Aquatic Animals in Murakami's Works

     by Nobel

    Animals appear frequently throughout Murakami's works, and he mentions various species ranging from cats to elephants to kangaroos. However, one subset of animal seems to function differently from the others: the aquatic animal, or the animal related to water. In A Wild Sheep Chase, The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle, and "The Year of Spaghetti", animals in water appear as hotel names, absent spaces, cut off penises, or a submarine; aquatic animals seem to manifest only metaphysically or metaphorically, never occupying the literal spaces given to land and sky animals such as Boku's pet cat or the birds in the zoo. This difference suggests that water-related animals hold a special significance for Murakami.

    The whale and the dolphin both play prominent roles in A Wild Sheep Chase. Boku recounts his childhood memories of gazing at a whale's penis in an aquarium, emphasizing that he was looking "not [at] a whale but at a whale's penis" (30). The whale's penis fails to act as a proper synecdoche for the whale as a whole, and Boku reflects that "no one would have taken it to be a whale's penis," showing that this severed body part only shows what is not rather than what is (30). Boku later states that "I am not a whale," suggesting that aquatic animals symbolize separation from other things, an identity formed by knowing what you are not instead of what you are (31). When Boku and his girlfriend visit the Dolphin Hotel, the whale becomes prominent once again for its absence. The Dolphin Hotel owner explains that he named the hotel after a scene in Moby Dick, and when Boku points out the hotel should be called the Whale Hotel the owner says whales don't have the right image (207). The absence of the whale in the hotel's name is similar to the absence of the whale's body in the aquarium, but this time the absence is replaced by another absent aquatic animal, the dolphin (whether the scene in Moby Dick actually exists is uncertain). The replacement hints at an interchangeability between aquatic animals, introducing doubt into Boku's previous assertion that he is not a whale. Hard distinctions between human and animal, dolphin and whale, melt as he approaches the other world, indicating that Murakami uses aquatic animals to explore issues of identity.

    Boundaries between objects blur in The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle as well. In chapter 9, the massacre at the zoo runs alongside Nutmeg's encounter with a submarine, with the submarine's animalistic qualities paralleling the zoo animals' behavior. Murakami describes the submarine's movement as "stalking its prey," making the submarine sound like an aquatic predator (397). He calls the submarine an "incomprehensible metaphor," suggesting that the submarine is neither fully machine nor fully animal, its real identity lying outside of the physical like the whale's (396). Murakami creates an intriguing juxtaposition between the predatory, metaphorical submarine and the preyed-upon, hyper-physical zoo animals, highlighting the difference between sea and land, machine and nature. Water seems able to transform animals completely, as highlighted by the repeated command to "liquidat[e]" the zoo animals (401). However, this water connection may not exist in the Japanese word for "liquidate", so this connection may not apply.

    The final animal-water relationship occurs in "The Year of Spaghetti" with the German shepherd. Seemingly for no reason, Boku repeatedly mentions that his spaghetti pot is "big enough to bathe a German shepherd in" (169). Like the whale, the German shepherd's presence is an absence; his absence is also dictated by water, as Boku specifically says the pot can "bathe" a German shepherd, not just hold one. The German shepherd seems to be, like the submarine, an "incomprehensible metaphor" to both the readers and to Boku. His attempts to cook spaghetti may be seen as an attempt to 'fill' the German shepherd's shape, to negate its absence, and by doing so comprehend the metaphor. In Brautigan's story the eels are "science-fiction children of spaghetti," and in "The Year of Spaghetti" Boku at one point thinks that he is "in a[...] science fiction story" (60, 171). Aquatic creatures pop up frequently in science-fiction and fantasy (such as H.P. Lovecraft's ocean monster Cthulhu and Jules Verne's animal-like submarine The Nautilus), suggesting that Murakami invokes the wonder, horror, and incomprehensibility of those sea creatures when he writes about his own aquatic animals. Sci-fi and fantasy both showcase fictional possibilities, and the empty water-based German shepherd may also represent the possibility of company that Boku never grasps.