Murakami and Dysfunctional Marriages

 I have always felt that for someone who is in a long-term marriage, Murakami seems to write a lot about dysfunctional marriages and relationships that are stale. It really occurred to me because of the stark contrast between the couples in the readings. The couple in "The Second Bakery Attack" seems completely unfamiliar with each other as the wife repeatedly surprises the husband with her decision making, the shotgun and ski masks she owns, and more. In turn, it seems unbelievable that till the point of this marriage the husband had never told the story of how he had robbed a bakery. There is no way to see what they had seen in each other. Similar dysfunctional couples can be seen in the "The Wild Sheep Chase", Boku and his ex-wife did not seem to have any chemistry together and the basis of his relationship with his girlfriend is purely physical and a matter of convenience. In "Drive My Car", the wife cheated on the husband multiple times despite them being in a seemingly good relationship. In "Tony Takitani", Tony falls in love suddenly and it seems to be due to nothing substantial. In comparison, the couple in "A Small Good Thing" seem much more dedicated and connected, one moment that stood out was when she realized the husband had also been praying this entire time. Their decision to attack the bakery is also unanimous and they set off as a unit. One difference between Murakami's couples and others is that they don't have a child, which could explain some of the lack of commitment to the relationship. Murakami and his wife also do not have children which seems to be why he writes couples like that. However, more than anything, I think it is that Murakami is not great at writing women and giving them the depth needed to convince readers of their part in a loving relationship. All the women in  relationships he writes feel hollow and underdeveloped compared to the main male protagonists. 

Celine

Thoughts on the Second Bakery Attack

The Second Bakery Attack was a bit comical. It’s funny how the wife was leading everything while the protagonist just backs her up when the wife is making her demands at the Mcdonalds workers. The story was also a bit confusing because they chose to rob a Mcdonalds, which they themselves didn’t even expect to attack. It was simply the “closest” thing to a bakery. There were other confusing points in this short story. Why were the couple so hungry? And why was the young couple dead asleep at Mcdonalds? They completely juxtaposed the protagonist and his wife. You would expect couples, especially newlyweds, to be sleeping soundly at home. 

On page 43, there is a description of an undersea volcano, which can’t be seen unless if you’re looking closely at it. I think that volcano is representative of the protagonist’s wife. They are newlywed, so the protagonist is slowly learning more about his wife. For example, she can conduct an armed robbery like a pro. The protagonist got a clear view of this because he was her accomplice, but this isn’t something that others would see in her, like the volcano hidden under the sea. 

But maybe that’s what makes a perfect couple? The wife enjoyed the experience of a “bakery attack", and they both satisfied their hunger. I noticed that throughout this whole story, the couple never had an argument. 

-Rose

Writing About Writing

 “Charlie Parker Plays Bossa Nova,” collected in Men Without Women (2014), is a story about a story. It opens with an excerpt of the titular piece which the narrator wrote during his college years—the first to be published and compensated. Music, nostalgia, and the dichotomy of dream and reality are central themes but I was most struck by this notion of the writer’s relationship to his own writing. Putting pen to paper brings realities into existence. This manifests as the narrator encounters his fictionalized Charlie Parker LP at a New York City record store. He returns it to the stacks, unable to justify the $35 price, but is later overcome by the urge to return for it “…at the very least as a souvenir of all the twists and turns [his] life had taken” (64). Now his life is “harried and busy,” by implication without room for the imaginative writing he once produced. I think there is a certain naiveté to the writing we do when we’re young. It feels possible and empowering, especially when scaffolded by collegiate writing programs. And when it has an outlet, like the now-folded literary magazine that picked up the narrator’s piece, it’s even better. Maybe I’m writing this with the cynicism of someone who once saw writing as a realistic pursuit for myself. But I think this story is very much about an abandoned love (or like) of writing and how the fruits of our labor are self-contained remnants of past lives.

Charlie Parker appears to the narrator as a ghost of that past life. He emphasizes his early death at age thirty-four and asks the narrator to consider what it would be like to die that early. I wonder what the significance is of the age thirty-four and the record’s thirty-five dollar price tag. The story’s timeline dates the narrator roughly in his mid-to-late thirties. The ghost of Charlie Parker remarks, “Only begun to live my life. But then I looked around me and it was all over” (69). Life is short, he realizes, and his is just starting. After this interaction the narrator is inspired to—literally—put pen to paper again. He writes down all the details and dialogue to the best of his memory. Ending on this image suggests to me that the narrator is picking up where he left off and rediscovering the joy of writing.

- Bella

Murakami and Obsession

Haruki Murakami is not just a writer of famous novels, he has also written plenty of short stories. One common thread that comes up in a few of them is the theme of obsession as a psychological coping mechanism for other events. Murakami has been a psychological writer throughout his bibliography, but this theme of obsession is more noteworthy in these short stories as there isn’t much other content to cover in them, and in some cases, obsession is a central theme. Shown as examples here are The Year of Spaghetti and Tony Takitani.

The Year of Spaghetti places the titular Boku as a loner, someone whose only daily task seems to be making spaghetti. While making spaghetti, Boku receives a call from an ex-girlfriend of a friend. Despite her pleas to tell her where his friend is, Boku seems distracted, obsessed with making spaghetti as a way to cope with dealing with any outside events. The point is driven home in the last sentence of the story, that instead of spaghetti the Italians were exporting “loneliness.”

Another example is one of Murakami’s most famous short stories, Tony Takitani. Here, it may not be the titular Tony faced to deal with obsession, but his wife. While this is by all accounts seemingly a good relationship between the two, much of Tony’s income goes to shouldering his wife’s obsession with buying dresses, filling a large closet to the point where she admits it is a “drug addiction.” This rears its head when Tony states that she may not need so many expensive dresses. Not being able to “stand it” despite knowing “he was right,” she is soon “instinctively” involved in a fatal car crash. If this is the fate that awaited somebody torn apart from their dress-buying obsession, would a similar fate have awaited a Boku forced to stop making spaghetti and to acknowledge the outside world? Only Murakami knows.

-William

Manifestations of the Unconscious Mind in Murakami

As a reader scrambles to give their own interpretation of Murakami's novels, it is possible to notice repeating patterns within some of the author's major works. In fact, most of the author's writings tend to explore the relationship between his protagonists and the reality around them. Usually, this section of the story starts once the protagonist gradually notices elements in his world that seem out of place. Said elements somehow snap him out of his surrounding world and immerse him into an almost abstract dimension - where people wear sheepskin as clothing, deceased friends are able to interact with everyday objects, and buildings materialize out of thin air. Admittedly, I was - and very much still am - one of those readers. The initial interpretation I had given to this aspect of Murakami's novels was a simple disconnect from reality, possibly due to the protagonist's mental burdens usually caused by a problematic past. However, I had reached this conclusion only on the basis of reading through A Wild Sheep Chase. Now that there is more material at hand, it should be possible to reach a slightly more founded conclusion.

With the added content of Kafka on the Shore, the role that the Unconscious mind plays in Murakami's novels has become a bit more clear. In the two aforementioned novels, both protagonists eventually find themselves in worlds separate from their actual reality which - at least initially - seem to be concrete. However, slight inconsistencies in the manifestations of these worlds reveal that it is impossible for said realities to actually exist. Take for instance Chapter 45 of Kafka on the Shore: "Slim poles with wires strung between them dot the area, which means they must have electricity. Electricity? Out here?" Then shortly after, "A light hangs down from the ceiling. And there's a TV. A TV?" In both moments, Kafka is in disbelief about what this village actually possesses. Elements like the presence of the fridge or even the wind-powered station further add to the protagonist's surprise. The existence of a perfectly working town deep into the woods already possesses enough of a shock factor as it is. Still, no particular element of the village seems entirely implausible.

As mentioned earlier, the story follows a similar pattern to other novels. For example, the town within Kafka on the Shore can be compared to the small mountain-top cabin in A Wild Sheep Chase. Yet, it is essential to revisit how said protagonists reached said destinations. On the one hand, Boku in A Wild Sheep Chase is forcibly thrown into the new reality once his girlfriend magically disappears in correspondence to the manifestation of the Sheep Professor. On Kafka's end, the surreal begins once the two soldiers guide him through the thick forest. In reference to the journey, he later recalls "As I made my way through the thick forest my mind must have been elsewhere." At a first glance, it may be easy to think that Kafka was simply distracted, with his mind thinking of something else. But different readings of the same phrase become possible once it's placed into a larger context, "My mind is someplace far away, though my body is still right here - just like a living spirit." Whether it's 15-year-old miss Saeki or the Rat, these characters can only appear within the protagonist's mind. Thus, it can be assumed that these physical locations are nothing more than manifestations of both Boku's and Kafka's unconscious. 

Daniele

Music in A Wild Sheep Chase

     After today's class about music in Murakami's works, I realized I haven't been paying enough attention to what music he includes in his different works. However, one mention of music that I do remember is in A Wild Sheep Chase. In the chapter "She Leaves the Mountain; Hunger Strikes," the song "Perfidia" by the Percy Faith Orchestra plays while Boku eats dinner. Without ever hearing this song before, the name of the song seems to fit the situation Boku is in. His girlfriend has left him without saying anything and Boku could barely accept the fact that she was gone. Perfidia means perfidy in English which means faithless, treachery, or betrayal. The song is sung from the perspective of a man whose lover has left him, exactly like Boku. I read the scene of Boku eating dinner and listening to Perfidia as a way to cope with his girlfriend leaving him and a way for him to embrace the sadness of what happened. Yet something didn't sit right with me.

    Boku instinctively knew his girlfriend was gone when he woke up on the sofa. It was certain to him and it was a feeling he has already experienced when his wife left him. He looked for her around the house and goes through stages of emotion. He first is unable to accept her disappearance, but then allows things to take their course. And I thought that would mean let his emotions run, but instead he becomes hungry and makes dinner for himself. Usually when I think of a loved one leaving or a breakup, people usually lose their appetite and stay soaked in their sad emotions. It is not the case for Boku as he drinks wine, eats bread, an apples, and the stew. As he eats dinner, he listens to Perfidia, which I thought would be a sentimental and sad song. After hearing it in class for the first time today, I want to say the song doesn't fit the scene at all, but I do think the song choice works. The song is upbeat and positive in my ears. It wouldn't be something I would want to listen to when I am sad or going through a breakup. But the song set the tone for what Boku truly feels about his girlfriend leaving him. Of course, he is probably sad about it, but he is not surprised about it. He felt it that she left and he has experienced this before. It is nothing new and he probably thought that letting things take their course meant letting life move on without her. I was not surprised about the song choice after thinking about how Boku could be feeling. The lyrics fit well, but the instrumental part demonstrates Boku's ability to move on quickly so he can continue his journey.

    Shortly after the dinner with the song playing, Boku seems to have completely moved on as he is more interested in the game he was playing and if the Rat would be back. The song seemed to have set a good tone for Boku to move on and not let anything get in his way. It was a clever choice of Murakami to choose this song for this scene as it lets the audience who never heard the song to think one way and for the people who have heard this song to think another way.

Sonia

Murakami, Internal Animals, and Loss of Self

https://www.npr.org/2021/04/06/984447978/haruki-murakami-ive-had-all-sorts-of-strange-experiences-in-my-life

    In this interview, Murakami talks to NPR reporter Petra Mayer about First Person Singular.  Mayer asks him if he would discuss the origin of a name-stealing monkey within the work, and he tells her that this is not the animal's first appearance. He recounts a fifteen-year-old short story he wrote called "A Shinagawa Monkey", in which the titular primate lived in the sewers of Tokyo, emerging to steal the names of women. Eventually this monkey is banished to the mountains, but he continued to think about its fate for years to come:

That monkey has been on my mind a lot ever since. I was wondering what happened to him afterwards, so this time I set out to write a kind of sequel. For those fifteen years the monkey's been hidden away, inside me (a world deep down), waiting, I think, for the right moment to reappear.

It's not at all clear to me what that monkey represents. He certainly exists within me, though, that much is certain, and has been pestering me to write about him. (Murakami)

This quote got me thinking of the sheep from A Wild Sheep Chase. Within the story, the sheep takes up residence inside of the Boss and the Rat, and in so doing it attempts to supersede their will with its own. The Rat's final actions before becoming completely overshadowed by the sheep are to kill himself and destroy the sheep altogether. 

This monkey functions in a similar capacity to the sheep, in a sense. By taking names, it removes an integral part of each woman's personality. They quite literally lose their senses of self as a result of this animal, and the ultimate solution in the short story is to banish him to the mountains, where he will be unable to steal people's names any longer.

In both cases, the end result is that the selves of characters and the general population are better protected once these animals are dealt with. Loss of self is equated to misery and physical pain (at least with the sheep's ability to harm the brain of its host). To relate all of this back to Murakami, I believe he has been suffering an identity crisis. With this name-stealer supposedly taking up long-term residence within him, it is not unlikely that he feels his own name has been taken. With the monkey in control in a fashion similar to the sheep, he may be guiding the man to steal the names of those around him, or even those of his characters. Such a mentality might explain why many characters are defined only by their relationships to one another rather than with proper monikers. Perhaps wild animals like a monkey and sheep are the metaphors that Murakami chooses to represent loss of self because they do not have names unless a human decides to name them. As has been discussed before, Murakami does not always feel comfortable playing God by giving his characters names. Perhaps, in a sense, Murakami let this name-stealer in to alleviate this anxiety. Whenever he feels too much stress in defining others or himself, he can simply blame the anonymity on the monkey.

-Bruce