At page 50 of The Temple of Dawn, thought I'd write impressions prior to completion of the 330p.
First of all, it's a crystal clear reality of reincarnation, as Honda's first meeting with the seven year Princess Chan makes clear.
"What did she say? Translate!" Honda called to Hishikawa who was standing in amazement.
Hishikawa translated in a low voice: "Mr Honda! Mr Honda! How I've missed you! You were so kind, and yet I killed myself without telling you anything. I have been waiting for this meeting to apologize to you for more than seven years. I have taken the form of a princess, but I am really Japanese. I spent my former life in Japan, and that is really my home.." (page 40)
Honda asks her two questions - one to do with Kiyoaki and one with Isao (book 2) - both of which she answers correctly. Towards the end of the book he has a shattering disillusion - what that is is opaque as yet. This follows a long trek through Indian holy places in quest of enlightenment.
For now (1940), his interest in the princess is interrelated to the morbid listlessness that the sweltering jungle fastness of Bangkok induces in Honda's romantic affiliation with the brown-skinned Thais.
The distant horizon was covered by low-lying jungle. The foreground sparkled in radiant green, as though it were part of another world, grasping the sunshine that poured from the rift in the cloud. But the jungle farther away under the lower black portion was drenched in rain of such violence that fog seemed to be rising. The rain hung like some elaborate fungoid network, wrapping the dark jungle in its misty vapor. (page 45)
Mishima's infatuation with fertility is apparent throughout in thrilling descriptions of jungle, cloud, temples like Ban Pa In, and this hint of innocent sexuality a la Lewis Carroll.
His response to the charming idea of the little Princess going to the bathroom was an intimation of flesh and blood and a totally new emotional experience. He wished it was possible for him to hold the Princess's smooth brown thighs in his hands as she urinated. (page 49)
The power of difference is apparent throughout. The childish princess has an innocence that is beguiling. The warrior and the priest. The warrior and the lady.
Her hair was cut short in the characteristic Thai style. This traditional coiffure honored the brave maidens of Khorat who long ago, dressed as men, had fought against an invading Cambodian army. (page 38)
To be a traditional right winger is to be aware of differences that are sacred to the human form. Difference is power; sameness is weakness. Difference is beguiling and strange, exotic.
Instead of these ancient powers, nowadays we are afflicted with "positive" news of neutral sameness, supplied by the likes of Pelosi. What "they" call positive is simply lack of difference, discrimination and cosmic power.
Mishima hints at cosmic affiliation in his romantic attachment to the ancients.
It was a pact joining German, Roman and Japanese mythology; a friendship among the beautiful, masculine, pagan gods of East and West.(page 21)
This is where I want to go back to Vincent's email (on swords message board). If we are heading into a neutral future of zero differences, that future has something to do with the western worldview - ie the scientific one.
Roman engineering - not unlike the temples of Thailand - edged against natural strength and merged with the fastness of nature (HB2). Their shrines celebrated the springs that glowed with vitality.
Similarly, Mishima mentions "the four inchoate elements" (book 1) that are the substance of reality.
The chthonic substance of crumbling temples is simply clods of clay that withstand the perils of time. The elements of air, sea, sun have illusory qualities (see prev) but taken together are real. Reality has a type of quality of line, the expression of things that are composed not just of technique but of flow.
What is this substance in scientific terms? It could be aether or, as Einstein said, without ether space has no substance (paraphrasing).
If you take water, hydrogen electrons are flowing continually in instantaneous formations through the oxygen atoms (H2O) forming H-bonds.
In terms of quantum physics, electrons have 4 types of spin that settles where they are in the atom (Pauli). However, in terms of aether any spin or vibration in aether sets off harmonic frequencies.
In other words, aether is a musical medium, pan-cosmic and connecting everything (see Dr Strange HB82). While quantum physics is logically correct, that doesn't mean it's reality! Logic is not reality (again Einstein, prev.)
Since James Clerk Maxwell (HB158), science has disowned aether and so exists in a logical resolved mathematical space - that attracts the ego of acolytes, natch.
This applies to the whole area of quantum physics; it's logically true only, not real in terms of harmonic reality.
Living things are mostly water. The inchoate is us. Add the chthonic substance that Mishima's descriptions of the Thai jungle evoke so magnificently. This is much more like the ancient world, and so unlike the neutral, positive, logical "news" of the modern western establishment.
