Yukio Mishima, Debut Work 'Sorrel' (1938)

I read 'Sorrel,' the short story debut written by Yukio Mishima when he was thirteen.

It seems he was already interested in the conflict between reason and emotion from this time.

Not in the superiority of one over the other, but in their respective virtues and limitations.

Using the sorrel on the hill that grows straight toward the sky and blooms with vermilion flowers as a symbolic motif, the trust in a child's innocence and the ruthlessness of adults are depicted in contrast.

The interaction between a boy and an escaped convict from the prison on the hill forms the axis of the story.

Mariko, the protagonist of 'Princess Long-Arms' (written in 1951 at age 26), which is included in the same volume, spends 15 years in a mental hospital, calling it 'serving time' and describing the place as a 'gray prison.'

Capote interviewed death row inmates in prison for 'In Cold Blood' (1965) and turned it into a novel.

I feel they share a commonality in their strong interest in that world, referring to the places where those deemed alien by society reside as 'prisons.'

Come to think of it, both Capote and Mishima were homosexual. I wonder if someone, somewhere, has already pointed this out.

I remember reading somewhere that the two of them met and got along relatively well.

I suddenly wanted to go to a hill where sorrel grows in abundance.

It is just the season for them to bloom now.