According to the two Mishima biographies I've read, he was very nearly a teetotaler.
"The next day, [Tennessee Williams] recalled, Mishima telephoned him and said “Tennessee, you know I really like you, but you really shouldn’t drink so much,” an unsurprising comment from a novelist who is reputed to have gotten drunk only once in his adult life."
Your second point is essentially the conclusion of the director Nagisa Oshima's somewhat meanspirited but very entertaining obituary for Mishima, "Mishima Yukio: The Road to Defeat of One Lacking in Political Sense" (collected in the anthology of Oshima's writings Cinema, Censorship, and the State). To give you the tone of the piece, published a few weeks after Mishima's death: "It may be terrible to claim that someone like Mishima is lacking in artistic sensibility. People carried on about the fact that his death manifestoes and poems were awful, but I tend to think they were a return to his original lack of artistic sensibility. [...] Everyone probably felt as I did when looking at Mishima—that haunted feeling one feels when looking at an artificial plant." And then the conclusion, after a couple pages of going over Mishima's limitations and failures as an artist and person: "Through his death I have felt very close to Mishima. If I were with the Mishima I feel I know today, I think I could go drinking with him. I would have liked to make this person, who said he didn't know what a hangover was, drink like crazy and then show him how delicious beer can be when you're hungover." Then there's a little sort of postscript where Oshima accuses himself of turning this whole obituary into an excuse to drink, but then admits he does actually feel like a drink now that you mention it, oh and RIP Mishima or whatever this was supposed to be about, now where's that drink?
Lmao that sounds absolutely incredible. And yeah, much as I love Mishima, I do think some of my more forced tendencies as a writer come from taking his work a little too much to heart
I never knew Oshima wrote about Mishima, but that's a super interesting intersection of the two. Very characteristic Oshima; wry and oddly generous to somebody who aesthetics and politics were so opposed to his own. Thanks so much for sharing that..
If Mishima were the type of dude to relax with an ice-cold brew, it's fair to assume said brew would be the ones you mentioned. It's not your fault that he was a different type of dude altogether. But he likely would have chosen a Japanese beer over foreign imports for let's say ideological reasons, so if you really wanted to approximate his habits (maybe not the best idea) you should probably become a hardcore partisan for, say, Melvin Brewing.
I enjoy these kinda insouciant peaks behind the curtain.
I think it's fair to include this comic in the arc; the previous strip gave us a deadline, and this shows how Calvin's spending at least part of the week he has left to procrastinate. In keeping with most of the arc so far it's just completely normal Calvin stuff. There's a lot of great visceral motion stuff, and expression work, in this strip.
Sorry, I thought I had asked a mailbag-destined question a few posts back, under Grendel, so I didn't want to ask anything here and clog up your Q&A. But I just went back and checked and it's more of a vague prompt than a proper question, so I'll rephrase it here:
There's a bit of a disconnect between the advice good teachers of the craft of writing give and the actual writing that they (or others) produce, which seems to grow out of the space between what can be said about writing and what can only be said through writing. So John Gardner can write a very useful and widely-circulated craft manual, but following the advice outlined there won't lead you to a Grendel; there's something more to it than can be communicated that way. I'm interested, given your perspective as someone who grew up among writers, been instructed by writers, and as a writer yourself, in what thoughts you might have about this space between the practice of writing as a discursive subject and as a creative act.
Is there a maxim (or perhaps a series of maxims; Vonnegut's famed list immediately comes to mind) on writing that you ascribe to for fiction? And a follow-up question: On the flip side, are there writing maxims that you consider to be complete and total dross?
According to the two Mishima biographies I've read, he was very nearly a teetotaler.
"The next day, [Tennessee Williams] recalled, Mishima telephoned him and said “Tennessee, you know I really like you, but you really shouldn’t drink so much,” an unsurprising comment from a novelist who is reputed to have gotten drunk only once in his adult life."
(Here's the source for that quote, on the top of page 52: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/271297479_Yukio_Mishima_the_Unambiguous_and_Myself_Living_through_a_Writer's_Legacy )
1) This is not surprising, given how uptight he was 2) Having a drink now and then would probably have been good for him
Your second point is essentially the conclusion of the director Nagisa Oshima's somewhat meanspirited but very entertaining obituary for Mishima, "Mishima Yukio: The Road to Defeat of One Lacking in Political Sense" (collected in the anthology of Oshima's writings Cinema, Censorship, and the State). To give you the tone of the piece, published a few weeks after Mishima's death: "It may be terrible to claim that someone like Mishima is lacking in artistic sensibility. People carried on about the fact that his death manifestoes and poems were awful, but I tend to think they were a return to his original lack of artistic sensibility. [...] Everyone probably felt as I did when looking at Mishima—that haunted feeling one feels when looking at an artificial plant." And then the conclusion, after a couple pages of going over Mishima's limitations and failures as an artist and person: "Through his death I have felt very close to Mishima. If I were with the Mishima I feel I know today, I think I could go drinking with him. I would have liked to make this person, who said he didn't know what a hangover was, drink like crazy and then show him how delicious beer can be when you're hungover." Then there's a little sort of postscript where Oshima accuses himself of turning this whole obituary into an excuse to drink, but then admits he does actually feel like a drink now that you mention it, oh and RIP Mishima or whatever this was supposed to be about, now where's that drink?
Lmao that sounds absolutely incredible. And yeah, much as I love Mishima, I do think some of my more forced tendencies as a writer come from taking his work a little too much to heart
I never knew Oshima wrote about Mishima, but that's a super interesting intersection of the two. Very characteristic Oshima; wry and oddly generous to somebody who aesthetics and politics were so opposed to his own. Thanks so much for sharing that..
If Mishima were the type of dude to relax with an ice-cold brew, it's fair to assume said brew would be the ones you mentioned. It's not your fault that he was a different type of dude altogether. But he likely would have chosen a Japanese beer over foreign imports for let's say ideological reasons, so if you really wanted to approximate his habits (maybe not the best idea) you should probably become a hardcore partisan for, say, Melvin Brewing.
I enjoy these kinda insouciant peaks behind the curtain.
I think it's fair to include this comic in the arc; the previous strip gave us a deadline, and this shows how Calvin's spending at least part of the week he has left to procrastinate. In keeping with most of the arc so far it's just completely normal Calvin stuff. There's a lot of great visceral motion stuff, and expression work, in this strip.
Agreed with both of your points, and thanks! Sometimes I get burned out on analyzing things and just need to do a little ditty.
Do you have any questions for the upcoming mailbag? Your question for last time was a fun one to answer
Sorry, I thought I had asked a mailbag-destined question a few posts back, under Grendel, so I didn't want to ask anything here and clog up your Q&A. But I just went back and checked and it's more of a vague prompt than a proper question, so I'll rephrase it here:
There's a bit of a disconnect between the advice good teachers of the craft of writing give and the actual writing that they (or others) produce, which seems to grow out of the space between what can be said about writing and what can only be said through writing. So John Gardner can write a very useful and widely-circulated craft manual, but following the advice outlined there won't lead you to a Grendel; there's something more to it than can be communicated that way. I'm interested, given your perspective as someone who grew up among writers, been instructed by writers, and as a writer yourself, in what thoughts you might have about this space between the practice of writing as a discursive subject and as a creative act.
Thanks! I look forward to answering this one
Is there a maxim (or perhaps a series of maxims; Vonnegut's famed list immediately comes to mind) on writing that you ascribe to for fiction? And a follow-up question: On the flip side, are there writing maxims that you consider to be complete and total dross?
Great question! This'll be a good one to answer at length
Having just printed and read through 145 mediocre pages of my manuscript with pen in hand, this was deeply appreciated.
Hahaha glad I could be of help. I know the feeling...
What is your process for starting to write a novel?
Good question! Looking forward to answering this one in detail, thanks