, a thirteen-year-old boy named Noboru Kuroda living with his widowed mother, and a sailor named Ryuji Tsukazaki, who falls in love with Noboru's mother and gives up his life on the sea. The book's original title, which is translated loosely to mean “Tugging in the Afternoon,” includes word play only understood in the Japanese, which equates tugging with the idea of glory, a theme which preoccupies both characters as they strive, and ultimately fail, to achieve their desires and make meaningful lives for themselves.
 
The book begins with Noboru and his mother Fusako, who are living in Yokohama, Japan. Noboru's mother is an upper-class widow who owns a clothing store called Rex, which sells European fashions. Noboru appears to be an average boy and does well in school, but is secretly part of a gang of adolescent boys who reject the idea of living by conventional morals. The boys believe they are geniuses who don't have to live by the rules that others do, and discuss nihilism at their group meetings. Each member is ranked in a hierarchy, lead by a schoolmate everyone calls Chief. Noboru is third in the group, and is called Three, after his rank.
 
In the early chapters of the book, Noboru begins spying on his mother in her bedroom through a peephole in his wardrobe after she is stern with him for not following her rules. He watches her masturbate, and as he does he begins to have philosophical thoughts about the nature of loneliness. He sees the “zone of black” his mother touches as representative of the empty house where they live, and his own existential unhappiness with the world. This scene introduces the reader both to Noboru as a character, and to the themes of the book, which are intensely philosophical and rooted in the contrast between the characters' alienation and their desire to succeed and achieve glory.
 
Noboru is fascinated by ships, and one day his mother takes him down to the harbor where they meet Ryuji, the other prominent character in the novel. Ryuji is a sailor and second mate, and is obsessed with the idea of manliness, honor, and a life of travel and experience. Noboru becomes infatuated with Ryuji as a symbol of what he wants to become, and the kind of life he values – one that is not tethered to the land, where man is bogged down by customs and tradition. Fusako also becomes infatuated with Ryuji, but for other reasons, and the two begin a relationship that Noburo watches through the peephole in his room.
 
Noboru is intensely proud of his mother's new boyfriend, but is troubled when he introduces Ryuji to his friends and Ryuji fails to look or behave the way Noboru thinks he should. The boys had skipped school that day to kidnap and sacrifice a stray cat, lead by Chief. On their way home, they run into Ryuji, who treats Noboru like a child and appears disheveled. Noboru's feelings about Ryuji are inconsistent, though, as he becomes entranced later by the man's stories of traveling the world. Soon, Ryuji leaves on another voyage, and the mother and son are left alone again.
 
While he is gone, Ryuji and Fusako maintain their relationship through letters, and Ryuji falls in love with Fusako. Over the course of the novel Ryuji struggles with his own idea of glory, and his dissatisfaction with the tales he brings back from his travels. Upon returning to Yokohama, he makes the agonizing decision to give up sailing and stay on the mainland to marry Fusako. This infuriates Noboru and his schoolmates, who dread father figures as representations of power and morality. Noboru is able to hide his feelings until he is caught spying on Ryuji and his mother one night through the peephole. Though Ryuji refuses to punish Noboru the way Fusako demands, Noboru becomes obsessed with returning Ryuji to the glory that he had as a sailor and traveling hero.
 
Ultimately, the boys make the decision, under Chief's leadership, to kill Ryuji the way they had murdered the cat. They believe that through death, he will be restored to glory. The boys make a plan to drug Ryuji's tea and lure him to a secret spot far from town. Chief claims that the boys can't be punished for their actions because Japanese criminal law states that children under fourteen can't be tried for their crimes. The boys plant the drug, and as Ryuji becomes subdued he begins to reflect on his life at sea, which he has given up. At the end of the novel, the boys fulfill their plot and Ryuji is killed.
 
Mishima was famous in Japan as a poet, playwright, actor, director, and political nationalist. He founded a right-wing militia called Tatenokai, which in 1970 staged a coup d'etat at a military base and took the commander hostage. The coup failed to restore the power of the Emperor, and after the event, Mishima committed ritualistic suicide by seppuku. The intensity of Mishima's political beliefs are mirrored in the themes of his work, and his obsession with the idea of glory and death in The Sailor Who Fell from Grace with the Sea is reflected in the circumstances of his own death, which occurred only seven years after the novel was published.