The last volume in Yukio Mishima’s tetralogy The Sea of Fertility, which includes Spring Snow, Runaway Horses and The Temple of Dawn.
The novel is set in the 1970s. Shigekuni Honda, our guide through the whole The Sea of Fertility, is now an elderly established judge. He meets an 16 year old orphan, Tōru Yasunaga, on Izu Penninsula. Honda finds a birthmark on his body, one that so closely resembles a birthmark that he previously found on the other “reincarnations” of his dead friend. He then decides to raise the boy as his own. The arrogant boy, however, begins to elude the teachings of the elderly millionaire and use his fortune against him…
The “angels” in the title of the novel are mortal angels, only a step higher than humans – devas. The Devas are frails and prone to decay, just like Tōru. The Devas are frails and prone to decay, just like Tōru.
