Francis King

From Middle-Class Sissy to Heroic Samurai

Mishima’s Sword

By

Fourth Estate 262pp £14.99 order from our bookshop

This odd, sometimes irritating and always fascinating book is difficult to categorise. A commonplace book driven by a single obsession? That would certainly convey the way in which it consists for the most part of a series of brief, finely chiselled passages, each often no more than a paragraph in length, with little sense of cohesion between them. But there is nothing commonplace about either the content or the style.

Sign Up to our newsletter

Receive free articles, highlights from the archive, news, details of prizes, and much more.

Follow Literary Review on Twitter

  • Last Tweets

    • The mystery of Jack the Ripper's identity has long been agonised over. But what do we know about his victims?… ,
    • A piece of Literary Review history from way back in 1983: John Haffenden talks to the great Iris Murdoch. ,
    • Britain’s only travelling lit fest, the Garden Museum Literary Festival is heading to Houghton Hall, Norfolk, for a… ,
    • 'The 19th-century German sage is not my idea of a pleasant travel companion' goes hiking with Friedr… ,
    • If you want ideas about what to read next, sign up to our free email newsletter, and get book reviews, archive mate… ,
    • 'The heroic male nude could not, I think, be used today to signify civic pride and glory', as Michelangelo’s 'David… ,
    • 'Munch’s later works show us a man liberated from the torments that gave rise to some of the best-known early works… ,
    Follow Us