Word: kiyoaki
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...characters are members of the Japanese upper class and their retainers; most of the novel's events take place in 1912. The hero is a handsome, dreamy youth named Kiyoaki Matsugae, who belongs to a rich samurai family but has spent his boyhood in the household of some splendidly effete aristocrats named Ayakura. There he acquired "elegance" and the desire to live for emotion alone, "like a pennant, dependent on each gusting wind...
...years Kiyoaki has been secretly in love with the Ayakuras' beautiful daughter Satoko, but he can admit to his passion only after she has become betrothed to a royal prince. The inevitable desperate, destructive affair ensues. By the end of the book, Satoko has fled to a nunnery and Kiyoaki has died of-God help us all-consumption...