The Bakery Attacks and Dostoevsky

Murakami wrote two short stories called “The Bakery Attack” and “The Second Bakery Attack”, which look at a type of boundless, violent hunger that various characters experience. In “The Bakery Attack”, he writes, “At first, the feeling was a tiny little emptiness, only about as small as the hole at the center of a donut. However, as time passed, it quickly grew larger and larger inside of us, until by the end it had turned into a gaping nothingness with no end in sight”. I interpreted this “hunger” felt by the characters to be a pathology of the modern condition, where people feel a void within themselves that they struggle to fill, due to becoming self-fragmented and rootless in society. 

The narrator then says, “ Wait, maybe our lack of imagination was what caused this hunger in the first place… Whatever. God, Marx, John Lennon — they’re all dead. We were just hungry, and because of it, we were beginning to fall into the clutches of evil. It wasn’t that hunger was driving us towards evil; rather, it was evil that was driving hunger towards us.” 

In “The Second Bakery Attack”, the narrator represents his hunger through the image of an underwater volcano. He also references Freud, hinting the significance of the underwater volcano as the expression of his inner self. It symbolizes his suppressed depths, a plight of the modern condition.

This idea of metaphorical hunger had been explored by Dostoevsky in The Brothers Karamazov, where he says, “Do you know that centuries will pass and mankind will proclaim with the mouth of its wisdom and science that there is no crime, and therefore no sin, but only hungry men? 'Feed them first, then ask virtue of them!'---that is what they will write on the banner they raise against you, and by which your temple will be destroyed”. In the novel, the characters are driven by the “Karamazov soul”, an animalistic life force that expresses itself through gross indulgence of sensuality. They are unable to fully understand themselves and have purposeful self-fulfillment, or perhaps a “lack of imagination”, which leads them to not have control over their actions. It becomes a self-destructive pattern, in which the “evil” of society drives an emptiness or hunger towards people due to the unfulfillment of their deep desires, and they react to it. 

I am interested in how Murakami approached this question of metaphorical hunger, because to me his message seems to have a note of ambiguity. After the characters successfully rob the McDonalds and eat the hamburgers therefore acting on their urge, the narrator’s hunger, the volcano, has vanished. However, in “The Bakery Attack”, the narrators also experienced this: “By the time we made it back to our room, the nothingness in our stomachs had completely vanished. And, as if beginning to roll down a gentle slope, our imaginations slowly rattled back into motion.” For me, this calls into question if the curse has actually been lifted, because in both cases the hunger had been alleviated at least in the short-term. 

According to Dostoevsky, the indulgence of your superficial desires would not free your suppressed depths. One of the characters, Zosima, says, “ Taking freedom to mean the increase and prompt satisfaction of needs, they distort their own nature, for they generate many meaningless and foolish desires, habits, and the most absurd fancies in themselves [...] [the poor] simply drown their unsatisfied needs and envy in drink.”

If Murakami was inspired by Dostoevsky, maybe he agreed with this view and the curse had not truly been lifted. Alternatively, he could be arguing against it and that indulging those desires would succeed at filling the internal void. 

Alessandra Leone

Orders are Orders

 

For this week’s blog post, I wanted to talk about the Zoo Attack scene from the Wind Up Bird Chronicle. I’m not going to talk about the reading from a literary standpoint, I wanted to talk about it from a psychological standpoint. When I first started reading the short story I felt really uneasy, which at first I thought made sense because it’s a story about the killing of animals which isn’t exactly a pleasant thing. However, I felt like something specific about it was making me feel uncomfortable. Halfway through the reading, I realized it was because it reminded me of a specific passage I read in my Holocaust class last semester. We spent some time studying a passage about the Reserve Battalion 101 of the Nazi party, it talked about different reasonings in trying to understand how were these men able to execute the task they were given. This battalion was tasked to ‘liquate’ 1800 Jews in Josefow, quickly and effectively. I saw parallels in how the soldiers went about carrying out orders they didn’t necessarily want to take part in. The passage we read discussed the emotional turmoil of the men when killing these women and children. It explored the possible reasons for carrying these attitude-behavior behavior discrepancies. This happens when you internally feel one way about a matter, yet your behavior doesn’t line up. In this case, the soldiers didn’t want to kill, but their behaviors (carrying out the killing) as part of their duties did not match. When this happens, people go into distress because of their inability to cope with the situation at hand.   The first time I read about this battalion it caused me some emotional turmoil. There were parallels in this story that made me associate this fictional scene to it. In The Zoo Attack, the main soldier talks about how it’s the first time he was ever in charge of his own group of men. He talked about how he didn’t necessarily want to kill the animals, but he was given orders and he needed to fulfill his duty. I could see him going through an internal battle because something in him knows he doesn’t want to do it, he knows it’s not okay. They are running on little time, with little resources (lack of poison) so they decide they must shoot all the animals. Yet he also starts trying to make justifications for the killings. The animals are weak and starving anyways, he’s mercy killing them. The descriptions of the soldiers taking aim and struggle with the realization that some of the animals they had to finish off with a second round. I picked up on distress that comes from the attitude-behavior discrepancies shown. In the battalion reading, it talked about how some of the men tried to justify themselves when ‘liquating’ children because they knew they were sick and starving anyways, mercy killing. I also remember reading descriptions of how the man in charge of the Battalion, lieutenant Trapp, would become intoxicated with bursts saying he didn’t want to proceed but he was given orders that needed to be carried out, he was also fixated on his duties since this was his first task in which he was in charge of his own men. In the Zoo Attack, after mentioning his discontent, the soldier says, “so as long as the army continued to exist its orders had to be carried out.” The passage on the battalion had similar passages about scenes when they would have to take aim a second time, the messiness of not having resources and just rushing bullets left and right. I’m not saying the Zoo Attack was inspired by this, I just wanted to discuss how it made me feel. Very completely different situations, different countries, different ideologies. Yet this idea of soldiers being devoted to one’s duties, one’s men, one’s country, regardless of the internal struggle is interesting to explore. A lot of psychological questions have been raised when examining the reasoning behind the aggression taken by different countries in war times. Again different situations, but I couldn’t help but feel a parallel between the human distress that came from the responsibility of a soldier ‘carrying out orders.’

Christy Lira Araujo

Murakami and Music

 It is blatantly clear that Murakami has a love for music in every piece of writing that he creates. Within his writing, music creates this special environment for the reader through the reader's ideas of what the music sounds like. It sets the mood and tone even if the reader has never heard such music before. Even more so when the reader actually does know the music that is being played within Murakami's work. In my opinion I believe this is intuitive, because if the reader does not know the music being played, then they will try to fit their own background music for the scene that they are picturing within their mind from reading the work by Murakami. It creates another level of sub-conscious creativity as the reader configures the scene from the text. It is also intriguing to listen to the music after reading it in the text and imagining the scene. Often times and personally, it turns out to be music I wasn't expecting and creates another parallel mood for the scene that was being played out in my mind from reading the text. I believe this is good for the readers of Murakami, because it allows the reader the room to not only have creativity and set the scene themselves, but also dig deeper and explore the actual music being played within the scene.

Murakami's work also flows like music. Every sentence and dialogue between characters within the work of Murakami has a rhythm. I believe this is because Murakami listens to music as he writes and what we get is formed from his passion towards the music he was listening to during that very moment he was writing that particular scene out in his work that mentions the music being played. It would make sense because of the regularity of mentioning the music in the background within his work and the way his writing is structured when a particular tune is mentioned. It fits the quality of his work in many ways. Without music in his work, I don't think we would be reading the same work by Murakami. His work is heavily centered upon this aspect of detail, along the very different formats and structures of his prose of parody to other writers, including himself. 

In totality, I find it enjoyable as a reader to have this side to Murakami's writing. It enhances the quality of the reading and allows room for creativity to exist when forming the scene. It gives the reader something to explore and perhaps extend their musical horizons or musical knowledge after the fact. This bridges a connection between the author and the reader as well. It allows the reader to connect with the author on a spiritual level through music and find a mutual understanding of why the scene is written the way it is. It creates a side of Murakami that is much more than a regular author and story.

~ Jonathon Little

Processing Generational Trauma

After reading Murakami’s essay “Abandoning a Cat” you can observe how Murakami carries many aspects of his relationship with his father into his writing. In the essay Murakami discusses his father, his entanglement with war, and the strains of their relationship. Murakami seems to explore his father’s experiences and their relationship in his novels, as many scenes described in the essay are extremely similar to scenes from his novels. 

In “Abandoning a Cat” Murakami recounts the only story his father told him about his wartime experiences, where his unit executed a chinese soldier. This anecdote seemed very similar to the scene described in The Wind Up Bird Chronicle when the Lieutenant had to execute the Chinese soldiers who tried to escape, as well as the zoo massacre scene. In both instances Murakami describes how the soldiers knew they were going to die and did not resist their executions, and the “torment and anguish” felt by the people forced to kill. It seems that war and violence had a profound effect on Murakami’s father as he describes how his father’s experiences caused him to be violent towards his students and drink excessively. Murakami references Japanese Militarism frequently, and war and violence are common themes in his novels. From his accounts in “Abandoning a Cat” it seems that he uses his novels as a way of exploring these topics and their effect on people’s lives, as well as processing generational trauma passed down to him from his father.

In the essay Murakami also discusses his relationship with his father stating “when I became a full-time writer our relationship got so convoluted that in the end we cut off nearly all contact. We didn’t see each other for more than twenty years, and spoke only when it was absolutely necessary.” (Murakami 9). Even from the language of the essay you can feel the distance in their relationship. When Murakami talks about their relationship he uses words like “think”, “assume”, and “guess” when describing his father’s feelings, showing how little he connected with his father. This reminded me a lot of the descriptions of fathers in Kafka On The Shore and 1Q84. In both of those novels Tengo and Kafka have strained and distant relationships with their fathers, and both specifically mention at times believing that their father was not their actual biological father. When Murakami describes his final encounter with his father in the hospital it seemed extremely similar to the situation between Tengo and his father at the end of his life, which takes up a good portion of 1Q84. It seems to me that Murakami is using these depictions of fathers to reflect on and process his own relationship with his father and find closure.

Ken

Body Parts in Murakami's Work

If there’s one consistent thing throughout many of the Murakami works we’ve read so far, it’s a persistent and confounding obsession with body parts. The most obvious example of this is, of course, the girlfriend’s ears in A Wild Sheep Chase, which are not only described as “the dream image of an ear,” but also in turn beautiful, erotic, and enthralling (34). This woman, however, is not the only one in this novel to have body parts described in excruciating detail. The secretary, too, has a perfect feature: His hands. His hands are described as “truly beautiful […], if somehow unsettling” and his fingers as “tense, compelling, [and] nerve-racking.” (61, 124).

The body part obsession carries into Murakami’s short stories. In Sydney Green Street, the characters chase after the sheep man’s ear, which is decidedly not perfect as it is put on a pizza and covered in hot sauce. In The 1963/1982 Girl From Ipanema, there is another focus on the “metaphysical sole” of the girl’s feet, which are described as perfect, and as neither too hot nor too cold (11). There are also extremely detailed descriptions of non-human body parts, like the whale penis in A Wild Sheep Chase which is described as unrecognizable as a part of a body and is sad and twisted.

I’m not sure what these body parts are intended to represent, if anything specific, or if they are even intended to represent the same thing in each case. Sometimes I feel like the perfect body parts in A Wild Sheep Chase and The 1963/1982 Girl From Ipanema indicate a connection to the other world – after all, the girlfriend clearly has some supernatural powers, the secretary is arguably also implied to have a connection to the world of the sheep himself, and the Ipanema Girl is also clearly somehow connected to the other world where time does not pass and everything is simply metaphysical. These descriptions always feel either implicitly or explicitly erotic, as if there is nothing more attractive than an ear, a hand, or a foot.

On the other hand, the descriptions of body parts and features that are somehow wrong are always a touch unsettling and seem to function as various representations of corruption. In both the case of the whale penis and the sheep man’s ear, there is a separation from the body, a sometimes literal staining of that which is considered erotic or perfect when attached to the body. Maybe that juxtaposition between perfection and twisted ugliness is the point. Maybe the idea is that something so perfect can always be thoroughly destroyed, like a flower crushed thoughtlessly under someone’s foot, or a set of footprints trampled through fresh snow.

-Amanda

The Continuation of "Two Worlds" in The Second Bakery Attack

In A Wild Sheep Chase, Kafka on the Shore, and I’m sure many other of Murakami’s works, he seems to revisit this idea of a divided“two worlds.” This is continued in The Second Bakery Attack, with the description of Boku’s metaphorical volcano.

Murakami seems to split the story into “two worlds,” a more literal one, and a metaphorical one. Volcanoes build up before eventually imploding, and, to me, the volcano seems to symbolize the curse, as well as a lingering guilt, or a need to reconcile with a past life (or “world”) before it catches up to him. The first reference to this metaphorical volcano corresponds when Boku is struck with “a special kind of hunger” in the literal world:

“One, I am in a little boat, floating on a quiet sea. Two, I look down, and in the water I see the peak of a volcano thrusting up from the ocean floor. Three, the peak seems pretty close to the water’s surface, but just how close I cannot tell. Four, this is because the hyper-transparency of the water interferes with the perception of distance.” (38)

At this point, the volcano serves as a reminder of his looming guilt, but it is not fully clear yet. It is not until he recalls the bakery attack he committed in his past that he notes, “the clarity of the ocean water all around the boat gave [him] an unsettled feeling, as if a hollow had opened somewhere behind [his] solar plexus–a hermetically sealed cavern that has neither entrance nor exit” (39). However, it is not until after his wife reveals that he must be cursed that the “water was even clearer than before–much clearer” (43). The volcano disappears after Boku and his wife rob the McDonalds, and break the curse.

All in all, it seems as though the volcano was implemented into the story and order to communicate the need to deal with past mistakes, traumas, etc. of the past, or else the guilt (the volcano) will continue to loom and consume you–even in your new present life (or “world”).

Lexi Nasse

Misnomers in Murakami

 The signifier, the signified, their relationship, and their arbitrariness are four things that Murakami is known to play with in his writing. The most common way this is realized is through names of characters and places—some of Murakami's most postmodernist thoughts and musings are even revealed in dialogue between characters. One effect of this distortion is to dehumanize what is misnamed, to purposefully mischaracterize its essence, producing the jarring effect. This effect is delivered in two parts: the first is the shock caused by calling something the wrong name. the second is looking at that deeper. I applied this line of thinking to two stories where people and things are misnamed, "The Second Bakery Attack" and "Barn Burning".

In "The Second Bakery Attack", what they attack is not a bakery at all it is a McDonald's. First, the reader experiences the shock from hearing that a McDonald's is apparently close enough. Surprisingly, the reader accepts this explanation because when considered alongside the hysteria and ridiculousness of the situation, this does not seem completely out of line. The second part of the effect is far more interesting. What does it do to this McDonald's to call it close to a bakery? My first impression is that, if anything, a McDonald's is a soulless corporate version of a bakery. This means that the couple is attempting to relive an experience of the past, but are doing so in a completely inauthentic way. This misnaming initiates the comparison in the reader's mind, allowing the conclusion that the couple is definitely fanatic but there is something inauthentic or unreachable about their frenzy, stopped by modernity or corporatism. 

In "Barn Burning", "barn"/"greenhouse" is a stand-in for women. Burning barns means killing women. This distortion has more reasons behind it, particularly to obscure the crime being committed when it is discussed openly, which the narrator does not investigate until it is too late. Before making the connection, the barns are described as run-down places that no one would miss if they disappeared. Even without knowing this is actually a description of people, this description serves as his reason to burn them down and he feels justified in this, yet still covers up what he is actually doing. In this story, the consequence of referring to women as barns is the fact that people then feel entitled to burn them as they please. Here, the misnaming and shock are not the only factors driving the plot. The act of burning solely because of the way they were able to be characterized is used as an argument against this haphazard naming or misnaming because of the negative result (death) obtained by its full application.

Tim