WHEN YUKIO MISHIMA’S novel Beautiful Star was published in 1962, it was a complete flop. Although a few critics made polite noises out of respect for Mishima’s reputation as Japan’s foremost man of letters, most panned it. Fewer than 20,000 copies were sold; and his American publishers turned down the translation rights.
It is easy to see why. Unlike his earlier works, which had made a virtue of realism, seems little more than a stilted piece of science fiction. Its protagonists, the Ōsugi, are a prosperous, if eccentric, family from a provincial town, who have realised that they are extra-terrestrials. Each comes from a different planet: Jūichirō, the father, from Mars; his wife from Jupiter; their daughter
