Runaway Horses

About

The second novel in Mishima's Sea of Fertility tetralogy. Honda, now a judge, encounters a young kendo student named Isao who seems to be the reincarnation of his old friend Kiyoaki. But where Kiyoaki was romantic and passive, Isao burns with political fanaticism — he is plotting a coup to restore imperial power in 1930s Japan, and he is prepared to die for it. Mishima writes about fanaticism from the inside, with a sympathy that makes the reader understand exactly how a young man can arrive at violence as a form of purity. The novel is both a thriller and a philosophical argument about whether devotion requires destruction. A novel about the beauty and terror of absolute conviction — written by a man who would soon act on his own.