h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Seems like about time for another journal entry, don't ya think?

[Yes, Snailrind. I do, Snailrind. I'll get right on it, Snalrind.]

I should think so.

What a coincidence! I was just thinking about doing an entry...

Actually, there is something I can do while I think of something interesting to write about myself. I’ll do that tomorrow, although you might have to wait for a “proper” journal entry, whatever one of those is.

Thanks by the way. I do want to keep a journal here, but I’ll probably need prodding now and again, so feel free to prod away (with a sharp stick if necessary ). Just don’t ask me about the guide entry I decided to do. I don't think we'll be seeing that for a while...

A guide entry, you say? What's it about?


Oops, you didn't want me to ask. Oh well. I've asked now.

Bugger, better tell you then.

When I first joined, I noticed there wasn’t an entry for one of my favourite writers, Yukio Mishima. I haven’t done any work on it yet and probably won’t until next year. I don’t really have the time or energy for it at the moment, and I want to do it justice. I always spread myself too thin, trying to do too many things at once, and things that should be a pleasure become a chore.

Your bonsai nation looks like a good trade-off of effort for pleasure. I’ve just created one – I’ll post it’s whereabouts on the bonsai thread soon.

I've never heard of Yukio Mishima. What is it that you like about his writing? Is it fact or fiction?

"I’ve just created one"

Yay!

He was a novelist who wrote from the post-war years up until 1970, when he killed himself in a highly orchestrated and very public suicide, which is what he’s probably best known for. There’s a good wikki entry for him here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yukio_Mishima

One of the reasons I’m going to take my time with a hootoo entry is that the wikki one is very thorough and there’s no point duplicating it here. I want to add more commentary (which seems more in keeping with hootoo), but that’s going to take a bit of work, and more reading.

I think he was a hyper-sensitive person and it’s reflected in his writing. Kind of like Proust, but not as flowery and with manageable sentence lengths! He really gets under the skin of his characters and their motivations.

What I like most, is the clash of traditional Japanese values and modern western culture. I think he embodied that clash – he was openly gay, fully immersed in the American culture that dominated Japan, but was obsessed with traditional Japanese values to the point of romanticism.

He’s often criticised as being cold, misogynistic, right-wing, a nutter – and he was all those things, but I find his writing very moving.

Ah, yes! I had heard of him after all, but had forgotten his name. I think I must have seen a docu about him or something.