What's this? Book review of Kishin Shinoyama's photo book.

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Impressions: Ever since his spectacular Japanese-style suicide (seppuku or harakiri) in 1970, Mishima Yukio (b. 1925) has become a modern-day legend. His face is an instantly recognizable icon. "Kinkakuji" (Gold Pavilion) is among is most well-known novels.

It's refreshing to learn that Shinoyama is actually interested in architectural and interior photos besides celebrity nudes. Obviously, he has had a fascination with Mishima as well. This book attempts to present various evidence of Mishima's private lifestyle and persona. If you are interested in Mishima or architecture or '60s-style things, this book is good to have.

By the 1960s, Mishima was already an enormously successful writer. Much has been written and said about this man's personality and obsessions. Now we have another book to help us further analyze Mishima. Shinoyama has photographed almost all the things we would be interested in seeing if we were allowed to enter the house.

The house has been left pretty much the same as the day Mishima left to kill himself. It is quite an extraordinary look into Mishima's likes and tastes. The book is like a museum catalog of the things inside the house. And the house could certainly become a museum. The ultra-modern telephone in late 1960s is now old-fashioned. His gray, metal desk, fountain pens, cuff links, and ink bushes all photographed up close. The most interesting photos showed his desk where he worked and his large collection of books on many bookshelves. It's always interesting to see what kind of books one has. He also had a significant collection of English books on a bookshelf. The book titles are all clearly readable in the photos. There's The Tortured Sex, Yoga and Hralth, Gay Cruise, and Hara-kiri. Among his Japanese books are novels by Yasunari Kawabata, history books, and Occidental studies.

Of course, the most interesting photos are family snapshots of Mishima himself inside the house. The book is interspersed with these photos from the family album. They serve as evidence that Mishima really did live there. You can also compare how it looked then and now. Hardly anything has changed. The same furniture is still there in the same places.

The book was made possible by Mishima's wife who served as a guide for the house. Unfortunately, she died before this book was published.

Shinoyama writes that it took a day's shooting just from the front gate to the door of the house. The life-size marble statue of Apollo, the stone bench, and other fascinating things were all too many. (Reviewed by Philbert Ono)

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