Thirst for Love
1950
First Published
3.64
Average Rating
224
Number of Pages
In Thirst for Love, Japan's greatest modern writer created a portrait of sexual torment and corrosive jealousy that is as delicately nuanced as Madame Bovary and as remorseless as Justine. Yukio Mishima's protagonist is Etsuko, whose philandering husband has died horribly from typhoid. The young widow moves into the household of her father-in-law, where she numbly submits to the old man's advances. But soon Etsuko falls in love with the young servant, Saburo. Tormented by his indifference yet invigorated by her anguish, she makes one last, catastrophic bid for his attention. Stunningly acute in its perceptions, excruciating in its psychological suspense, Thirst for Love is a triumph of eroticism, terror, and compassion.
Avg Rating
3.64
Number of Ratings
6,663
5 STARS
18%
4 STARS
38%
3 STARS
33%
2 STARS
8%
1 STARS
2%
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Author
Yukio Mishima
Author · 44 books
Yukio Mishima (三島 由紀夫) was born in Tokyo in 1925. He graduated from Tokyo Imperial University’s School of Jurisprudence in 1947. His first published book, The Forest in Full Bloom, appeared in 1944 and he established himself as a major author with Confessions of a Mask (1949). From then until his death he continued to publish novels, short stories, and plays each year. His crowning achievement, the Sea of Fertility tetralogy—which contains the novels Spring Snow (1969), Runaway Horses (1969), The Temple of Dawn (1970), and The Decay of the Angel (1971)—is considered one of the definitive works of twentieth-century Japanese fiction. In 1970, at the age of forty-five and the day after completing the last novel in the Fertility series, Mishima committed seppuku (ritual suicide)—a spectacular death that attracted worldwide attention.
