The Temple of the Golden Pavilion

A haunting portrait of a young man’s obsession with idealized beauty and his destructive quest to possess it fully—and the book that “established Mishima’s claim as one of the outstanding writers of the world" (The New York Times). 

Mizoguchi, an ostracized stutterer, develops a childhood fascination with Kyoto’s famous Golden Temple. While an acolyte at the temple, he fixates on the structure’s aesthetic perfection and it becomes his one and only object of desire. But as Mizoguchi begins to perceive flaws in the temple, he determines that the only true path to beauty lies in an act of horrific violence. Based on a real incident that occurred in 1950, The Temple of the Golden Pavilion brilliantly portrays the passions and agonies… Keep Reading