"Patriotism" Is a Book I Read

Ever since I read Animal Farm and 1984, I started getting more and more interested in literature. I never was terribly interested in reading before, for whatever reason. Maybe it's my short attention span or because I was more interested in playing another round of Team Fortress 2 or some other multiplayer video game at the time. But after reading the two well-known Orwell books, I couldn't help but look for something else that may have flown under or over my radar. Literature was not a world I was well-versed in, so I took the time to explore a certain part of the internet for more of what I have been missing out.

I went through many authors I knew vaguely of or not at all. One of the many authors I knew vaguely of was Yukio Mishima, a name I heard in a conversation one time years ago. I remember in the same conversation I was recommended The Temple of the Golden Pavilion but put that on hold because I wanted something a little lighter and found Patriotism, a much shorter novel.

Patriotism was then my introduction to Mishima-san. I do not regret it at all. The story is an incredibly simple one. A soldier whose loyalty is sworn to the country hears of his friends have gone against their homeland. The soldier who is now trapped in the middle and is unwilling to betray his land nor turn against his friends decides the only way to get out of this situation is to commit seppuku. His wife, swearing oath to her husband, follows him to death

The way the piece was written was nothing short of beautiful work of art. The prose had an almost hypnotic way of directing attention to the very little detail and emotion of the fatal act. From the raw and heavy emotions held by the soldier and his wife to the cutting of the gut, I would have never imagined that something so simple as the act of seppuku, or killing oneself could be written in such a way. I could not turn my eyes away or close the book. I couldn't stop until I was done, and luckily it was a very short novella so that wasn't a problem.

It really is a simple premise. There is nothing difficult about it. No questions the book wants to ask you, no complicated timeline that needs to be discussed. It was an incredibly simple story. Yet, it was with the beauty in its writing that made it all so engaging. Normally I would want to read a book for its story. Something that made you keep guessing what would come next or keep you thinking what had just happened. This was not that at all. You knew from the beginning what would happen from beginning to end. It says right on the back. But this was so rich in detail. I can almost feel what was happening. The clothes, skin, the sharpness of the blade cutting through flesh. There was no way to emulate this in any other medium. This was the power of books, the power of writing. Mishima-san did an amazing job and I recommend anyone who's not squeamish to give this a shot (or a cut. Dumb pun).