The Sailor Who Fell from Grace with the Sea by Yukio Mishima tells the story of a man named Ryuji who gives up life as a sailor in search of adventure in order to settle down, marry a single mother, and live happily ever after, except this book doesn’t exactly have a fairy tale ending.
Thematically this book is about the loss of what we might call glory or the loss of hope for meaningful existence in modern life, or the loss of manhood—the loss of what the Greeks called Ανδρεία , or the Roman’s, virtus, and to a degree, the Norse Drengr, though these words only marginally hint at the feeling of reckless adventure that the sailor Ryuji has felt calling him all his life in the swelling of the sea.
When we first meet Ryuji in the novel he is in his mid 30s. He’s never settled down because he’s always been chasing an ethereal call to greatness. A feeling that is difficult to describe.
But it seems Ryuji has become disenchanted with the sea. He’s drawn to the romantic vision of life at sea and everything it represents, the life of danger and wrestling with a terrible force beyond his comprehension. But he is disillusioned with the reality of life at sea. The ocean seemed to offer greatness, but a sense of Glory was always something beyond him, never a reality. Always promised, but never delivered, and now he’s wondering if it was all a lie.
And it hasn’t helped that he’s fallen in love with a woman. When his ship puts into port he ends up giving a tour of the vessel to a single mother Fusako and her Nautically obsessed son, Noboru. Ryuji and Fusako fall in love and For perhaps the first time in his life, Ryuji is presented with a peaceful, stable, rooted life on land with a family. He decides it is best to settle down. Concluding that there is no glory to be had in life at sea after all.
Already we can see that this is a relevant book, especially for men, because we are living in a time when men are longing for the sea, so to speak. For freedom, and purpose, greatness and the voice of glory. in a world dominated by Starbucks, McDonald’s, pumpkin spice lattes, and the Kardashians. Like Ryuji, Men are putting off getting married until they are in their thirties, waiting for a glory that still hasn’t come and it seems will never come. We are faced with the choice between holding out, waiting for the opportunity to do something great and meaningful, or settling and starting a family.
Ryuji chooses the latter.
His decision profoundly affects his prospective step-son, Noboru. You see, like Ryuji, the young Noboru is also fascinated with the sea because it is the essence of glory. The sea itself is not just a symbol for heroism, it is a real life matrix for masculine virtues of dangers, risk, self-reliance. When the sailor Ryuji comes riding off of its waves into Noboru’s life, Ryuji becomes a symbol of the sea and everything it stands for. An avatar, a simulacrum, a mediator. Noboru is only 13, he has no actuality as a person, no experience in life, his existence still consists in dreaming and imaging the world, so he latches on to Ryuji and lives vicariously through the sailor.
When Ryuji does decide to give up his life at sea, Noboru is crushed. It means the end of the world. His symbol of the world is shattered. And There is only one cure, according to the chief of Noboru’s gang. . .
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