The Runaway Horses

Yukio Mishima’s Runaway Horses is the second novel in his masterful tetralogy, The Sea of Fertility. Again we encounter Shigekuni Honda, who narrates this epic tale of what he believes are the successive reincarnations of his childhood friend Kiyoaki Matsugae. In 1932, Shigeuki Honda has become a judge in Osaka. Convinced that a young rightist revolutionary, Isao, is the reincarnation of his friend Kiyoaki, Honda commits himself to saving the youth from an untimely death. Isao, driven to patriotic fanaticism by a father who instilled in him the ethos of the ancient samurai, organizes a violent plot against the new industrialists who he believes are usurping the Emperor’s rightful power and threatening the very integrity of the nation. Runaway Horses is the chronicle of a conspiracy — a novel about the roots and nature of Japanese fanaticism in the years that led to war.

Two sets of cousins, Boer and Brit, find their destinies inexorably intertwined in the politics and mayhem that led up to and encompassed the Anglo Boer War of 1899-1902. From Transvaal to Victorian England, the cousins form strong bonds, which are tested on the battlefields of South Africa. Martin de Winter, nurtured to lead his country of birth, Transvaal, into the twentieth century, instead finds himself excelling as a gifted young general, fighting a desperate war to keep his nation from ruins, all the while being haunted by his love for a British woman. James Henderson, cavalry officer, is forced by his father, a military aristocrat, to marry or face expulsion from his regiment. Bound for India, the regiment is diverted to South Africa to fight the Boers. James rides to glory and honor but is at the mercy of his loyalty to his country and his compassion for his Boer family. In the drawing rooms of Cape Town and Pretoria, Stefanie de Winter, celebrated pianist, is viewed from both sides with suspicion. Fiercely loyal to her brother Martin but in love with a British officer, she embarks on a dangerous path to keep them both. Dr. Charles Henderson tends to the slaughter on the battlefields. He is devastated by the willful destruction of his adopted country, Transvaal, and anguished by the part his brother, James, plays in this. Karel and Rudolf de Winter, twin brothers devoted to each other and their horses to the exclusion of all else, fight a battle against the bullet that might separate them forever. Through anger, injustice, and betrayal, the family discovers that there is a force stronger than war. They only have to call on it to find that love transcends all.

The final installment of the masterful tetralogy, The Sea of Fertility, finds Shigekuni Honda an elderly wealthy man in the 1960s, adopting a teenage orphan whom he is convinced is the reincarnation of his childhood friend. • "One of the best final scenes in the history of the novel.” —David Mitchell, The New York Times Book Review Honda, now an aged and wealthy man, once more encounters a person he believes to be a reincarnation of his friend, Kiyoaki Matsugae—this time restored to life as a teenage orphan, Tōru. Adopting the boy as his heir, Honda quickly finds that Tōru is a force to be reckoned with. The final novel of this celebrated tetralogy weaves together the dominant themes of the previous three novels in the series: the decay of Japan’s courtly tradition; the essence and value of Buddhist philosophy and aesthetics; and, underlying all, Mishima’s apocalyptic vision of the modern era.

'Was it death he was now waiting for? Or a wild ecstasy of the senses?' For the young army officer of Yukio Mishima's seminal story, 'Patriotism, ' death and ecstasy become elementally intertwined. With his unique rigor and passion, Mishima hones in on the body as the great tragic stage for all we call social, ritual, political.

When a runaway pony gallops into Sandy Lane, Jess doesn't flinch. Thanks to her quick reactions, the beautiful palomino pony is caught. But the man chasing her isn't all he seems. Soon, Jess is bitterly regretting her moment of heroism.

Bored with his life on the merry-go-round, a little wooden horse decides to run away.

"A classic of Japanese literature" (Chicago Sun-Times) and the first novel in the masterful tetralogy, The Sea of Fertility, set in 1912 Tokyo, featuring an aspiring lawyer who believes he has met the successive reincarnations of his childhood friend. It is 1912 in Tokyo, and 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. Shigekuni Honda, an aspiring lawyer and his childhood friend, Kiyoaki Matsugae, are the sons of two such families. As they come of age amidst the growing tensions between old and new, Kiyoaki is plagued by his simultaneous love for and loathing of the spirited young woman Ayakura Satoko. But Kiyoaki’s true feelings only become apparent when her sudden engagement to a royal prince shows him the magnitude of his passion—and leads to a love affair both doomed and inevitable.

Two sets of cousins, Boer and Brit, find their destinies inexorably intertwined in the politi and mayhem that led up to and encompassed the Anglo Boer War of 1899 - 1902. From Transvaal to Victorian England, the cousins form strong bonds that are tested on the battlefields of South Africa. Martin de Winter, nurtured to lead his country, Transvaal, into the twentieth century, instead finds himself excelling as a gifted young general, fighting a desperate war to keep his nation from ruin, all the while being haunted by his love for a British woman. James Henderson, cavalry officer, is forced by his father, a military aristocrat, to marry or face expulsion from his regiment. Bound for India, the regiment is diverted to South Africa to fight the Boers. James rides to glory and honour but is at the mercy of his loyalty to his country and his compassion for his Boer family. In the drawing rooms of Cape Town and Pretoria, Stefanie de Winter, celebrated pianist, is viewed from both sides with suspicion. Fiercely loyal to her brother Martin, but in love with a British officer, she embarks on a dangerous path to keep them both. Karel and Rudolf de Winter, twin brothers devoted to each other and their horses to the exclusion of all else, fight a battle against the bullet that might separate them forever. Through anger, injustice, and betrayal, the family discovers that there is a force stronger than war.