The Temple of Dawn is the third novel in the Sea of Fertility tetralogy by the Japanese writer Yukio Mishima. For this as for the other novels in the series, Mishima travelled to various places to conduct research, including Wat Arun in Bangkok, Thailand. The lawyer Honda visits Thailand on a business trip and encounters a young girl whom he believes to be his schoolfriend's second reincarnation. Eleven years later she travels to Japan to study and he befriends her in the hope of learning more. The main narrative takes place between 1941 and 1952. The last chapter is set in 1967. In 1941,... Shigekuni Honda is sent to Bangkok as legal counsel for Itsui Products in a case involving a spoilt shipment of antipyretic drugs. He takes advantage of the trip to see as much as he can of Thailand. After touring many great buildings, he visits the Temple of Dawn and is deeply impressed by its sumptuous architecture, which to the sober lawyer represents "golden listlessness", the luxurious feel of anti-rationalism and of "the constant evasion of any organized logical system".
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