Life for Sale

The copy I received was not a cheaply printed version which i was afraid i would get since that has happened before. It’s a deeply funny and engaging read!

A Literary pulp fiction at its best. just took 2 days to read this yukio masterpiece. btw it got a nice lovely blue cover.

Absolutely savage - the more the main character tries to throw his own life away and devalue it, the more society reacts in increasingly bizarre ways. Not always a Mishima fan but this is him at his very best - he's a bit of a blunt instrument compared to someone on the subtler side like Kawabata, but it's refreshing and very funny, although more in the wry grin way than belly laughs.

A wonderful and unusual voyage to Japan. Spectacular story telling. Rich with intentional irony and drenched with poetic blows.

Un livre perturbant et dérangeant - mais un classique, à raison. A lire si vous aimez ce qui sort de l'ordinaire

After 4/5ths of this book I parked it for a while.Not that this is not a fully engrossing and readable version of a Japanese classic. Rather I couldn’t get my head fully around the writing and the mystery that overwhelms the protagonist of this story.Hanio Yamada on the face of it, young, attractive and successful struggles with his almost meaningless life.When he wakes up in hospital he realises his attempt at suicide has failed. He sets out on a new venture. He will place an advert where his life is literally for sale. Whoever purchases it will be free to use him as they wish, in complete discretion and terminate his life at a time for their choosing and for their pleasure.Thereafter, nothing is straightforward as we see and take a journey with Hanio as his life both unravels but curiously makes more sense to him.First published in 1968 in Japanese Playboy it is considered a piece of appealing pulp fiction by one of the country’s most revered authors. A literary great, Yukio Mishima.We are now indebted to Penguin Classics and a wonderful English translation by Stephen Dodd for making it assessable and available to modern readers.It is clearly a satirical work about Tokyo life and wider Japanese society. One I found completely enjoyable and pleasing to read. In setting the book aside I wanted to think about this very different type of fiction and try to find more about the circumstances that brought about its writing.In the process I forgot about it for a while and was delighted to pick it up again. The story remained fresh and absorbing. This final part of the mystery is both a remembering of all that befalls young Yamada as well as bringing the story to a dramatic conclusion.In the process Hanio’s thinking turns full circle and he sees meaningless in other’s mundane existence while valuing his own life for the first time in his adult life.Full of other genres and traditions in Japanese literature this is a book that will amuse and trouble you but in reading it you may glean more insight and empathy for humanity. It is a book with pace and purpose that will leave you breathless and wanting to learn more about this very different culture and read modern authors from Japan.

Picked up upon recommendation and this book is just ok. I don't think I would pick this up again if i wanted to but it was an easy enough read during my morning day commute. I think that the characters are appealing enough to keep your interest but i also don't think there is more to the story than what is there since the main character is just kinda going with the story.