The writing was beautiful, but it disturbed me. I'm glad I read other Mishima books first - if I had read this one first, I probably wouldn't have picked up the others. And I did enjoy those more than this one. The Temple of the Golden Pavilion, for instance, was still beautifully written, and while still disturbing, was much less blatant with its violence and nature. Actually, I probably should have put this one down half way through because the cat scene was a little too much for me. It makes me a little afraid to have children - you never know what's going on inside that head! I'm glad the ending was implied and not born out in the same amount of detail as the earlier scene. "Glory, as anyone knows, is bitter stuff." Indeed. I won't forget this one at least.