This is Mishima's novel about the pressure of living an idealised life. It tells a fictionalised account of real events - the lonely acolyte who destroyed a famous Kyoto temple.

Mizoguchi grows up a lonely boy in a poor family, a hopeless and frustrated stutterer. Only tales of the beauty of a famous temple in Kyoto, told by his dying father, sustain him. Taunted by his schoolmates, he eventually escapes to become an acolyte at the temple. But there, witness to acts of callous violence and terrified by the bombing of the war, Mizoguchi develops an all-consuming obsession with the temple's preservation - until the beauty of the place itself starts to feel like his deadliest enemy.

This powerful story of sacrifice and unattainable ideals brings together Mishima's preoccupations with violence, desire, religion and national history to dazzling effect.