rushedBook #03 – Thirst for Love
Name of the Book: Thirst for Love
Name of the Author: Yukio Mishima
Genre: Drama
Pages: 208
Date: 06.09.2012 – 17.09.2012
Short description: (Taken from the book itself) After the early death of her philandering husband, Etsuko moves into her father-in-law's house, where she numbly submits to the old man's advances. But soon she finds herself in love with the young servant Saburo. Tormented by his indifference, yet invigorated by her desire, she makes her move, with catastrophic consequences.
Own Statement: The main focus of the book is that of emotion – intensive emotions that can easily be described as destructive. And the irony of that is that the main character through which all the events are described, the widowed Etsuko, is descripted as an impassive and uncaring stern young woman. You get the fullrange from love to jealousy, to obsession, to hatelove, to death, and you get them served by characters that are not easy to like, but not easy to hate either. The story takes place in around 1950 in the area of Osaka. Etsuko recently lost her husband and lives now in the house of her father-in-law Yakichi, along with her brother-in-law Kensuke and his wife chieko, the wife of her other brother-in-law Asako and her two children Nobuku and Natsuo, the maid Miyo and the gardener Saburo. The tragedy of Etsukos situation is enrolled in a slow pace, the story does focus more on her perception of her surroundings and her thoughts and you only get what happened bit by bit as she seems to be captured by haunting memories, and when you finally understand the situations, you also learned of the complicated relationships, the unadorned personalities and habbits of all characters, and the irrevocable damage that seems to unfold before the readers eyes. The story really captured me, being very much forthright, unpretentious and almost without hope for the main character, which one can really understand and find completely confusing at the same time. The story itself is nothing special, portraying unrequired love and the social boundaries of ones life, but it’s the beautiful narration and the unusal descriptions of Mushima that made me really enjoy the book.
