The Sailor Who Fell from Grace with the Sea (Japanese: 午後の曳航, meaning The Afternoon Towing), is a novel written by Yukio Mishima, published in Japanese in 1963 and translated into English by John Nathan in 1965.

Plot

The novel chronicles the story of Ryuji, a sailor with vague notions of a special honor awaiting him at sea. He meets a woman called Fusako with whom he falls deeply in love, and he ultimately decides to marry her. Fusako's 13-year-old son, Noboru, is in a band of savage boys who believe in "objectivity", rejecting the adult world as illusory, hypocritical and sentimental.

As Ryuji begins to draw close to Fusako, a woman of the shore, he is eventually torn away from the dreams he's pursued his entire life. Fusako's son, Noboru, who shares an especially close bond with his mother through a voyeuristic ritual, hates the idea of losing his mother to a man who has let his hope and freedom die. This anger and fear of loneliness translates into terrible, savage acts performed by Noboru and the gang of which he is a part.

Adaptations

The novel was adapted into a the film The Sailor Who Fell from Grace with the Sea starring Kris Kristofferson and Sarah Miles in 1976 by Lewis John Carlino. The setting was changed from Japan to England.

An opera by Hans Werner Henze, Das verratene Meer, is based on the novel; it was premiered in Berlin in 1990.