“Forbidden Pleasures is a work by Yukio Mishima that is difficult for the untrained reader to comprehend and clearly does not carry an entertaining narrative. This is the great advantage of it; here you really have to think for yourself, not just follow the author’s thinking. The theories unfolded in the pages of Forbidden Pleasures are interesting and wide-ranging. Most books, at best, accommodate at least one such, but here there are plenty of them, and not theses theories, but with a good full-length explanation – the story itself is structured so that they are always relevant and timely. Many of the author’s thoughts and ideas are controversial and subjective, the whole work is full of motives of uncertainty in those postulates that initially seem immutable, which only plays into the hands of the attentive reader.

The elderly writer Sansuki is one of the main characters in the book; he is a pure example of calm and self-assurance, his words cruel and unpleasant, but justified. From the perspective of his years and experience, he looks down on the world, perfectly aware of its driving forces. Yuichi, the main character in the novel, is a young man who likes men. He is afraid of his inclinations. Yuichi is constantly searching for himself, just like any other person his age. Yuichi has to marry a girl named Yasuko, naturally not for love… What else is there to know about Yuichi? He is extremely handsome. Women fall in love with him at first sight, while men stare enviously from afar. And beauty is a terrible thing…