On Book Design and "The Strange Library"

I find the book design for the Knopf edition of Haruki Murakami’s The Strange Library surprising yet perplexing. Chip Kidd, a celebrity in the world of book design, has designed numerous hardcover editions of Murakami novels. He toys with material in order to subvert the physicality of the book form. The Strange Library is packaged in a paperback slipcase. The experience of opening the book evokes that of removing a book from library stacks. Its cover flips open vertically rather than horizontally to reveal the first page in large, monospace type.

A book’s formal qualities can challenge conventional modes of reading. We’ve seen this in other Murakami novels where illustrations—often crudely drawn—are inserted unexpectedly. That said, the premier goal of book’s design should be to make content accessible and legible. Typography is meant to inform, not distract. In her 1932 essay "The Crystal Goblet," designer Beatrice Ward metaphorically relates the function of typography to that of a clear goblet. As a crystal wine glass reveals the full color tones of the liquid, type choice in publication design should be an open window into the text. I think that the interior pages of The Strange Library demonstrate why there are certain conventions of typesetting. The font size is larger than usual and as a result, there are less words per line and more words are hyphenated. For me personally, this makes the reading experience less immersive.

I enjoyed the vivid images that accompany certain spreads. Enlarged, abstracted content doesn’t distract from the text itself. Taken from Chip Kidd’s own collection of Japanese print ephemera, they have a collage-like quality to them. I also liked how a sharp decrease in font size is used to communicate a change in tone as the narrator shares news of his mothers death. This perfectly illustrates how typography can enhance meaning or understanding.

Politics in Murakami

 There are a number of Murakami's works that feel incredibly detached from any sort of politics. This sort of detachment from politics can help his works fit into the genre of magical realism more, as the story is less grounded in a reality that we all know and have opinions on. However, there are a number of Murakami works that heavily feature politics (like Norwegian Wood). Murakami is also not a particularly apolitical person, as he hasn't hesitated to publicly state his political opinions in the past. Not only has he spoken out against Russia's invasion of Ukraine, but he has criticized the Japanese prime minister for his handling of the COVID-19 pandemic and condemned Japan for its role in World War II and imperialism. He's even won the Jerusalem Prize, which is awarded for themes of human rights and freedom in literature. 

However, when reading his works, all of it feels apolitical. Even if you're used to reading critically to discern potential biases from the author, the reader through the narrating protagonist feels separate from the politics. Things like the protagonist not participating in the 9-5 office job culture are inherently political, but they don't feel that way when you read them. It's tempting to call the works as a whole apolitical at first. Even when characters like Watanabe interact with real-world politics and technically do have opinions on current events, but since the narrators are not emotionally invested so much in what's happening, it feels distant from the reader. Even when Watanabe's university lectures are interrupted by protesters and his classes are eventually shut down, he simply shrugs in a very shouganai attitude. 

Juliana

Murakami and "The System"

 I came across a speech Murakami gave in 2009 when he accepted the Jerusalem Prize in Israel: https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/culture/1.5076881. This was after the world witnessed Israel attacking Gaza, and he addresses it in his speech by indirectly giving his political stance. He says, “Each of us is, more or less, an egg. Each of us is a unique, irreplaceable soul enclosed in a fragile shell. This is true of me, and it is true of each of you. And each of us, to a greater or lesser degree, is confronting a high, solid wall. The wall has a name: it is “The System.” The System is supposed to protect us, but sometimes it takes on a life of its own, and then it begins to kill us and cause us to kill others-coldly, efficiently, systematically…We must not allow the System to exploit us. We must now allow the System to take on a life of its own. The System did not make us: we made the System”

I found this to be very illuminating to understand his own personal philosophy that influences his work. He says that he is "always on the side of the egg", or the individual, against "The System". It explains his focus on the individual, on which he later says, "I have only one reason to write novels, and that is to bring the dignity of the individual soul to the surface and shine a light upon it. The purpose of a story is to sound an alarm, to keep a light trained on The System in order to prevent it from tangling our souls in its web and demeaning them." From this perspective, Murakami could have included symbols of "The System" in all his stories. 

In particular, I was struck by the sheep's parasitic nature in A Wild Sheep Chase, which Strecher also mentioned. I had previously thought that the sheep might represent the Japanese state or society, but I now think it extends past that: the sheep is "The System", the universal manifestation of the interconnected governance, institutions, norms, beliefs, etc. from society that are imposed on the individual. The sheep dominates the host's mind, eliminating individuality while driving the host to societal success. It is portrayed to inhabit the host in order to maneuver the entire structure of society for its secured control of it, and therefore of the people. 

In the short story "Sleep", we see the fight more close-up between the individual and "The System" when the woman rejects her life as the perfect housewife, where "each day [was] pretty much a repetition of the day before[...] a life that had swallowed me up so completely" (81). Murakami repeats the idea that individuality can be consumed by society's desires and expectations, and living becomes meaningless because it is not you truly living it. 

The bakery attacks Murakami writes about also could be interpreted through this lens. The protagonist and companions feel an unbearable emptiness within themselves from trying to conform to society, and can only alleviate it by doing something as bizarre as attack a bakery to break out of their routines. 

Alessandra Leone

Murakami's Approach

 Murakami is both a scientist and an artist. Throughout his works, Murakami weaves magic and logic to create the systems of magical realism present in many of his novels and short stories. In Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World, Murakami describes a world full of Calcutecs, Semiotics, and the corporatist government. While many of these elements seem fantastical, there is a logic to them, a logic that has passed the test of time and technological advancement. Calcutecs act as computers who encrypt and process data. They are “black boxes” that are impenetrable, immutable, and only output is viewable. The Calcutecs, like computers, are not able to adjust their own “code” nor do they have access to or an awareness of these processes. It is entirely automated and highly efficient. Like computers, these Calcutecs are also able to process information that is harmful to them, unbeknownst to them as the narrator does, driving the plot of (half of) this novel. Semiotecs act as programmers, yet a moral judgment is passed on them for their actions. Usually, this is allowed when done to computers, yet the ways in which Calcutecs resemble computers, especially the protagonist, creates an unsettling effect, coercing the reader to morally condemn Semiotecs. 

Murakami takes this one step past logic in The End of the World. In this world, it seems as if the usual rules in the “Other World” do not apply, or are so distorted that they are beyond comprehension. However, the relationship between these two worlds, one being in the mind of the protagonist explains the eerie dreamlike and protagonist-centered logic present in that world.

Murakami was not only able to create this mechanical system in humans, but fully replicate the logic, nuances, and shortcomings of contemporary computing. He then totally defies expectations of the genre and his own readers by linking the two stories together, showing that this fantastical world is fully supported by the logic of the “more realistic” half. Murakami artistically and logically weaves these two worlds together, but his approach to common sense and something resembling the scientific method.

Timothy Obiso

Samsa in Kafka and Murakami

Published in 1915, Franz Kafka's The Metamorphosis portrays an excellent criticism of capitalist culture.  The protagonist, a man by the name of Gregor Samsa, is an overworked salesman who is forced to turn his career his entire life in order to maintain his family economically afloat. After inexplicably transforming into a giant beetle, Samsa sees all of his hard work and earnings disappear in the span of months. His family, which he had once supported in every way possible, begins to despise him and starts seeing him as a burden. Even his little sister, who Kafka carefully described as an extremely kind and considerate person, is eventually corrupted by her hatred for her transformed brother.

The message interpreted from the short story seems to be relatively direct. Samsa was not appreciated because of the person he was. Rather, the protagonist was defined by the asset he represented to the company he worked for and the family he supported. Thus, Samsa spends the rest of his life secluded in a room with little to no attention from what are supposed to be his loved ones. As a beatle, Samsa is not only ignored but actively attacked and treated as a threat. 

Being constantly subjected to such harsh conditions definitely leaves Samsa in a peculiar state, as he is deprived of both attention and affection. Within Kafka's narrative, the protagonist is lead down a path that ultimately leads to his demise. However, what if Samsa had had a shot at redemption? What if someone offered him the affection he had been so desperately craving ever since his transformation into a beetle?

Luckily, Murakami answers those questions perfectly. Considering that the Japanese author did not want to offer a sequel to an already complete story, Murakami chose to begin from an alternate timeline. Possibly, Murakami's story begins little after the family discovers Samsa's new identity. Proof of this can be found by the fact that the lock to Samsa's room is already broken and by the dining table being fully set. Although it is left to the reader's interpretation, it could be that Samsa's beetle repelled the family so much that it fled the house immediately. Considering the amount of time that it takes Samsa to readjust to his human body, it can also be assumed that Murakami's protagonist had been a beetle for a long while.

In Murakami's world, Samsa is aroused even by minimal conversations with the female locksmith. Both in mind, as he attently observes the locksmith's every move while wishing for her to stay as long as possible, and in body, with numerous paragraphs dedicated to Samsa's curiosity towards his own penis. 

In this new world, Samsa should be able to enjoy his life more than the previous one. For instance, the ongoing conflict mentioned by the locksmith suggests that modern society has crumbled alongside the capitalist system that distinguished it. Therefore, Samsa is free from his obligations to the company that previously employed him. Lastly, the lack of family members within the house mean that Samsa no longer has to tend to anyone but himself. Overall, the new setting brought forth by Murakami presents a world in which Samsa is free of responsibilities, one in which he can enjoy simply being human. 

- Daniele Piperno

“Sleep” as a reflection on Women’s role in Japanese Society

For reference I will be paraphrasing points from three articles “Change and diversity in the Japanese family” by Merry White, “Being Happy as a Woman: The promise of happiness for middle-class housewives in Japan” by Ofra Goldstein-Gidoni, and “Producing Mothers” by Anne Allison. In these three articles there is much discussion about how Japanese society forces women into the role of wife and mother. I feel that many of the points made in these articles are reflected in Murakami’s story “Sleep”. Murakami is known for creating characters who are “outsiders”, and rebel against the rigid social roles of Japanese society, and I think he uses the narrator of “Sleep” to explore the female perspective of this “outsider”, and how women interact with their role in Japanese society. 

One of the main points of these articles was a how the Japanese education system pushes women into these roles. Firstly, education and academic merit are not valued in women in Japan. These articles state how women who are high achieving in academics and attend top universities are not seen as suitable candidates for marriage, because they will be too focused on their careers to care for children. In Japan there is also the concept of “good wife, wise mother” that reflects the idea that women’s intelligence and value is seen as their role of being a good and nurturing mother. This can be seen in “Sleep” as the narrator was high achieving in university, and was even encouraged to attend graduate school, but chose instead to get married and have a child than pursue this education. 

The article “Being Happy as a Woman” also discussed how Japanese media, specifically women’s magazines, promoted this idea of the “happy housewife” as the epitome of happiness for women in Japan. It created this ideal life for women that centered their lives around housework and raising children, but what happens when this life doesn’t make women happy? I think the narrator of “Sleep” is an example of a woman who feels disconnected from the standard social role the society has forced upon her. We can see throughout the story that the narrator has been living a monotonous life as a housewife and mother, until she rediscovers her love of literature. After discovering what actually makes her happy, she no longer has the need to sleep, and slowly grows more and more resentment towards her husband and son.

I think that this story is a reflection upon many women’s discontent with the traditional role of women as wife and mother, and indicates many changing ideals about women’s roles in Japan. “Change and diversity in the Japanese family” discusses how many more Japanese are moving to urban areas, more “pink collar” jobs are opening for women, and women are staying single for longer and focusing more on their careers. I think many of these trends can be seen in Murakami’s novels, as we see characters traveling from more rural parts of Japan to Tokyo, and many of his female characters are employed. Overall I think Murakami’s reflection on, and disdain for, women’s traditional role in society in “Sleep” is what makes one of his only female narratives so realistic and compelling to women, like Mikeko Kawakami, which we saw in her interview with Murakami.

Ken 

Womanhood and What Murakami Does Best

 Recent class discussions have focused the underlying connection to Murakami himself present in the characters he chooses to write. Especially in his writing of women, Murakami seems to present an understanding of women that doesn’t match with reality. I strongly suspect that Murakami himself does not have a full picture of women, and while he may at times admit to this failing, his responses when confronted with that flaw do not present as the most self-aware.

For example, when Mieko Kawakami asked him about a particular unrealistic portrayal of a woman (who was fixated on her own small breasts), Murakami had only the very telling response, “I just imagine there are girls out there who feel this way” (“A Feminist Critique of Murakami Novels,” Lit Hub). To me, what this says is that Murakami writes the world how he sees the world, and he does not see women with the same clear sightedness that he sees other pieces of humanity.

This blind spot is somewhat surprising, since I find a lot of his books capture feelings and human nature quite well. Thinking about it, though, many of his books cover a certain similar range of themes: deep, intrinsic loneliness, alienation from society, death, and how to continue living. From the little Murakami shares about his personal life, it seems like these topics are deeply personal to him. Maybe he simply writes best what he knows best. “Sleep,” which to me contains his best female character, centers on a category of women (housewives) who often feel alienated from their own personhood, and deeply, intrinsically lonely. Maybe sleep is a more authentic portrayal of a woman because Murakami does not treat the character as female, but instead as a lonely person who happened to be female.

Overall, Murakami’s treatment of his female characters is not a dealbreaker for me as a reader. The topic does, however, make me laugh a bit. Recently I suggested Norwegian Wood to a friend of mine who had read nothing by Murakami previously, and we discussed it periodically while she read through the novel. I asked her what she thought of the female characters – she chuckled, and said, “I’m not sure this man has ever met a woman . . . it’s like he thought of how he himself would react and just called it good enough.”

I would like to be clear; I’m not advocating for particular biological or psychological differences between women and men. The fact remains, though, that the social and societal pressures placed on those socialized as women are vastly different than the messages, queues, and teachings given to those socialized as men. Treating both groups as the exact same in writing feels inauthentic; excessively othering one group feels insincere. I’ll give it to Murakami that he does not know what it feels like to grow up as a woman, and so it must be a hard balance to strike. But then, I’m sure he doesn’t know what it feels like to grow up as a sheep man, either, and he seems to have figured that one out – so I think he’s talented enough to write a believable woman, if he puts his mind to it a bit more.

-Amanda

The Historical Implications of The Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and His Years of Pilgrimage

I found that Strecher’s text on “Magical Realism and the Search for Identity in Haruki Murakami” provided further insight into the intentions of Murakami’s The Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and His Years of Pilgrimage. In his text, Stretcher discusses Murakami’s audience as the “post Zenkyōto era” generation (264). This greatly influences Murakami’s work because this generation is defined, according to Stretcher, by its search for identity. I think that this is particularly evident in The Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and His Years of Pilgrimage.

First, Strecher writes that, “unlike the previous generation, which understood hunger and deprivation and could define itself in terms of affluence via its own participation in the efforts of the rapid-growth era, Murakami’s generation, like the generation in the United States that reached maturity in the 1950s, did not understand affluence as a goal in itself, and this could not identify in those terms” (265). I think what Strecher means here is that, in a more developed world, self-identification relies less on survival and the material. Murakami’s narratives thus appeal to a generation that is in search of an identity—a generation on a “pilgrimage” of sorts.

The Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and His Years of Pilgrimage is a good example of this. Murakami writes that all five friends were from “suburban, upper-middle-class families,” with parents that “spared no expense” on education, and that their families were generally “peaceful and stable” (9). This is an important component because it takes away problems regarding the material, so that the attention is focused solely on inner-identity. 

The lack of color in Tsukuru’s name also strips him of a sense of identity, and makes him feel isolated. All of his friends (with colors in their name) seem to have fixed personalities. Tsukuru, on the other hand, “was the only one in the group without anything special about him” (15). However, though I have not read the entire book, I assume that his obsession with trains represents a certain transience. To me, trains in books have always represented a state of transience, and I think that Murakami making Tsukuru be interested in trains means that identity is not meant to be fixed and easy to categorize (like colors), but rather, always in flux. 

In all, I found that Stecher’s text helped me understand Murakami a bit more. Then historical implications that Strecher discusses unpack why Murakami might write his characters so that they are “quiet,” “detached,” and “losing their capacity to know or understand themselves” (265); his characters mirror the generation in which he is catering to. 

Lexi Nasse

 

Gibson, Murakami, and Chandler?

Some debate the extent of how Murakami’s Hard-Boiled Wonderland was influenced by the writings of William Gibson. One Gibson story in particular cited is “Johnny Mnemonic,” one of Gibson’s first short stories, originally published four years before Hard-Boiled Wonderland. But there’s another element that piqued my interest. Mainly, Gibson's fantastically set but bitter and gritty prose shares a few commonalities with one of Murakami’s greatest influences, that being Raymond Chandler.

Gibson was termed the “noir-prophet” of cyberpunk, someone that was not the only forebearer of the genre (Phillip K. Dick’s Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? and the film it inspired did as much for the genre as anything Gibson wrote), but one that provided a solid literary foundation. “Johnny Mnemonic” may be the first evidence of this foundation, yet it does contain some elements I'd find Chandleresque. The first is the titular Johnny’s monologue, which the story never strays from, just like Chandler never strayed from Marlowe’s monologue. The second is what Gibson does with this monologue. Johnny gives vivid similes (“It all made sense then, an ugly kind of sense, like bags of wet sand settling around my head.”), typecasts characters with gritty introductory monologues (“I didn’t know very much about Squids, but I’d heard stories, and I made it a point never to repeat them to my clients.”), and gives plenty of semi-lengthy descriptions (“The wood was silver with age, polished with long use and deeply etched with initials, threats, declarations of passion.”). That said, Gibson separates himself from Chandler (and closer to other writers) in a few ways. The first is something Gibson shares with Murakami, that his readers are frequently transformed not just to a different metaphorical world, but one that is radically different in a fantastical or magical sense. The second is something Gibson doesn’t share with Murakami or Chandler, in that his already gritty subject matter can be sometimes taken to radical lengths (To be blunt: I don’t think Murakami or Chandler would spell out a red swastika). - William

Murakami and the Great Gatsby

Strecher's article was very interesting as it really helped paint a picture of the overarching themes of identity in Murakmi novels. Even though it talked a lot about novels we have not read in class,  I felt that he covered them effectively enough that I could see the link between the different works. I felt that it was very helpful information in one place for our creative writing pieces. One line that stood out to me was when he talked about the early protagonists of Murakami before "South of the Border, West of the Sun". He talks about how they are all "so absorbed in themselves and their own problems that critics are united in dubbing them jiheiteki, a medical term meaning "autistic" but in this case perhaps better expressed with the idiom "self-centered"  and how his "characters are too out of touch with their society, though this is generally understood to be a symptom of the times." This reminded me a lot of the writing in The Great Gatsby where there is extensive descriptions of people suffering and poverty and more but the main characters pay no attention to any of these things. Both the old and newly rich are absorbed in their own goals and status as a symptom of the roaring twenties. Similarly in Murakami, the early main characters ignore things like the Zenkyoto movement and the suicide of Mishima which act only as background for the stories. This really emphasized another point of similarity between Murakami's writings and his favorite work of literature. I really like how I keep noticing different things about his sources every time we read something new it is truly fascinating. 

Celine

 

Women in Murakami's Magical World

After completing the Strecher reading I could not help but think back to that Mieko Kawakami's interview and her points on women in Murakami's novels. There were a lot of points made about identity and the self in our reading and my mind could not help but wander back to Kawakami's points about women in Murakami failing to stand alone. A portion that called my attention again was this:

"It's not possible for these women to exist on their own. And while female protagonists, or even supporting characters, may enjoy a moderate degree of self-expression, thanks to their relative independence, there's a persistent tendency for women to be sacrificed for the sake of the male leads." 

I focused on this in my second reading of the interview because of points brought up by Strecher in regards to the way Murakami uses magical realism compared to other authors in the genre. It was stated that "magical realism in Murakami is used as a tool to seek a highly individualized, personal sense of identity in each person...". If this is to be taken as law in Murakami's writings it once again calls into question women's role in his works. Kawakami's main criticisms, along with many other women's, were associated with the fact that women never exist wholly as their own individuals in his works. If magical realism is supposed to work as a means to showcase and create an individual identity it would seem as though Murakami is only achieving this with his male characters. The female character's self is always dependent on or irremovable from her male counterpart. A very real albeit incredibly non-magical reflection of reality. 

Jade Rona 

Murakami's Frustration without having real automony?

    Strecher's interpretation of Murakami searching for identity by playing with the "unconscious" and "Other" in his fiction is interesting. Strecher's argument is convincing, but I think Murakami is only exploring his characters to a certain degree because I feel like Murakami has a purpose for each of his characters. Although interpretations could differ, I think Murakami is sometimes expressing his frustration with not having real autonomy. In A Wild Sheep Chase, the people that accept the special sheep gets to be at the top of society (for a while), but it took away the character's individuality. When the people are "sheepless" they are essentially useless to the society. The Rat made an active choice to stop the sheep, but in a way he was kind of also forced into it because of his circumstances of being chosen by the sheep. Similarly in chapter 3 of the Hard-Boiled Wonderland, the weird scientist has the ability to change people. He removed the sound from his granddaughter, and the he could turn down the narrator's hearing. Nothing was by the individual character's choice. I think maybe this is a way of Murakami expressing his frustration for people not being able to pursue the things that they really want to do. 

    Part of this analyses also extends to the female narrator in Sleep. She doesn't like her role as the typical "housewife", and finds herself enjoying life after she could no longer sleep. In exchange her sleepless nights, she gets to read for entertainment. A light bulb lit up in my head when someone shared their theory that the story is about sexual assault. I was confused by the ending, but I think it portrays the narrator's inability to do anything in that situation. The shaking in the car could be symbolic of her body being shaken while she was assaulted (or was assaulted again at the end of the story?). I think in those moments, there is really nothing they can do besides detaching themselves from their body. 

-Rose

Possible 'Other World' in Murakami's "Sleep"

 As we have previously discussed in class, the presence of an 'other world' is very common in Murakami's work. In Norwegian Wood the 'other world' is the facility that Naoko lives in and in A Wild Sheep Chase it is the rural village in Hokkaido. Obviously these places have large significance to the narrative of both works and are also a place where the protagonist undergoes some significant psychological change. This led me to wonder if there is an 'other world' in Murakami's short story "Sleep." 

There clearly isn't a physically distinct 'other world' in this text, as the narrator doesn't go on a journey of any sorts, but I think that the 'other world' in this work could be the world that the narrator enters into while she is reading. Reading becomes something that the narrator does instead of sleeping in this work. An essential biological need (sleep) is substituted with reading, something that is typically thought of as non-essential/for pleasure, yet the narrator does not seem to suffer any adverse reactions due to this switch. Reading then seems to be almost an essential biological process for the narrator, something she must do in order to function. Sleep, and dreaming, is also often thought of as entering a different world, the realm of the subconscious or some other plane of existence. In replacing reading for sleep, I think Murakami is saying that reading has a similar function: it has the ability to transport the reader into a world that is not their own, thus an 'other world'. 

I think this is quite clear from the way the narrator describes her reading experience. She says, "I found myself capable of reading Anna Karenina with unbroken concentration" and then a bit later, "I plunged into Anna Karenina and kept reading until the sun came up" (Murakami 88, 89). We see that while the narrator is reading her concentration is completely focused on the story, so much so that she forgets the world around her and time seems to function differently while she is reading. She does not recognize the typical processes of the world around her because she is engrossed in another world. This is evident in the way she almost forgets to make lunch for her husband, even though this is a task she does every day. It is clear that her experience in the world of the book she is reading fundamentally alters her internally, thus aligning it with characters' experiences with the 'other world' in other Murakami texts. 

-Maggie Farren

Strecher Discussion Questions

1. If magical realism "bears certain political and cultural specificities," was the Zenkyoto a main influence of Murakami's established mystical setting? Keeping the events of Zenkyoto in mind, do you think that the United States contributed towards the loss of a collective Japanese identity?

2. Before answering the following question, read the excerpts found in Strecher's article.

"The sheep must gradually eliminate the contents of the host's mind in order to replace them with itself. Thus, the host enjoys the contentment of luxury, and freedom from the tediousness of thinking, but no longer enjoys the personal fulfillment of an individual identity."

"how are Japanese of Murakami's generation and beyond to define themselves as individuals in the post-Zenkyoto era? (...) Indeed, one significant reason that the student movement found such favor with young people in Japan was that it provided a means of self identification, connection with something positive and dynamic."

Although the question has been asked multiple times in class, Strecher's article can allow us to answer it from a different perspective. In A Wild Sheep Chase, what does the sheep represent? Could it be linked to the affluence Strecher said Japan witnessed after WW2?

3. "Murakami's use of magical realism, while closely linked with the quest for identity, is not the least bit involved with the assertion of identity." Do you believe that the protagonists from Murakami's novels assert their own identity by the end of the story? 

4. "He tells Shimamoto that he has long been aware that something has been missing from inside him, and that only she can restore this." In light of the interview read last week, do Murakami's female characters contribute to the self-realization of the novel's protagonist?

5. Is the contrast between light and dark, the conscious world and the unconscious realm, only present in Murakami's more surreal works, or also in more realistic stories like Norwegian Wood?

- Daniele Piperno

Beyond the Other World: Locations of Murakami’s Other World

        We have extensively discussed in class the concept of the other world and its supernatural aspects as well as the theory that it is a representation of the world of death. However, most of the other worlds we have encountered in the context of this class are located in remote areas of Japan, such as Junitaki and the sanitorium in a Wild Sheep Chase and Norwegian Wood, respectively. There are other locations which could be considered the other world, such as in “Samsa in Love”, which is set in the modern Czech Republic. Similarly, “Ghosts of Lexington” is set in Lexington, Massachusetts. All these locations are either familiar to Murakami, being in Japan or Massachusetts, where he lived for some time. The other countries his main characters travel to are all located in the West, which are at least somewhat familiar to Murakami and a Japanese audience. 

        However, there are other locations mentioned which are even more foreign than the US or the Czech Republic. For example, in “Barn Burning,” the main girl travels to North Africa, specifically Algeria, after father’s death. Also, in Norwegian Wood, though it turns out to be a lie, Midori tells Toru that her father is living in Uruguay. Both these countries are more unusual locations for people to travel from Japan and seem more ‘foreign,’ as they are not economic and political powerhouses. In addition, the main character does not go to these more obscure other worlds, but rather more minor characters. There is also little description about the experiences of those characters in the other world, it is typically mentioned but the reader does not go to this other world with them. 

        These locations, though they are quite different from the typical other worlds in Murakami stories, also seem to portray death. The most obvious example is in Norwegian Wood, while Midori claims her dad has moved to Uruguay, it is revealed later that Midori lied and her father is dying in the hospital. She explains that before the brain tumor, however, her father had expressed a desire to go to Uruguay. In this sense, Uruguay represents both a world of death, but also a world of dreams and aspirations. In “Barn Burning,” the main girl, shortly after her father’s death, chooses to travel to Northern Africa, upon which the main character introduces her to his connection with the Algerian embassy. She seems to go to Algeria to flee her father’s death, but she returns with a Japanese man, who later kills her under the guise of ‘burning barns.’ Though both deaths in this story both occur in Japan, this mysterious trip to the other world of Algeria is both the girl’s form of fleeing death and bringing death back with her. 

        I couldn’t find any information about whether Murakami had a personal connection to either Uruguay or Algeria, but these other worlds seemed quite distinct from the other worlds we have seen in his writing. But at the same time, they seem to represent a sort of detachment from reality and seem to indicate a sense of death more strongly than his typical settings for the other world, which as the reader, we able to accompany the protagonist there. 

Sarah 

Commentary on Gender Norms in Murakami's story "Sleep"

By Angelina Not (Lina)

I wanted to write this blog post dedicated to analyzing Murakami’s story “Sleep”. I know the abrupt and vague ending is something that is common to stories that Murakami writes, but the final scene in this story left me especially curious. My personal understanding of why she had insomnia in the first place was because she had went through sexual assault. This is only hinted towards the end of the story where the topic is brought up through the policeman cautioning her about a case of assault and murder around the neighborhood. In the final scene she also recalls an uncomfortable situation in the car with one of her boyfriends, which I felt like was a repressed memory related to sexual assault. I feel like her not being able to sleep with her husband and fall asleep in general may all be just another connection to how she does not feel safe around men anymore after the experience. 

Notably, this is one of the few stories where I felt like Murakami was making a statement on how little we have advanced in terms of not putting women into restricted boxes of their roles as mothers or wives. If we think of the story as a whole, a possible understanding of it would be that it is an allusion to women being stripped of their individuality by being mainly defined through their roles. In this story the character is finally able to focus on herself by indulging in the things she loves doing such as swimming, reading, and eating chocolate with brandy. But as a result of focusing on herself she is in turn cut off from the rest of the society, in her case she gets cut off from her friends, her husband and her child. 

Further, throughout the story she starts to feel amazed at how much freedom and satisfaction she gains by choosing to reject the more traditional roles that women often define themselves with. In her insomniac state she starts seeing all her housewife or motherly duties as nothing more than routine. With the realization that she is confined in her role she starts feeling more beautiful and empowered when her mind is focused on things that she enjoyed doing before her married life. The insomniac state therefore was a liberating and eye-opening experience where she was able to enjoy life without the societal expectations that are often still pushed on women today. I think that the final scene of the car being rocked by the men from the outside is supposed to be reminiscent of rocking a crib almost like trying to make her go to sleep. This would symbolize a societal response, specifically from men, to trying to make her go sleep or in other words not allowing her to liberate herself from the constraints of the gender norms. 

Murakami and the Invasion of Ukraine - Special Radio Program

I thought this article was intriguing to read and shed light upon a side of Murakami that enriches the depths of the kind of person he is. He keeps up-to-date with the current issues of the world and shares his opinions about them on his radio program. Recently, he did one on the invasion of Ukraine and sided with support for those in Ukraine. The program was centered around a call for peace and for the war to be put to an end. It was titled "Music To Put An End To The War". He featured 11 musical pieces each from his own personal collection of music. Each one had a unique meaning for why he chose to play that particular piece and he explained the lyrics and context after playing them. He wanted to create a focus upon the importance of human life, love, and dignity.

There were some things I felt were weirdly stated. Such as this quote he recited from Martin Luther King Jr. who said, "Never forget that everything Hitler did in Germany was legal." I couldn't really understand what he meant by this quote and perhaps others may be able to give a better idea about it, but it seems very weird to hear this being said. Could be my lack of knowledge about history as well, but I believe killing thousands of innocent people, forcing them into camps, experimenting on them, and doing much, much worse things could hardly be seen as being legal, but maybe the catch to that is the fact of it being "in Germany". 

The rest of what he said in the article, I can understand where he is coming from. He pushes forth the mentality of individualism and having the courage to question leadership instead of following blindly. To have the dignity to look at a law or order and determine whether it is a good or logical thing to obey. Overall, I wish I had been able to catch this radio program and experience it first-hand. The article covers it well in the terms of being a summary, but not really an in-depth or detailed overview of the whole program that took place.

Author Murakami voices sorrow over loss of young lives in Ukraine war

~ Jonathon Little

The Body and Murakami

     by Nobel Chan

    In William Gibson's "Johnny Mnemonic," the pairing of a technologically-sophisticated future with an Asian setting harkens to the concept of "techno-orientalism," which Yiqin describes in her post as reflecting "Western fears about Eastern imperialism". To be more specific, techno-orientalism not only exposes Western fears of the East, but also acts as an 'othering' tool that dehumanizes Asian bodies. In "Johnny Mnemonic," all the presumably Japanese characters have Westernized names (Johnny, Molly, Ralfi). When Johnny poses as Eddie Bax, Ralfi calls him "Johnny" to indicate that he knows his true identity, suggesting that names are linked to who one really is (3). This link does not hold true for the body: characters are said to "wear" faces, and many major characters have had technological implants that change their physicality (the Lo Teks' teeth, Molly Million's fingernails). The story suggests that the body is artificial where the soul is not; the Westernized names are then the 'true' identity, and the presumably Japanese bodies are the external wrappings, the technological containers. The technological body is a body that can be fixed and replaced, which bears significant consequences for how Asians are perceived in the West. Recent controversies such as Scarlett Johansson's casting in Ghost in the Shell and Tilda Swinton in Doctor Strange exemplify how Asian bodies are often dismissed and re-appropriated by White people (see also Ex Machina, where the White android literally dresses herself in her Asian predecessors' skins). The Asian body in SF is usually an empty shell, then, for Western authors to fill in for their own purposes.

    If this description of Asian as container and Western as content sounds familiar, it's because Murakami has proclaimed something similar about his own work, with one crucial difference. Murakami's works flip the script: the Western elements are now the 'container', and the Japanese identity is the central content. Part of why Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World is less difficult to read than "Johnny Mnemonic" is because Murakami doesn't pelt the reader with new terms, signifying that Murakami is not trying to portray his world as 'fantastically othered' as Gibson does with his Japan. Rather than race being something 'put on', as in "Johnny Mnemonic" where people can wear faces of a "sharp-faced Caucasoid," Murakami's take on race goes much deeper than skin (Gibson 1). It goes straight down to the bones: "there were human skulls[...] Caucasoid, Negroid, Asiatic, Indians" (Murakami 28). The old man in Hard-Boiled Wonderland studies "the language of bones," imbuing the body with a fundamental, and fundamentally racialized, voice (26). While Murakami writes with Western influences, he is undeniably writing from a Japanese perspective and a Japanese body, and that bleeds into how he (possibly unintentionally) subverts techno-orientalist tropes. 

     One would be remiss to discuss bodies in Murakami's works without turning to the issue of sex. Though the racialized body gains subjectivity in Murakami's world, women oftentimes do not. They tend to be interchangeable, from the dead girlfriend/girlfriend with the ears in A Wild Sheep Chase to Reiko wearing Naoko's clothes in Norwegian Wood. Women's bodies are constantly borrowed/exchanged/confused, undermining their individuality and consciousness. Though there are examples of male bodies being taken over, for instance the Rat in A Wild Sheep Chase, they are mostly allowed to regain subjectivity through their own agency (in the Rat's case, suicide). Importantly, the Rat's suicide does not end his voice, as he communicates with Boku after he dies; Naoko, on the other hand, is effectively silenced by her death, and was silenced well in advance of her suicide by her inability to write letters. In Sleep, the female narrator is the one to confuse the other gender's bodies, noticing that her son and husband have the same expression while sleeping. This similarity disgusts her, which is interesting because the interchangeability of women does not seem to gall either Boku in A Wild Sheep Chase or Toru Watanabe. This discrepancy is suggestive of Murakami's attitude towards women's vs. men's bodies, though any hard conclusions will be hard to come to. Either way, the body in Murakami is a rich playing field for exploring gender and race, and also for other things I haven't touched on here such as sexuality, disability, and age.

Murakami, His Sources, and RPGs

Something that I've noticed as we've gone through the semester is that some of the Murakami/Murakami affiliated works we've gone through that have directly inspired tabletop role playing games. Though I'm quite unfamiliar to the genre, I've mentioned some of the readings to friends in passing and was surprised to see that they were extremely familiar with the material as a result of playing these games.

The one most directly inspired by Murakami comes from a Dungeons and Dragons story quite literally called "A Wild Sheep Chase" (shoutout to Amanda for pointing this piece out to me). Though not identical to Murakami's story, a few similarities are apparent from the game's summary. The main characters are approached by a sheep holding instructions on how to speak to animals, and after using magic they find out that the sheep was once a wizard. This wizard was tricked by an apprentice and transformed into the animal, and he recruits the main characters to help him take revenge/transform back to his original state. A lot of these details can be construed as Murakami's plot points in reverse. In Murakami's story, a sheep becomes a man (more accurately it takes over a man) and in the DND story a man becomes a sheep. Instead of Boku being approached by a man to track down a sheep, a sheep approaches the main characters to track down a man. Whereas the Rat allowed the sheep to enter his body, the wizard was turned into a sheep against his will. I don't have access to the full story so I can't glean anymore similarities, though I am certain that more exist.

Shifting away from Murakami, W. Gibson's short story "Johnny Mnemonic" directly inspired a number of details in the tabletop game Shadowrun. The character Molly Millions was lifted wholesale from the piece and exists in the Shadowrun universe as an NPC "runner". Working as a runner is functionally identical to her profession in "Johnny Mnemonic", as she does illegal jobs for the highest bidder as a sort of mercenary. Past this, the idea of an "information economy" is reflected by the numerous means by which characters can be tracked. Aside from physical tracking using cameras, microphones, and sensors, one's technology can be directly monitored if someone creates a backdoor into it. In addition, people's spiritual presence can be determined should a character be sufficiently well-endowed with magic. One final similarity between the two is the weapon used by the Yakuza hitman. Much like Molly Millions, this weapon was ported directly into Shadowrun as a Microfilament Whip. Players can purchase and wield the whip as a melee weapon, but many choose to get it as an implant embedded in the body. The most advantageous and popular place to implant it is within the thumb, exactly like in "Johnny Mnemonic".

Though I'm not super familiar with tabletop games, the fact that they frequently incorporate concepts from magical realist/sci-fi literary sources is proving to be extremely appealing to me. I hope to play through the "Wild Sheep Chase" mission sometime soon, and I will report back if I find anymore similarities.

-Bruce

Murakami's Rich Characters

 Even without applying a Marxist lens, it is interesting to look at Murakami's portrayal of wealthy characters. Boku is almost always comfortably middle class, and seems to take much pride in not being too wealthy nor poor. Similarly, many of his closest companions are of similar socioeconomic standing. We sometimes find characters of a higher "social standing" than Boku, which gives us insight into how Boku (and in turn, Murakami) views rich people. 

The most obvious example from our class is Nagasawa from Norwegian Wood. Despite his apparent wisdom, he is insufferably arrogant. He is a textbook "rich asshole," and yet Watanabe is still drawn to him. It may be due to pure boredom and loneliness that Watanabe continues to associate with him, but it isn't until Hatsumi's death and Nagasawa's aloof reaction that Watanabe cuts him off. I see this as a comment about how we associate with people we perceive to be of a higher status even if we do not value them as individuals. Would Watanabe (who seemingly doesn't care about wealth) still tolerate Nagasawa's flaws if he was of a lesser social standing? 

Another favorite example are Yuki's parents in Dance Dance Dance. They are both famous, wealthy artists who do not care enough for their daughter, and expect a certain degree of involvement from Boku, who is little more than a complete stranger. Boku, who likes Yuki and has nothing better to do, agrees to their tasks and is her main parental figure. I see this as Boku being exploited by the rich parents, but again, he seems to overlook this and be okay with it. 

However, in the same novel, Boku is quite sympathetic to Gotanda, the famous actor he knew from his childhood. A troubled figure, Boku invests real time and energy into his friendship with Gotanda. I think Gotanda is certainly meant to be a tragic, sympathetic figure in the novel, and perhaps this is a comment on how the rich and famous are humans too – Gotanda has no real friends and suffers from true loneliness – and deserve sympathy.

I find Murakami's apolitical stances interesting because it seems to lend more merit to the social and real life roles that the rich and famous have in our lives. He recognizes the degrees of exploitation asserted by such people, while also showing that they are given a large degree of forgiveness and sympathy for their actions. However, he looks beyond actions and into the personality of some such figures, showing a human behind the seemingly untouchable and perfect class. This duality allows us to understand the perspective that a middle class man might have in a hypercapitalist nation like Japan, and gives us insight into the daily lives and broader social commentary of its consquences.

John M. Spaulding

Cyberpunk and Japanese Culture

William Gibson’s Burning Chrome and Haruki Murakami’s Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World have inspired me to further research cyberpunk and its influence from Japanese culture. In general, cyberpunk is a subgenre of science fiction that focuses on the combination of “low life and high tech.” Low life is characterized as an outcast of society and high tech is the futuristic technological means to which rebellion is enabled. Cyberpunk writers tend to draw elements from detective fiction, especially the hardboiled detective fiction genre In the 1980s, cyberpunk was heavily inspired by Japanese economy and technological advancements, reflecting Western fears about Eastern imperialism. Even William Gibson himself stated that “modern Japan simply was cyberpunk.” This fear from the West was referred to as “techno-orientalism.”

During the 1980s, Japan was a global technological powerhouse. The cyberpunk genre that was developed had painted Tokyo with neon LED lights as a futuristic mystery. The sense of unease and doubts people had about rapid advancement of technology as weapons of mass destruction quickly provided a reasonable backdrop for cyberpunk. Most of the time, cities in the cyberpunk subgenre are also physically divided, with bridges built to support different infrastructural elevations but also social stratifications.

Additionally, cyberpunk writers such as William Gibson, Bruce Sterling, and Rudy Rucker weren’t just inspired by the societal distrust of technology’s power but also by the frustrations experienced with the limitations of science fiction at the time. Gibson states, “mid-century mainstream American science fiction had often been triumphalist and militaristic, a sort of folk propaganda for American exceptionalism” (Somers). Cyberpunk offered the pushback against this traditional theme of science fiction which had assumed that Western military prowess were positive things of the future. Cyberpunk demonstrates a pushback against authorities in general through a dystopian backdrop. 

 

Yiqin 

Citations: 

https://www.grunge.com/355271/the-untold-truth-of-the-origins-of-cyberpunk/ 

https://www.neondystopia.com/what-is-cyberpunk/#:~:text=Cyberpunk%20is%20also%20a%20culture,fatale%2C%20a%20city%20at%20night. 

Blog post #5

 
“Johnny Mnemonic” by William Gibson and Hard Boiled Wonderland by Haruki Murakami share some striking similarities. Both protagonists seem to have technological capabilities housed within their brains, and they sell their services to others. The world they live in is unlike any world we live in now, both having become technologically complex with humans, and in Gibson’s world animals, becoming cyborgs. In each story, information has been commodified, and using that information to extort others seems to be a free for all in both cases. In both society has been stratified in terms of who has access to the most advanced technology, though even the lower castes seem to have pretty high tech access. In Gibson, power is held primarily by the Yakuza which long ago absorbed all the other gangs, though other groups exist on the outskirts of society. Murakami’s world on the other hand seems to be more bureaucratic, comparing the system to the power granted to attorneys to market their services, while anyone who works without these qualifications is cast into the realm of the black market, otherwise known as “the Factory”. Both stories revolve in mystery and moving parts, while the protagonists work to either satisfy or evade the powerful ‘other’, the System or the Yakuza respectively. However, in “Johnny Mnemonic”, we find the protagonist himself never has to deal with Yakuza directly, and he settles into an uneventful but fruitful life under the radar. Interestingly, he discusses how it is impossible not to leave a trail in his world, yet he manages to find a way of living in which nobody seems bothered to come find him. On the other hand, in Hard Boiled Wonderland, the calcutec diligently does his job but is stunned by the juxtaposition of bureaucratic influence and relative scattered affect of his new employer. We are first introduced to the employer’s granddaughter, seemingly mute, and we end the story with the grandfather realizing he had made her mute in an experiment and accidentally forgotten to reverse the effects. The protagonist’s reaction to this is simply: “Oh.” In this interaction, we see some of the anticlimactic deadpan which came to reign in “Johnny Mnemonic”. Each story leaves a lot of explanation lurking in the shadows, with mysterious spies abound and action which seems to lead nowhere in particular. Both create an entirely novel futuristic sci-fi world, and yet each narrative seems to lead us toward a distinct feeling of mundanity. I think Murakami, and perhaps Gibson, probably did this on purpose, taking the sci-fi format but inputting their own commentary, as we have seen in the past with Murakami and hard-boiled detective fiction. 

Natalia 

Food written by Murakami and His Way of Thinking

In Murakami's novels, many characters often cook food, and there are a few food that I remember most deeply. I think it also represents Murakami’s way of thinking in a sense. One of the dishes that I think is quite impressive is the pasta and macaroni. At the beginning of Chapter 1 of The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle, the protagonist cooks pasta in the kitchen. I think the process of cooking pasta is essentially a thought process. When you boil the hot water, put in the noodles, and stir the noodles in the hot water with chopsticks, it is like solving a puzzle. We might as well think of pasta as a rope. The process of entering the water is to unravel the tangled noodles, become soft, and then soak in the water to melt and become edible. Unraveling the rope is like solving a problem. Unraveling the rope one at a time is to remove the surface layer of things and dig out the truth of the essence of things. When I am stirring the noodles, I often see the tangled noodles, which become loose after soaking in water and stirring, and there will be a sudden burst of thoughts come into my mind. 

In Barn Burning, when eating an orange, the process of “peeling the orange peel” is actually a puzzle-solving process. When people peel off the peel of an orange, they are peeling off the surface of the thing, and then getting closer to the flesh and the pit is getting closer to the essence of the thing. Although many people think peeling an orange is a hassle, here I am able to calm down and think and feel life. Another dish that Murakami often mentions is sandwiches. In the novel Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World, the fat granddaughter makes sandwiches a part of her daily life, and the main characters in Barn Burning also eat sandwiches. In Killing Commendatore, the protagonist eats a sandwich while thinking about his delicate relationship with his wife. Eating a sandwich is like breaking down each layer of structure and getting closer to the essence of things. It’s the same process as making a sandwich, we use bread, lettuce, tomatoes, eggs, patties, and then make the same structure in reverse. Each building layer is to reinforce a layer of structure on the basis of the essence of things. On the other hand, the process of eating a sandwich is thinking and analyzing, disintegrating the structure from the top and bottom, and then gradually approaching the essence of things. In addition, I think Murakami also wants to make readers feel more about life through these foods. Whether it’s cooking pasta, making sandwiches, or making coffee, it's all a slow job. Everyone needs to feel the process seriously, and feel the thinking that life and life bring to you from making these delicacies. 

Like cucumber with nori and soy sauce. I've had cucumbers, and nori, and soy sauce. But I have never eaten cucumber, nori and soy sauce together. Of course I've had similar sushi. But eating them together like that was a whole new experience, like pulling the trigger on a pistol. It made me feel a certain point in my body magnified the moment I bit down on the cucumber drenched in soy sauce and wrapped in nori. I don't know exactly what it was, but I'm sure it activated a sense, or perception, in me. The process of gradually finishing the cucumber was like approaching the process of that sense or ability that I wanted to know. The process made me feel like I was getting closer to the truth.

Junze Shan (Andrew)

Ending of Sleep

     "Sleep" by Haruki Murakami shows his writing style effortlessly, but there is something about this short story that sets it aside from the others. The main character is a woman. Usually, Murakami's stories have a man as the main character or narrator who isn't married or have anything holding him down. In this story, the woman is married and has a son. And to create a story out out this woman, she is unable to sleep.

    The short story had me hooked and reading at the speed of lightning. But once I finished reading the ending, I was a little confused. What does it mean when there were men rocking her car? I thought about it and came up with a few possible conclusions.

1. The woman was raped by her college boyfriend in the car, which she is reminded of when she was sitting in her car. This caused her first insomnia, which she couldn't process and nobody noticed it. The trauma comes back when she has the dream of a man pouring water on her feet. She stays awake every night and then goes out in her car one night dressed as a man. The police officer has questioned her before on why she was out at that time and told her how three men attacked a couple and killed the man and raped the woman. Replaying her trauma, she doesn't want to be raped again and suffer insomnia. She rather be the man who dies. When she was feeling trapped in the car as it seemed to be an attack, she says: "I'll never get the key... All I can do is cry. The tears keep pouring out" (109). This seemed to be another replay of her dream where the man poured water at her feet. It seems as if she will just cry enough till she drowns and the men tip over her car.

2. The woman's insomnia is a drug addiction. She was able to do so much more stuff when she didn't have to sleep. However, she didn't realize that there were consequences for the extra time she gained. For example, she knew that the port was dangerous after what the police officer told her, but she went back anyways and tried to make it safer for her not to get raped by dressing up as a man. But she still gets attacked. She thought she could control the situation and she knew the risks, but did it anyways. Things went wrong. Similar to a drug addiction, isn't it?

3. Lastly, I think the ending could also be finally fell asleep, but into a coma state. She is having nightmares and replays of her traumatic experience with her college boyfriend. So who are these men rocking her car? I believe it could her husband and son trying to get her out and wake her up. But she feels terrified and stays in the car crying. She doesn't want to wake up to reality. She enjoyed being awake all the time. Nothing feels right. She thinks the only thing she can do is cry and stay in the car. She is trapped in a box.

    Perhaps if I reread the story another time, I could find more conclusion theories. But anyways, Murakami truly created a masterpiece with this one. My favorite short story yet.

Sonia

Norwegian Wood on Screen: A Story of Hits and Misses

Starting off, I’d like to say that I really liked the Norwegian Wood movie. I have to admit I went in a bit skeptical. To me, Norwegian Wood is a deep dive into the psyche of traumatized people, and I think attaining something at that level of depth on screen, without the benefit of internal monologue and events colored by first-person perspective, is immensely tricky. Other types of movies I’ve seen that attempted to tackle similar types of introspective source material have never particularly worked – it’s too tempting to rely on cheesy voiceover or overly long artsy shots, neither of which can capture the narrative as well as the text can. And don’t get me wrong, there was a fair amount of what I would consider to be cheesy voiceover and artsy, quiet cinematography in Norwegian Wood. Yet in respect to whether or not the movie adequately depicted the more subtle events of the text, I felt the film did a good job.

Part of what worked, I think, was the visual detail of the film. The 70s setting was definitely hammered in through décor and costumes, and to me it really worked to make the story feel real. The sanatorium felt appropriately quiet and peaceful, with just enough of that eerie sense of seclusion. The student riots, brought to life by extras and actors, gave a bit of extra oomph to an event I previously didn’t have a lot of reference for. In my opinion the visuals are most of the reason to make a book into a movie in the first place, and this film nailing them meant a lot to me.

Unfortunately, said visuals couldn’t make up for the difficulties of adapting such a subtle novel onto the big screen. Some of my favorite bits of the text were simple descriptions of how Watanabe interpreted the world, and even when those things appeared in the film they didn’t quite click for me in the same way. That made parts of the movie hit or miss. For example, hit: Nagasawa, who was perfectly acted as a materialist jerk who’s too charismatic to fail, and also Watanabe’s disgust with Nagasawa and by extension himself, which I found was translated very well in the film. Miss: Reiko, whose older, sunny warmth came off much more calculated in the movie, and whose complex personality felt mostly lost in the jump between page and film.

Some changes made in the movie weren’t wholly good or bad but were simply so different that they took a bit of adjustment on my part. Naoko, for example, I thought was well acted. However, Rinko Kikuchi played Naoko as working to appear almost happy in the beginning portion of the film, with her eventually becoming more honestly emotive (especially with negative feelings like anger, frustration, and grief) as the film went on. I didn’t mind this choice at all and felt like Kikuchi did a good job portraying Naoko as a person putting on a front of happiness while tension boiled under the surface. This interpretation, however, definitely did not match how I saw Naoko when I read the book, which was as a girl who always seemed half-there, and who was almost fading or wasting away into the other world. The Naoko of my imagination was always fairly visibly traumatized, just in a quiet, tired sort of way.

All in all, as I mentioned, I really liked this film. I thought that, considering the difficulties of adapting this sort of story, it did a good job. I don’t think it was as effective as the original text, and in picking between the two the novel certainly wins out, but for what it was, the Norwegian Wood film pleasantly surprised me.

-Amanda

Norwegian Wood film

 The film adaptation of Norwegian Wood was certainly an interesting watch. 

As an adaptation of the book, it stands quite well, but unfortunately it does not stand well on its own as a film. Norwegian Wood only works if you read the book alongside it, or have read the book. A lot of the subtext of the film only makes sense if you have the context of the book. The film doesn't make allowances for the fact that storytelling in film is inherently different than storytelling in books, and that changes must be made in order to make a stand-alone film. Things like not establishing that the story is a flashback from an older adult Watanabe's recollections of what happens and then mentioning in the middle of a scene that, oh, this woman ends up committing suicide in like five years don't make for a film that really makes sense.

In a way, even having read the book the film doesn't quite work because the book is in first person. The reader is only privy to Watanabe's inner monologue, and his interpretation of what is happening around him. He is biased, and an unreliable narrator in a way because of his own lack of understanding of the people (women) around him. So when you watch the movie, you get to have an objective look because you are no longer looking through Watanabe's eyes. Suddenly things can be interpreted very differently because they seem one way to the viewer, but having read the book, you know how it seems to Watanabe. For instance, to me personally it seemed incredibly obvious that Naoko was planning her suicide from the moment that Watanabe starts mentioning plans for his and Naoko's future. She seemed to take a 180 in terms of how well she was doing, suddenly seeming much happier and smiling at plans from the future when she was struggling immensely before. Typically for suicidal people, this sudden wave of happiness is because they feel a sudden freedom from having made the decision to commit suicide. However, Watanabe is surprised, and suddenly the viewers of the movie are able to make their own conclusions about Naoko's mental health where we weren't in the book.

It also honestly felt like there was a gaping hole in the movie where Reiko's backstory should've been. Her backstory with her piano student added a really sinister aspect to her character, but in the movie she still remains this positive force with no real nuance or character detail added. Therefore her decision to leave the sanatorium at the end doesn't feel as impactful as it did in the book.

I also found it a lot easier to connect with the characters emotionally in the movie. I didn't feel nearly as impacted when Naoko dies in the book compared to watching it in the movie. That isn't to say I found the book flat or that the characters were particularly hard to connect with, but apart from the shock that was intended, my emotional reaction didn't go much further than that. When she died in the movie, my stomach rolled and I literally got nauseous and had to stop watching the scene for a little while, and it honestly affected the rest of my day.

Juliana

Norweigan Wood Review

The film adaptation of Norweigan Wood is pretty milquetoast. What made Norweigan Wood such a big novel compared to Murakami’s other novels (mainly its focus on the main love triangle between our protagonist Watanabe, the sanatorium-ridden Naoko, and the outgoing Midori, as well as faithfully adapting the culturally trendy environment of the late 60s) is present here. For myself in particular however, while I appreciate the attention paid to the era, I wasn’t the greatest fan of the film. I’m not the greatest fan of the book either. I don’t think it’s Murakami’s worst work, nor a bad work, but it always gave me the feeling in too many places that Murakami (or his editors) wasn’t writing from the heart, as much as to break the bank. That said, there are some great passages enclosed in Norweigan Wood, mainly the beginning, painting Watanabe’s disillusionment with the role of academia and ongoing protests in the late 60s, and the ending, painting Watanabe’s disillusionment with frankly, life, after Midori’s suicide. But while these passages are present in the film, thematically I’m not getting the same impact from the film as I was when the reading the novel. Instead, the film focuses on what made the film popular, dramatizing the hell out of the romance enclosed. It’s just not for me. The soundtrack's pretty good though. - William