“ All around him, in vastness and disorder, stretched the country for which he suffered. He was going togive his life. But this great country, which he was ready to challenge to the point of destroying himself, would he even pay attention to his death? He didn’t know; and too bad. Hewas dying on a battlefield withoutglory, a battlefield where no feat of arms could be accomplished: the place of a spiritual combat. » On November 25, 1970, Yukio Mishima, the greatest Japanese author of the 19th century, killed himself.
Internationally renowned novelist, playwright, director and at the end of his life an actor, he imbues all his artistic work with an exacerbated patriotic sense, constantly denouncing the loss of the values of Tradition and honor. military of his country.
This intellectual, rebellious out of loyalty, was also an athlete and founded the Tatenokai militia (“shield society”) intended to ensure the protection of the emperor and maintain ancestral Japanese values.
We asked Skollartist name of Federico Goglio, Italian singer-songwriter and author, connoisseur of the artist of the Rising Sun.
Breizh-info.com: You composed many songs about Yukio Mishima and wrote the very first biographical comic strip about him. Moreover, you often travel around Italy to popularize his work. What are the reasons for such enthusiasm?
Yukio Mishima died on November 25, 1970 while performing the – terrible and traditional – rite of seppuku. A radical act, even within Japanese culture, which should not be analyzed with Western eyes which, by cultural and religious heritage, inevitably condemn any form of suicide. Mishima’s seppuku has nothing to do with the modern form of suicide. Mishima offers the life he was attached to, to prove that there is something even greater. He does not flee, he gives. He had everything, he was not an empty-pocketed revolutionary. When he gathers the soldiers of the Jietai and delivers his famous proclamation, deep in his mind there is meaning. He means, “You see? Everything you desire daily, everything you dream of, everything you seek in this Japan of economic expansion, of well-being, I have it! I have fame, money, a nice house… I have everything. I want, in a moment, to show you, that all these things are not so important, that they are not enough. I leave everything, I renounce everything, to prove to you that what really matters, what is above all… it is us, Japan, its history, its Tradition… it is us, the community, the nation.”
Here, in a few words, is the reason behind my strong link with Mishima and the natural work of disclosure that results from it.
Breizh-info.com: The beautiful and dense biographical comic strip that you devoted to him is called Yukio Mishima, the last samurai*. What are the striking aspects of his life according to you and that you wanted to highlight?
His extraordinary change in his last ten years. Awareness of the sterile role of the intellectual as an end in itself, a dazzling awareness that occurred during a trip along the Greek coasts at the end of the 1950s. The Mediterranean transformed Mishima who, from that moment, would rediscover and will value all the traditional elements of Japanese culture closest to the tradition of ancient Greece. Superficially, this may seem paradoxical, but it is not.
Mishima draws inspiration from Olympia to restore the principle of bunburyodo (art and action at the same time) so well described in his wonderful philosophical journal “The Sun and Steel” (1968). From there, Mishima will be literature, budo (shotokan karate and above all, kendo), tatenokai (the – paramilitary – association of shields), militarism, patriotism. In comics, I recount these years, this existential discovery, this personal change as harsh as it is beautiful.
Breizh-info.com: Don’t you think that suicide is contrary to the European mentality?
Mishima hated suicides. He wrote that he was very upset about killing himself. He did not tolerate that, faced with the difficulties of life, we abandon ourselves to them. Yukio Mishima’s gesture is something else. It is not a surrender but an offering. In certain respects, it does not devalue, it does not mortify life, it exalts it, it gives it even more value. Because what he offers, he does it by renouncing something of which he knows – and recognizes – the inestimable value.
Breizh-info.com: Did the comic strip have the success you expected?
The book was very well received by readers and critics. In a few days I will receive the Acqui Inedito and Edito Prize 2022 (the graphic novel category of the Acqui Storia Prize – considered the highest Italian recognition in historiography and historical disclosure). A truly extraordinary result, in a way unimaginable, which recognizes the historical and artistic uniqueness of this work – with the magnificent illustrations of the master Massimiliano Longo. “Yukio Mishima. Last Samurai” will remain the first comic strip in the world dedicated to the great Japanese writer. Today, however, it is only published in Italy and Germany… we are waiting for a French publisher!
Breizh-info.com: For young readers wishing to approach the abundant work of Mishima, where to start? Do you think there is a chronology in reading the titles to better understand and appreciate his ideas?
Mishima’s artistic production is particularly focused on the novel. I would recommend a step-by-step approach – to further foster a “stylistic” type of understanding, given that we are talking about a Japanese writer who preferred the classic, not very modern form – starting, perhaps, from a romance novel like “The Ruin of the Waves” (a Japanese classic). Then, to better understand his vision, “Kyoko’s House”, the tetralogy novels of “The Sea of Fertility”, “Patriotism”. And finally, absolutely essential reading: “The Sun and Steel”, halfway between a beautiful diary and an extraordinary philosophical work.
Breizh-info.com: What can reading an Asian artist born a hundred years ago bring to a young European today?
The weltanschauung by Yukio Mishima is the result of a long, grounded, real and concrete journey. It has no borders, it is not limited in time. An “antique” but embodied and “personalized” vision, crafted by a man of today – a man of success – in today’s society. This element is fundamental because, beyond the final gesture of 1970, it teaches us to live in this world, not in a distant, ideal or idealized world. Without renouncing the life and possessions of today, but focusing on the things that matter most, giving the right measure to what surrounds us and to what happens to us, bringing order to our life, with hierarchy.
Interviewed and translated by Audrey D’Aguanno
*Yukio Mishima. Ultimate Samurai, Federico Goglio (texts) Massimiliano Longo (Illustration)
Ferrogallico2019.
Federico Goglio (Sköll): “Mishima was very upset at the idea of committing suicide” [Interview]