Haruki Murakami
I read Murakami's novel slowly, one every few months, because I know soon they'll run out and there will be no more Murukami novels to read. Already, there may be only one left. Given the vitality of my memory, however, as soon as I finish the last I'll be able to begin the first again, unencumbered.
Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World seems more explicit that some of Murakami's other works. It features a scientist who explains the main character's dilemmas to the character, because in this book the character isn't even aware of them himself. In other books, usually the protagonist slowly draws himself into an awareness of loss, or a curious absence of feeling, and even more slowly mobilizes to remedy it. Here, he is not only told the mechanical - or rather neurophysiological - circumstances of his condition, but he is under a time constraint in figuring out what he wants to do about it.
There is also less eating in this book. (This is clearly my important insight.) Usually when Murakami shows you the hollow, well-lit order of the protagonist's life, eating is a large element. However, since the eating is of Japanese things that I find delicious, I probably become more emotionally invested in the character's vegetative state than the author intends. Well, it may also be that I relate somewhat to that state of mind. Anyway, in this book the 'condition' is so engrained in - in fact programmed - into the character that he has no access to it on his own, no need to sit in a well or a kitchen or a snowed-in cabin in order to come to terms with it. The novel seems a lot more dark because Murakami's taken away his character's agency to such an extent. I see proof for my little insight here in that he serves up this nihilistic tale with a side of absurd Indiana Jones-like adventure, such as pursuit by goblinish fishy beings who eat rotted humans in the Tokyo sewers.
The authors' thinking about the macro dynamics governing his characters' lives in modern Japan/world also appears more clear. In Hard-Boiled Wonderland, "The System" and "The Factory," totalitarian organizations battling for control of the country's information streams, turn out to be two sides of the same coin. Although this representation made the idea more clear to me, I have to say I really like Murakami's other sketches of the shadowy governors of modern life - such as when they run hotels that extend underground or infiltrate WWII. They're just ridiculously original and visceral.
The internal world of the protagonist is also painted more clearly in this book. It is actually a city - it reminded me a lot of Calvino's Invisible Cities. Since I am on the subject of references, does every author, at least once is his/her lifetime, reference the story of Molloy counting the stones in his pocket? I may be imagining this, but the opening scene in Hard-Boiled Wonderland, where the narrator counts the coins in his pockets using his left and right brain separately, seems to reference that scene from Molloy but also to take it a step further - the narrator is on the surface hyper-aware of what he's doing, using his brain beyond its original capacity, but of course as it turns out, his mind and the scientist who programmed it are manipulating him beyond anyone's expectation.
So it was kind of exciting to read this book because it cleared a lot up for me about Murakami's fictional world. Now I'll reread his other books and see what I take away differently. Although I know I won't stop thinking about this one because of its ending. The protagonist decides to stay in his subconscious, "the Town" in the novel, because he thinks it's the only way to reconcile his world and mind again. But the Town is a creation of the scientist, who actually interpreted the protagonist's subconscious, translated its mass into a story, and programmed it into the protagonist as an alternative mind pattern. So does this mean that the character needs such an intermediary translation, that the original world of his head is not accessible at all on his own? Does this make the ending of Murakami's other novels, on the surface more optimistic attempts to sort things out in the real world, futile?
Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World seems more explicit that some of Murakami's other works. It features a scientist who explains the main character's dilemmas to the character, because in this book the character isn't even aware of them himself. In other books, usually the protagonist slowly draws himself into an awareness of loss, or a curious absence of feeling, and even more slowly mobilizes to remedy it. Here, he is not only told the mechanical - or rather neurophysiological - circumstances of his condition, but he is under a time constraint in figuring out what he wants to do about it.
There is also less eating in this book. (This is clearly my important insight.) Usually when Murakami shows you the hollow, well-lit order of the protagonist's life, eating is a large element. However, since the eating is of Japanese things that I find delicious, I probably become more emotionally invested in the character's vegetative state than the author intends. Well, it may also be that I relate somewhat to that state of mind. Anyway, in this book the 'condition' is so engrained in - in fact programmed - into the character that he has no access to it on his own, no need to sit in a well or a kitchen or a snowed-in cabin in order to come to terms with it. The novel seems a lot more dark because Murakami's taken away his character's agency to such an extent. I see proof for my little insight here in that he serves up this nihilistic tale with a side of absurd Indiana Jones-like adventure, such as pursuit by goblinish fishy beings who eat rotted humans in the Tokyo sewers.
The authors' thinking about the macro dynamics governing his characters' lives in modern Japan/world also appears more clear. In Hard-Boiled Wonderland, "The System" and "The Factory," totalitarian organizations battling for control of the country's information streams, turn out to be two sides of the same coin. Although this representation made the idea more clear to me, I have to say I really like Murakami's other sketches of the shadowy governors of modern life - such as when they run hotels that extend underground or infiltrate WWII. They're just ridiculously original and visceral.
The internal world of the protagonist is also painted more clearly in this book. It is actually a city - it reminded me a lot of Calvino's Invisible Cities. Since I am on the subject of references, does every author, at least once is his/her lifetime, reference the story of Molloy counting the stones in his pocket? I may be imagining this, but the opening scene in Hard-Boiled Wonderland, where the narrator counts the coins in his pockets using his left and right brain separately, seems to reference that scene from Molloy but also to take it a step further - the narrator is on the surface hyper-aware of what he's doing, using his brain beyond its original capacity, but of course as it turns out, his mind and the scientist who programmed it are manipulating him beyond anyone's expectation.
So it was kind of exciting to read this book because it cleared a lot up for me about Murakami's fictional world. Now I'll reread his other books and see what I take away differently. Although I know I won't stop thinking about this one because of its ending. The protagonist decides to stay in his subconscious, "the Town" in the novel, because he thinks it's the only way to reconcile his world and mind again. But the Town is a creation of the scientist, who actually interpreted the protagonist's subconscious, translated its mass into a story, and programmed it into the protagonist as an alternative mind pattern. So does this mean that the character needs such an intermediary translation, that the original world of his head is not accessible at all on his own? Does this make the ending of Murakami's other novels, on the surface more optimistic attempts to sort things out in the real world, futile?
posted by Katherine at 5:42 PM
2 Comments:
what about the endless dinner that he cooks for the librarian who never gets full. I was pretty amazed by the long succession of dishes that he manages to whip up. It actually got me to thinking about who would win in a cook-off between him and the main character from Wind-Up Bird? (ok, those are the only two Murakami novels I have read, maybe he gets even more food-oriented elsewhere).
Well, in some instances all he has to work with are canned goods in a forest cabin... And sometimes he just goes to bars and restaurants a lot. But you're right, in the Wind-Up Bird Chronicles, there is so much time spent in the kitchen, and going to supermarkets, that the protagonist is clearly a potential cook-off competitor!
I am definitely rereading that dinner scene.
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