What is beauty? Why is something beautiful? "The Temple of the Golden Pavilion 金閣寺" is well-known to be an extraordinary masterpiece. It is based on the real-life event of a young monk burning down Kyoto's Rokuon-ji in 1950. It is not just a fictionalised account of a historical event, but Mishima framed it as a full discourse on beauty itself. Beauty as a subject of contrast (against ugliness), the relative against the absolute, beauty as a personal mental entity versus a universal physical manifestation, beauty of the ephemeral versus beauty of the permanent (if such thing exists), the transcendence by destruction, the necessity of immorality to reach transcendence (by negation and contrast again), the embrace of the imperfect (the notion of wabi-sabi 侘び寂び) - all of these are not extrapolations but explicitly discussed in the text, and all reach the same nihilistic and pessimistic conclusions, while simultaneously channelling the wider post-WWII sentiments at the time. This masterpiece is a shock to the senses, expertly paced and constructed in ten chapters. Essential reading in all of literature. There is nothing quite like it.
【IG 日本語作文練習】（４）ーー文学作品を読むことについて
練習として、今回は、原文と中国語の翻訳本を同時に読んだ。日本語のを読んでから、同じ段落をもう一度翻訳で読み、こんなふうに本を一章ずつ読んでしまった。実際に、原文は、仏教の専用名詞を除いて、思ったほど読みにくなかった、せめて翻訳本より読みやすかった。唐月梅氏の翻訳は精確のだが、改めて多くの日本語の文法が中国語で表現できないので、訳文が、特に三島の詳しすぎる心理描写や分析、あまりに複雑で読みにくかったのだ。それに、小説の衝撃や緊張感や暗示の言葉（関西弁も）が日本語でしか表現できない。例えば、第三章の NTR シーンには、蚊帳の「不自然な動き」という段落が日本語で滑らかに流れ一方、中国語では無意味そうで少し可笑しい。作家の作風に慣れた後、もう翻訳の必要がなくなった。日本語を読むことに自信が強くなったと思う。時間がかかったことのだが、役に立つ練習を済ましてよかった。
As a language learning exercise, this time I read the Japanese original and the Chinese translation simultaneously. I first read a passage in the original, then re-read it in translation, and in this way completed the book one chapter at a time. I have come to realise that the original was not as difficult as I thought, at least it was easier to read than the translation - unfortunately, a lot of Japanese grammar does not work in Chinese so any translation sounds rather clumsy, especially when it comes to Mishima's overly detailed psychological descriptions and analyses. Moreover, some impact or tension can only be subtly implied in Japanese. For example, in the NTR scene in Chapter 3, there is a lengthy description of some "unnatural movement" of a mosquito net which works smoothly in Japanese but sounds rather meaningless and weird in Chinese. Once you have gotten used to the author's style and language, a translation is no longer needed. I think I am getting more confident in reading Japanese now. It was a great, and essential, exercise.
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