Yukio Mishima's novel The Sound of Waves takes place on the small Japanese fishing island of Uta-Jima. The island is so small that when Shinji first glimpsed Hatsue moving boats on the beach at twilight he knew she was from somewhere else. The boy stopped and studied her face without saying a word. She continued looking out to sea, though her eyes narrowed. Later Shinji would blush at his own rudeness.
Shinji is a fisherman and poor, and Hatsue recently returned from another island where she trained to be a pearl diver. Hatsue is also the daughter of Uta-Jima's wealthiest businessman, and her father intends her to marry Yasuo, a rich but corrupted young man. Shinji and Hatsue fall in love, but they must contend with her father and Yasuo as well as the jealousies and gossip of their neighbors.
The Sound of Waves values the earnestness of rural Japanese life over the sophistication of the Western world. Mishima's two heroes are innocent, but they also share a straight-forward good sense. His writing is simple, spare and beautiful. Mishima turns what might be cliché in another writer's hands into a gorgeous story about humility.
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