Life for Sale: Mishima’s Price Tag on Existence
Life for Sale: Mishima’s Price Tag on Existence
By: Vlad Perciun
“Life for sale. Use me as you wish. I am a twenty-seven-year-old male. Discretion guaranteed.”
The novel follows the life of Hanio Yamada, a young typewriter in Tokyo, who having failed to take his own life, decides to instead put it up for sale in the newspaper. A general disillusionment and apathy for the world, fuelled by hatred for consumerism and materialism leads him to believe that human life “is quite meaningless”. The narrative is defined by bizarre interactions, encompassing vampires, gang members, international governments and other obscure figures of society. Overall, the novel is set out as a surreal piece of pulp fiction criticising society’s obsession with wealth and ownership, however there’s more to it. The novel is both serious and comedic, grappling with themes of existence and purpose through the prism of a rose-coloured glass. The writing is beautiful, and the upmost importance is placed on aestheticism.
That is exactly what I intend to explore – the deeper and less obvious ties between Mishima’s obsession with art and death, the merger between the two and why that’s exactly what makes Hanio Yamada a character everyone should know.
As I read the book for the first time, I couldn’t help but compare Mishima’s writing to that of Oscar Wilde’s, or Virginia Woolf, or the poetry of Byron. Not in what it had to say of course, but in its sheer beauty. His writing felt uniquely natural and surreal simultaneously. At moments, I felt transported to liminal spaces I didn’t know existed, and in others I was right there with Hanio, running from the ACS, or having my blood sucked out of me. Even the simple things are written beautifully – “She tossed a strip of dried squid right into her mouth, and continued to chew for ages even as she laughed”. The placement of these small details feels entirely random, but undoubtedly purposeful, which is what makes Mishima so unique - he is just as much artist as he is writer. The novel forcefully intersects art and death in such a manner that the reader can’t help but question the meaning of life. It is often when Hanio questions his need to stay alive, that the most beautiful descriptions or phrases are used. Is Mishima really telling us that death is poetic?
Perhaps so. His own life had come to a controversial, yet entirely poetic end, having committed seppuku in 1970 – so what’s to say Mishima hadn’t dotted down his internalised imagination of a poetic death in ink? However, in Hanio’s case, the beauty arises not in the act of death itself, but in accepting the absurdity of the world. “The only way to deal with an unfree world is to become so utterly free that your very existence is an act of rebellion.” – and that’s exactly what Hanio does – he let’s go. The instant he places the sign and begins advertising his life, he has let go of all worldly meaning. Nothing really matters anymore, and we’re reminded of it at every possible moment.
When his blood is getting sucked out by Machiko, he says ‘Please, it’s all yours”, and when he survives, he says ‘That’s fate for you. What can you do?” The irony of the novel arises once Hanio realises no matter how hard he tries, the universe simply won’t let him die. Indeed, that’s fate for you.
Somehow, he manages to elude death at every corner, so much so that he once again decided to start living. Putting his old life behind him, he settles down and tries to simply exist, yet that too does not work out for him, as Reiko tries to kill the both of them in a final act of ‘love’. That time however, he consciously chooses to stay alive. It is at that moment Hanio realises that it was never about life or death, it was about avoiding simply existing, and having agency over your own destiny. He could not stand someone choosing his destiny for him: if he was to die, it would be him that chose to do so. But for now, he would choose to live - “It was the fear of death that was driving him now.” The man who so desperately wanted to die, now wanted nothing more than to live.
The end of the novel sees a surprising plot twist, with all the events being connected by an invisible fate that Hanio had vaguely been aware of, yet not entirely sure of. As death nears, he ponders “why are people so desperate to live?” His struggle for meaning has been constant throughout, and even as his life is stranded in suspense, he continues to challenge the notion that passion and excitement can lead anywhere else other than existential fatigue.
I cannot possibly tell you whether our friend Hanio lives or dies, however I’ll leave you with this:
“The insignificance of human life. Passion extinguished. The flavour of pleasure and anticipation lost, like gum when you chew it to death. What else can you do in the end but chew it on the roadside?”