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