I've spent a couple of weeks thinking on and off about how to write about this photobook, on the surface level its kind of stupid like yeah look at mishima recreating Ophelia but instead of water it's a naked man, but I think this is a deeply spiritual and intentional book all things considered, it clearly has structure and recurring concepts, in many ways its almost narrative (even biographical maybe?), as Hosoe presents each another layer of yukio's form is untangled.

What that narrative is however I can't really explain, the images ressonate but I couldn't verbalise what resonates if I tried, which I think is the point; utilising photography in every way that verbal language could never reach.

Hosoe is kind of the perfect photographer to do this as well, he was an artist who truly understood the human form as 'art' in the same way Mishima wrote about it; his compositions can be so dense and complex that it can take moments to orient your eyes. In Ordeal by Roses Hosoe gags, binds, morphs, punctures and captures flesh like no photographer before or after.

anyway im not rereading or editing any of this because i have like 2 exams tomorrow and i've spent like 2 hours looking at pictures of naked japanese men which honestly i think i should regret but i dont so :?