It has been years since I read the Sea of Fertility, but I remember one Western scholar of Japan claiming that the fourth volume was a shoddy work compared to the previous three, written hastily as Mishima was preparing for his death. Since the English version didn’t obviously strike me as so flawed, I wondered if the translator had done some rescue work. Sadly, I’ll probably never be able to read the book in its original Japanese.

I saw nothing wrong with the fourth book -- and I preferred it to the first, which was perhaps a little bit too saccharine and tinged with nostalgia for a lost world, and the third, which was a little bit too sedate. (Especially after the wild vitality of the second.)

Public opinion turned on Mishima after his death. Westerners, by and large, took offense at his final actions. The Japanese found it embarrassing and endeavored to forget all about it. I'd venture a guess that your critic could be influenced by feelings that have nothing to do with the book as a thing in itself.