Yukio Mishima's Runaway Horses is the second novel in his masterful
tetralogy, The Sea of Fertility. Again we encounter Shigekuni Honda,
who narrates this epic tale of what he believes are the successive
reincarnations of his childhood friend Kiyoaki Matsugae.
In 1932, Shigeuki Honda has become a judge in Osaka. Convinced that a
young rightist revolutionary, Isao, is the reincarnation of his friend
Kiyoaki*,* Honda commits himself to saving the youth from an untimely
death. Isao, driven to patriotic fanaticism by a father who instilled in
him the ethos of the ancient samurai, organizes a violent plot against
the new industrialists who he believes are usurping the Emperor's
rightful power and threatening the very integrity of the nation.
Runaway Horses is the chronicle of a conspiracy -- a novel about the
roots and nature of Japanese fanaticism in the years that led to war.