I'm still sorting my thoughts on this novel which I finished in March (I think?). But in the meantime, a small rant about the English translation.
The Japanese title of Sailor is 「午後の曳航」(Gogo no Eikō), literally "Afternoon Tugging." Tugging, as in tugging a cargo ship. The title pretty clearly ties into the whole nautical theme of the novel.
Now, the final line in the original Japanese is 「誰も知るように、栄光の味は苦い。」Literally, "As everyone knows, the taste of glory is bitter." Notice that the word 「栄光」(lit. "glory") is pronounced "Eikō" - just like 「曳航」! So the final line is a pun and a callback to the title.
Compare that to the John Nathan translation of the final line: "Glory, as anyone knows, is bitter stuff." Not only do I hate the phrasing of "bitter stuff," there's no pun.
Of course, puns are hard to translate. But before the climax of the novel, there's a passing line: "For this generation, they were smallish boys: the scene reminded Ryuji of six tugboats labouring ineffectively to tow a freighter out to sea." To me, this is exactly what the novel is about - The boys' towing of Ryuji "out to sea," not necessarily Ryuji's fall from grace. In fact, Ryuji has mostly already fallen from grace with the sea by the time the novel starts. He merely accepts his inability to reconcile his desire for glory with his lack of passion and vitality.
Near the end of my Mishima class last semester, we had a guest speaker talk about Mishima's movies. During a Q/A session, he claimed that "The Sailor who Fell from Grace with the Sea" was one of the biggest improvements of a translated title over the original one. I disagree. While it isn't the worst, it's certainly not anywhere near the best.