It’s also symbolic in various ways, and has incredibly realistic characters.

After all, it talks about some very universal human experiences: love, identity, one’s place in society. In any case, with this in mind, we could say that Mishima’s Confessions of a Mask is a literary-fiction novel. Moreover, to a great extent, genres as we understand them are somewhat Eurocentric. As a result, I feel silly talking about genre. If this duality sounds familiar, take a look at my post on the meaning of Jinjer’s “Pisces” – talking about a multi-layered metaphor, huh? Review of Confessions of a Mask: Genre, Plot, Narrative Confessions of a Mask is a fine example of our struggle to balance between being part of society and understanding it can’t offer us what we crave. In that regard, it’s very similar to Invisible Cities, by Italo Calvino. Not only does it defy categorization, but reading it I wonder whether we could even call it “a novel”.

Mishima’s novel is probably one of the most difficult books I’ve ever thought to review. 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. It’s also an opportunity for me to explain something about how literature is supposed to operate.Īnd here’s the (meta-)lesson: There’s no “supposed to” in literature. 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.

Confessions of a Mask by Yukio Mishima