Star

Star (1960), translated into English for a release in 2019, is a novella by Yukio Mishima written in the first person and centered on celebrity, and the exclusivity, pressures and pleasures of stardom.

A young man reflects on his experience acting in a yakuza film, his rising fame, and his life off set. Mishima wrote it soon after, or during, the filming of Afraid to Die (1960), in which he starred. The novella was originally published in a Japanese magazine.

The novella takes about an hour to read, and it feels like a memoir disguised as fiction.

Mishima’s protagonist, who goes by the name Richie, philosophizes about superstardom and eventually arrives at the conclusion that life is essentially meaningless. He receives constant love letters from young admirers, and he relishes his near-godlike status, remarking that the “worst” thing is seeing one of his promotional posters blown face down in the street. Toward the end, Richie considers the idea of suicide and observes an older celebrity whose age he would never want to reach. It’s hard not to read these passages as autobiographical, with Richie standing in for Mishima, already grappling with thoughts of ending his life a decade before his seppuku at the Ichigaya Camp in 1970.

After watching Afraid to Die and reading Star, I read various bits about Mishima online and found out that he'd been raised about three blocks from the office building where I work, in the Yotsuya area of Tokyo. So one day on my lunch break I walked down there, into what felt like a dip or valley, to see if I could find the address, knowing full well the original house would have been replaced.

At the address was a rather plain three- or four-story apartment building, with perhaps half a dozen units. Behind it sat a tiny art gallery with a damp, basement-like feel. The spot was tucked into a narrow side street that ended at a house on the slope of a fairly steep hill. It really did feel like the bottom of the neighborhood, in an otherwise hilly area somewhere between Yotsuya-sanchome Station and Akebonobashi Station, perhaps a few blocks closer to Shinjuku proper.

There’s a graveyard down there too, and a small lonely park with a weathered totem pole for no obvious reason. I stepped into the gallery, since the sliding door was open, assuming someone might be inside behind the curtain and could confirm whether I was in the right place. A couple dozen framed photographs hung on the walls, none particularly striking.

“Sumimasen,” I called out, hoping someone would appear.

A timid woman eventually stepped out and stood leaning away from me, as though I might be planning to bolt with one of her pictures. I asked whether she knew if this had been the place where Mishima had lived as a boy. Despite my best effort, she continued to look puzzled, as if I’d asked something very strange. In short, she had no idea what I was talking about and probably thought I was crazy when I suggested that the author had once lived at the very spot where she was standing.

“Arigato gozaimasu,” I said with a quick bow. “Shitsureishimashita.” Then up out of that dim little pocket of a neighborhood I went, back to the office. It was a lovely day for a walk, though, and the sun felt warmer once I’d left what may or may not have been the place where Mishima dreamed as a child.