Full Spoilers for The Sea of Fertility Tetralogy by Mishima, obviously.
So I just finished The Decay of the Angel and I’m blown away by the ending. I just wanted to see what everyone’s thoughts were on the obvious questions that remain.
>!Is Toru a reincarnation of Kiyoaki? There is much that suggests that he is, from the birthmarks and the way Honda feels like he immediately knows Toru intimately when he first sees him, to Torus feeling that he got his charming smile from a young girl that he’s never met (Ying Chan?), to the distorted parallels between Toru and Kiyoaki (the treatment of Momoko, for example; both with Momoko and Satoko, there is a letter that could end / does end the relationship). But then there are some arguments against it. Arguably the fact that he survives his 20th year is a big one, though he does attempt suicide. Isao might just as well have survived his suicide attempt. Ying Chan might have survived the snake bite. The fact is he did attempt it, maybe that is enough to fulfill the pattern?
Then there is the confusion about his birthday, which isn’t entirely cleared up. But what Keiko says sounds true in a way, too – Kiyoaki, Isao, Ying Chan all had a tragic longing for something outside themselves, some romantic concept (call it “beauty”) that they pursued and lost their lives over. Toru seems to simply be out to get rich and have an easy life. It at the very least appears like he’s lacking the tragic and lethal aspect that he should have as a reincarnation of Kiyoaki. !<
>!Then there’s the signs of the decay of the angel themselves. The last time we see Toru, he’s blind, he has given up his claim to a place in the world, his aspirations, he is sweating and smells bad, and he is wearing a crown of wilted flowers; it’s almost one for one the list of the signs of decay (Honda gives various versions of the list with slight variations). Is this just poetic license, just random happenstance to show us, the readers, that Honda’s concept of Kiyoaki as an “angel” is falling apart? Or is there an actual explanation in-universe for why Toru is displaying these signs?
If we subscribe to the idea that Toru is Kiyoaki reincarnated then it could be the effect of the failed suicide attempt. Honda has compared the reincarnations of Kiyoaki to flowers or fruit before, things that spoil. And there is the long theory about knowledge and beauty, that it’s impossible to know and still be beautiful, that the beautiful have to die before they can attain knowledge. Toru finds out his destiny (which Kiyoaki and Isao never did, and Ying Chan maybe guessed as a little girl but forgot everything about), which he’s not supposed to know, he attempts suicide but fails, stays alive after he should have been dead, and now we see the angel decaying.!<
>!But the most mystifying part, to me, is the fact that Abbess Satoko doesn’t remember Kiyoaki. It feels weird that she should be lying about this to Honda, but it is impossible that she forgot the man who was the reason for her to become a nun in the first place. Yet I can’t bring myself to come up with some “it was just a dream” / “Honda was Kiyoaki” theory. It’s not plausible. There’s no way for it to make sense. I feel like of course Kiyoaki was real, and his and Satoko’s story was real, so why doesn’t she remember? Is Honda’s perception faulty? He ignored the pain in his body for days before deciding to make the ascent to Gesshuji on foot, the ascent that almost killed Kiyoaki sixty years before (in a way, it did). Did Honda collapse at the gate to the temple? Did he never actually get to meet the Abbess? Is the final scene just Honda’s dying mind collapsing in on itself until it turns into a garden under the midday sun that has “no memories, nothing”? !<
Please share your thoughts. My mind is racing with possibilities right now, and I doubt that there is one true answer, but I would love to hear everyone’s ideas.
by ksarlathotep