the super-knowledgable pub-quiz legend furnished me with 2 pieces of information on this: mishima was a fascist and the film is rubbish. he didn’t mention that mishima and his boyfriend ritually disemboweled themselves. and all he could tell me about heinrich boll (more on him later) is that he was mentioned in a woody allen film. i’ll have to do my own research when i write that entry.
anyway this book. it’s in 2 parts one part before titular sailor goes away and one part after he comes back. boy watches mother and sailor, erm, making whoopee (thank you colin’s random euphemism generator) and doesn’t like the idea much. plots to deal with said sailor with implausibly verbose school chums.
the first part is atmospheric, erotic, engaging. the second part shares some of these characteristics but the plot clunks along to it’s ropey, sorry, ‘shocking’ conclusion and doesn’t deliver in the way promised by the earlier section.
this book is pretty good out of ten.
