The Temple of the Golden Pavilion (Yukio Mishima)

The first thing that intrigued me about this book was that the main character was one in which I saw myself more than any other literary character. Also intriguing was that it was based on a true story, and was supposed to be a sort of psychological exploration of the mind of a disturbed arsonist. The book kind of reminded me of Rebecca and Death in Venice, as it combined a story about a descent into chaos with the element of an obsession with a mysterious and beautiful building. However, unlike either of those two, the telling of the story was dramatically kind of flat, and the most engaging aspect of it was the philosophical preoccupation with beauty and isolation that was sometimes explored to the point of confusion. Overall though, it was a rather interesting book.