Runaway Horses

Having finished book one - Spring Snow - in Yukio Mishima's tetralogy,.The Sea of Fertility, I began reading book 2, Runaway Horses. I was most definitely impressed with the first novel.

The only problem I have with the second novel is the book within the book - so called The League of the Divine Wind by Tsunanori Yamao. This booklet - more rightly called a pamphlet, is an important element in the overall novel, but the pamphlet seems to drag on.

All else considered, the 2nd novel is very good. I'm 70% in and am looking forward to book number 3.

As a side note, one of the characters - Prince Harunori Toin - at one point decides to listen to a recording of Western music to put him in a better frame of mind. He listens to Richard Strauss' Till Eulenspiegels lustige Streiche (Op. 28) which he soon discovers is not having the affect he thought it would have. Being unfamiliar with the work, I looked for a recording YouTube. Strauss has never been one of my favorites and I can see why Prince Harunori Toin would regret listening to this work.