Bryce ElderJody CarterEnglish 1 PAPMay 17, 2014The Sound of WavesThe Sound of Waves is a romantic love story that begins slowly, builds momentum, and ends like a pleasant story. The novel begins by showing the reader the way of life around Uta-Jima, which is an island on which the novel takes place. Shinji, who is the main character and protagonist, is an 18 year old boy who catches a fish. alive.Every day the fisherman went out to sea to fish, and one day the rumor spread that the richest man on the island was bringing his daughter back to the island. His daughter's name is Hatsue and she is supposed to be a beautiful girl. One day, after returning from fishing, Shinji's mother wanted him to go to the mountains to get some firewood, which she had piled up for the days to come. During Shinji's walk to the top of the mountain, he thought of Hatsue the whole way. When he got to the top of the mountain, he picked up the wood and realized that there was a girl sitting on the other side of the pile of wood. It was Hatsue; Shinji was in shock to be the first fisherman to see Hatsue. They were attracted to each other so they decided to go down the mountain to the beach and get to know each other. After this meeting between the two ended, life returned to normal. Hatsue didn't do much during the day and Shinji fished from sunrise to sunset. The two hadn't seen each other much, but one day storms came and Shinji came home early from fishing. His mother needed him to go get more wood from the top of the mountain, but this time Shinji didn't want to go because of the storms. He finally reached the top of the mountain and entered the building that keeps the firewood dry. It was so dark in the building... middle of paper ...... in their minds, they were wondering what Uta-Jima Island looked like after winter. Mishima actually describes the island more than many of his characters. Throughout the novel, I enjoyed how Yukio Mishima blended Japanese history, traditions, and rituals into this love story. Not only did I enjoy the story, but I learned about some traditions of Japanese culture that I didn't know. I didn't like how Mishima let the narrator tell the story the whole time. I wish he used more character quotes and conversations between characters, so the reader could directly tell what the characters were feeling. I highly recommend this book to anyone who loves romantic love stories, or anyone who enjoys seeing people succeed after going through some tough times and overcoming obstacles they've faced. The novel is well written, quite easy to read and overall an excellent book..