Mishima Yukio: The Sea of Fertility (four novels)

The Sea of Fertility (豊饒の海 Hōjō no Umi) is a tetralogy of novels written by the Japanese author Yukio Mishima. The four novels are Spring Snow (1969), Runaway Horses (1969), The Temple of Dawn (1970), and The Decay of the Angel (1971).The series, which Mishima began writing in 1964 and which was his final work, is usually thought of as his masterpiece. Its title refers to the Mare Fecunditatis, a "sea" on the Moon.

Spring Snow is set in Tokyo in 1912, when the hermetic world of the ancient aristocracy is being breached for the first time by outsiders -- rich provincial families unburdened by tradition, whose money and vitality make them formidable contenders for social and political power.

Among this rising new elite are the ambitious Matsugae, whose son has been raised in a family of the waning aristocracy, the elegant and attenuated Ayakura. Coming of age, he is caught up in the tensions between old and new -- fiercely loving and hating the exquisite, spirited Ayakura Satoko. He suffers in psychic paralysis until the shock of her engagement to a royal prince shows him the magnitude of his passion, and leads to a love affair that is as doomed as it was inevitable.

Runaway Horses:
 Isao is a young, engaging patriot, and a fanatical believer in the ancient samurai ethos. He turns terrorist, organising a violent plot against the new industrialists, who he believes are threatening the integrity of Japan and usurping the Emperor's rightful power. As the conspiracy unfolds and unravels, Mishima brilliantly chronicles the conflicts of a decade that saw the fabric of Japanese life torn apart.

The Temple of Dawn:
Honda, a brilliant lawyer and man of reason, is called to Bangkok on legal business, where he is granted an audience with a young Thai princess - an encounter that radically alters the course of his life. He is convinced she is a reincarnated spirit, and undertakes a long, arduous pilgrimage to the holy places of India, where, in the climatic scene, he encounters her once more, only to have his newfound beliefs shattered and his life bereft of all meaning.

The Decay of the Angel:
As the dramatic climax of The Sea of Fertility, 'The Decay of the Angel' brings together the dominant themes of the three previous novels- the meaning and decay of Japan's courtly tradition and samurai ideal; the essence and value of Buddhist philosophy and aesthetics; and, underlying all, Mishima's apocalyptic vision of the modern era, which saw the dissolution of the moral and cultural forces that throughout the ages nourished a people and a world. The time is the late 1960s. Honda, now an aged and wealthy man, discovers and adopts a sixteen-year-old orphan, Toru, as his heir, identifying him with the tragic protagonists of the three previous novels, each of whom died at the age of twenty. Honda raises and educates the boy, yet watches him, waiting

Mishima Yukio: Spring Snow 
Mishima Yukio: Runaway Horses
Mishima Yukio: The Temple of Dawn
Mishima Yukio: The Decay of the Angel
Alan Friedman: The Decay of the Angel