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  • The Sailor Who Fell From Grace With the Sea

  • Written by: Yukio Mishima
  • Narrated by: Brian Nishii
  • Length: 4 hrs and 34 mins
  • 4.6 out of 5 stars (38 ratings)

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The Sailor Who Fell From Grace With the Sea cover art

The Sailor Who Fell From Grace With the Sea

Written by: Yukio Mishima
Narrated by: Brian Nishii
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Publisher's Summary

A band of savage 13-year-old boys reject the adult world as illusory, hypocritical, and sentimental, and train themselves in a brutal callousness they call 'objectivity'. When the mother of one of them begins an affair with a ship's officer, he and his friends idealise the man at first; but it is not long before they conclude that he is in fact soft and romantic. They regard this disallusionment as an act of betrayal on his part - and the retribution is deliberate and horrifying.

©1965 Copyright 1965 by Alfred A. Knopf, Inc. Copyright renewed 1993 by Alfred A. Knopf, Inc. Originally published in Japanese as Gogo No Eiko by Kodansha in 1963. (P)2010 Audible, Inc

What the critics say

"Mishima's greatest novel, and one of the greatest of the past century." ( The Times)
"Coolly exact with his characters and their honourable motives. His aim is to make the destruction of the sailor by his love seem as inevitable as the ocean." ( Guardian)
"Told with Mishima's fierce attention to naturalistic detail, the grisly tale becomes painfully convincing and yields a richness of psychological and mythic truth." ( Sunday Times)

What listeners say about The Sailor Who Fell From Grace With the Sea

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  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars

a gorgeous story

definitely one of the best Mishima's novels. Brian Nishii is a superb narrator, as always.

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  • Overall
    3 out of 5 stars
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    3 out of 5 stars

Horrific

TRIGGER WARNING: About midway, there is a scene of graphic animal cruelty. I almost abandoned the book and returned it. That one scene in isolation might be the worst I've read. Was disturbed by the rest of the story, but not to the same level of horror.

Otherwise, the writing is gorgeous and addictive. This is the third Mishima novel I've read and I still don't really understand him - the content is thematically troubling in a way I'm not used to. Already downloaded more Mishima at my peril.

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