Western Elements in Haruki Murakami's Novels

Whether it's in Murakami's A Wild Sheep Chase or one of his other novels. I have found that Murakami uses a lot of elements of Western culture. This has a lot to do with Murakami reading a lot of Western literature in high school. I think the more interesting point is that Murakami often describes some car culture. This kind of car culture I think is most affected by The Long Goodbye from Chandler. At the beginning of The Long Goodbye, Chandler describes a scene of Rolls Royce Silver Wraith. Towards the end of the first chapter, he also writes "By the time he brought my Olds over I felt as if I was holding up a sack of lead" (Chandler, 12). Olds (Oldsmobile) is also a model of a famous American manufacturer of automobiles. Chapter 3 also describes "He drove me in a rust-colored Jupiter-Jowett with a flimsy canvas rain top under which there was only just room for the two of us" (Chandler, 39). Depicted here is Jowett Cars, a car brand owned by a British car manufacturing company, although the company closed in 1954. "There was a big Packard parked next to me" is also described in Chapter 5 (Chandler, 76). The Packard was a popular luxury car in the mid-20th century in the United States. 

Murakami also introduced car culture into his novels. For example, in Chapter 9 of A Wild Sheep Chase, he mentions his friend’s 1950 model Volkswagen as the driver picks him up. In the first chapter of the novel Killing Commendatore, he mentions the Toyota Corolla, followed by Peugeot and Menshiki's Jaguar. The car is integrated into the life of Murakami's characters, and many scenes of the protagonist looking at the scenery and thinking are also depicted through the car. These have become Murakami's unique style of writing. On the other hand, automobiles also imply social development, and Murakami also secretly depicts the background of Japanese society and Japanese economic scene from this aspect. 

On the other hand, Murakami also wrote a lot of coffee-related scenes in A Wild Sheep Chase. In the first chapter, he describes the cafe that the protagonist frequented in the autumn of 1970. He drank diluted coffee in the afternoon. In the second chapter, he described the scene of entering the kitchen in the morning to grind coffee beans and make coffee. Such coffee-related scenarios are also abundant in Norwegian Wood and The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle. Especially the scenes when characters go to a cafe for coffee in the afternoon and grind coffee beans at home to make coffee in the morning. In Murakami's characters, coffee has become an integral part of their lives. For example, drinking coffee every morning, drinking coffee in a cafe in the afternoon, and using coffee instead of meals, etc. Coffee is an important element in Western culture, and Murakami's coffee shop and bar since 1974 reflects his integration into Western culture. The experience of working in a coffee shop is also imprinted in his novels, becoming every character in his writings.

Junze Shan (Andrew)