Out with a Whimper — Murakami & T.S Eliot

 Hi everyone!

When researching my presentation for Heart of Darkness, I came across (which I mentioned in the presentation) the epigraph for T.S. Eliot's "The Hollow Men" which was "Mistah Kurtz — he dead" from Conrad's novella. The hollow men are referenced explicitly by Murakami in Kafka on the Shore, but after finding this out, I combed back through A Wild Sheep Chase to see if there was any intertextual dialogue between the poem and the book. (It's not exactly a 1:1 comparison between the two but there are a few interesting similarities so bear with me.)

The poem itself is about spiritual listlessness, moral malaise, and what it means to be "hollow" — or as I prefer it "sheepless." The final lines of the poem even partially remind me how the novel ends, "not with a bang, but with a whimper." The ideas to me seemed fairly congruent with the quiet presence of absence in A Wild Sheep Chase and especially the usage of the suffix {-less}. In the first section where the main character is talking about his ex-wife the narration uses these two pairs between a few pages: "Colorless shadow...tasteless shadow." The suffix here signals something banal (and maybe someone who speaks Japanese could tell me how this operates in Japanese! I would appreciate it), but it indicates the presence of color and taste within the shadow, a usually grey, amorphous thing, just as {un-} in "unblocked ears" signifies that being "blocked" is the natural state of her ears. In Eliot's poem, the lines "shape without form, shade without colour," is eerily reminiscent of the above descriptions of shadows. 

The ephemerality of the shadow is also interesting to me, and the idea of absence is mirrored in a few ways using the senses as in the way sight or taste are used above. Chronologically, his girlfriend's "glimmer," which she was able to "at will, summon or control" and without which she effectively disappears into a crowd, is visually rare. The conversation that continues between the two at dinner and his reaction to her ears is mostly about the singularity they possess and the clarity of mind that they create, and he brings in other senses in order to describe this sensation: "I heard the sound of waves, recalled the the scent of a long-forgotten evening...When it was raining, the smell of the rain came through crystal clear. When the birds were singing, their song was a thing of sheer clarity." This sensation and that of the sheep professor is The spiritual connection between the Sheep Professor and the sheep is also something discussed as if it was a natural feeling: "It just felt like there was this sheep inside me. I felt it in the morning. I woke up and there was this sheep inside. A perfectly natural feeling." 

Seeing her ears or being inhabited by the sheep are two euphoric, yet perfectly natural sensations, yet when this ephemeral thing leaves them, their absences are different. The power of her ears is strangely transient in that she decides to hide them, but can be convinced to show them. The power is her own, and the effect on others is immediately assuaged as soon as her ears are hidden again. When you see her ears, you are given something gratuitous and pleasant, but when you don't see them nothing has been taken from you. The feeling of the sheep being inside someone is life altering, disruptive, and damning because it is completely removed from the voice of their desires. The motives of the sheep are hollow in the sense that they are unintelligible to others. When the sheep leaves you, you exist in a constant state of wrongness and hollowness. There is something missing when the sheep goes — sheepless — as there is not with the ears because the sheep seems inherently linked with something intransient and internal: greed and power.

As I stated before, the end of the poem is "This is the way the world ends / Not with a bang but a whimper." Formally, the novel does end with a sort of lingering bang — in the sheep and Rat's death — bit it really ends with a whimper — the sound of waves reminiscent of what he heard when his girlfriend first showed him her ears. The end of the novel, perhaps when read alongside "The Hollow Men," purports that there was something gained after all. 

Alana Lopez

Western Style in Murukami

 One thing I have appreciated in this class is reading Murakami's works alongside the influences he may have drawn on while writing. Whether these influences are overt or subtle, finding the threads of connection between these works gives us insight into how Murukami wants to incorporate Western influence into his novels.

Although his novels are undoubtedly Japanese, from the settings to the cultural values, to the characters themselves, by far the largest role that Western influence has in Murukami's works is upon its style. Whether that comes from imitating the hard-boiled detective genre, to mystery, to the bright satirical comedy of authors like Kurt Vonnegut and Haruki Murakami, Murakami borrows from the authors he admires and incorporates them into a Japanese tradition. It reminds me of how Japanese animation studios adapted and borrowed from American animation techniques, technologies, and styles while simultaneously birthing something novel and unmistakably Japanese. With the rise of global modernity, what has been made possible is this recombination, fusion, and invention of styles and admixtures between cultures. In addition to the style and form of Murakami's writings being influenced by Western media, the character traits of "boku" have also been tampered with. In the Wild Sheep Chase, Boku's critical and stubbornness seem to align with that of Phillip Marlowe from The Long Goodbye. One of the negative instances of Murakami's favorite authors' influence on his writings is the centralization of male perspectives and characters, again, very commonplace in genres like traditional detective mysteries and older works from America and Europe. I wish that Murakami could have admired more female writers or books with female protagonists like Austen, Woolf, or George Eliot. 

- Katherine Chen

Boku and the Rat's "Long Goodbye" - Kevin

 A Wild Sheep Chase was one of my first Murakami novels, and it quickly became my favorite after I finished it some 4 odd years ago. Since then, I have re-read both WCS and its companion novellas a handful of times, with each read further cementing it as my favorite of Murakami's works. That being said, what really captures my love for the Rat trilogy is its masterful handling of sentimentality, nostalgia, and the friendship between Boku and the Rat. 

While its supernatural and unusual storytelling elements draw me in the same way any other novel by Murakami would, it is the character dynamic between the story's main characters that leaves me with a feeling that has kept me coming back.

While the context provided in Hear the Wind Sing and Pinball, 1973 is non-essential, I think it provides meaningful insight into our main characters' actions. For the Rat, we see him characterized as a man who is rash, nostalgic, and immature. In his struggle to handle his emotions, he abandons his hometown, his past girlfriend, and, for the most part, his dear friends Boku and J. In the case of Boku, we see that he and the Rat used to be close friends, with Boku always being there for the Rat in his times of need, however begrudgingly it may be.

This added context to the relationship between Boku and the Rat makes the events of WCS make more sense- the Rat's letters become more endearing, Boku's abstract journey to find his old friend (and the sheep by proxy) has more logic behind it, and most of all, the Rat's final goodbye becomes a lot more sentimental. The Rat has always been a character who struggled with goodbyes, and for him to set up this elaborate chase for his old friend is about as on-brand as I can imagine. It also explains his decision to end his life with the sheep inside him, as his decision-making has always been quick, rash, and driven by gut feeling rather than logic. 

Ultimately, I've always felt as if the relationship between Boku and the Rat is quite endearing, and the whole conclusion of the novel (from their conversation in the house to the scene in J's bar) has always felt so raw and emotional for me.

As with many other Murakami novels, I try not to attribute too much meaning or analysis to the supernatural elements in WCS, trying to focus more on the way that the book makes me feel. In this case, after reading it alongside A Long Goodbye, I feel as if Murakami captured the essence of a "Long Goodbye" perfectly, or at least much better than the way Marlowe and Terry ended their relationship. It feels real, emotional, and entirely possible given the context of Boku and Rat's relationship, capturing a heartfelt goodbye between two men who struggle to handle their feelings properly (however surreal the journey may have been). What I love about the book is the way that it can portray this alongside its strange setting.

Repost of Thoughts on HM and Connection to Dostoevsky - ALLEN

 Hello Class,

I find Murakami's writing to be particularly interesting because of the characteristics of his characters. Having read The Brothers Karamazov, there are a few parallels between Dostoevsky and Murakami I want to talk about. Dostoevsky is known for his existential view. In The Brothers Karamazov, there was a discussion on the cruelty and flaw of God, because otherwise this world would not have any suffering. Thus, the argument was that there is no God, and if there is, it is an evil one. This rejection of a divine being and meaning in life reflects Dostoevsky's nihilistic perspective.  

The characteristic of Boku shows a nihilistic view from a different angle. He finds the world almost meaningless through an objective view and lives a mundane life. It is almost as if Boku is a student of nihilism! However, there is a key difference to distinguish between Dostoevsky's and Murakami's views. Dostoevsky promotes active nihilism, where one is tormented by the lack of meaning and rebels. On the other hand, Murakami's characters portray passive nihilism, where they kind of just coexist and accept the meaningless world (almost as if they don't care). It could also be argued that Murakami's characters are existentialists, where they try to find meaning through a quest like in A Wild Sheep Chase. In the last chapter, Boku breaks down and finally feels emotion, which could symbolize his growth out of a detached life, thus actually challenging Dostoevsky's view.

Sloane -- The Sheep Man Beyond Wild Sheep Chase

 Hi everyone,

I really liked Murakami's short story "Green Street in Sydney," not just because it was entertaining and ridiculous but because it also brought the Sheep Man back into play. I think it's interesting that Murakami chose to infuse this story with an intertextual reference to A Wild Sheep Chase, and yet did so without using the Sheep Man in the same way at all. I don't think it's the same Sheep Man that Boku encounters in Hokkaido, although this one also wears a sheep costume. For one thing, he's (likely) not the Rat's spirit taking on a physical form, and for another he is visible to all other characters in the story so there's nothing to indicate he doesn't exist. 

Then there's the matter of the Sheep Professor, who possesses the same title as the father of the hotel owner in A Wild Sheep Chase but also seems to be someone else altogether. This professor hates the sheep men because they annoy him running around so freely in their costumes, which leads him to project his jealousy that they can do so onto them. But in the end he becomes a Sheep Man himself when he puts his fear of living how he really wants to aside and dons the sheep costume. It's a completely different existence than how the Sheep Professor wound up in the end of A Wild Sheep Chase,  weeping that his search for the sheep was over and his year-long obsession was over -- but then what? 

I know I just said that I feel the Sheep Professor is someone else in this story, but at the same time I do feel that he holds the essence of the other Sheep Professor. For me, it reads like the Green Street that the story takes place on is an alternate reality this character has passed into. Instead of shutting himself away from the rest of the world and dedicating his life to searching for something which has already passed him by, he takes the reins of his own life and finds freedom in a new identity. In this way, I think "Green Street in Sydney" could be seen as a semi-epilogue of A Wild Sheep Chase, at least for the professor. 

Maybe the narrator of the story is a different version of A Wild Sheep Chase's Boku as well! With a real girlfriend this time (notably with a name, too). It's like he got a taste for detective-work in A Wild Sheep Chase and then actually became one in a different reality. I don't really know what to make of the Sheep Man, though (especially the fact that there are multiple of them running around).

- Sloane

The Sheep Man- Carly

Hello class,

I wanted to talk about my thoughts on whether the Sheep Man exists, as my thoughts have changed since I first finished A Wild Sheep Chase last week. When I first read the end of the story, I felt sure that the Sheep Man did not exist at all in any form. The Sheep Man’s reflection not showing up in the mirror made me think this. I now think that the Sheep Man physically exists sometimes, but “Boku” also has a habit of creating people in his head as a coping mechanism, and the Sheep Man has become one of those people in his head. Throughout the story, I thought of Boku as a very lonely person. I also think Boku’s loneliness is self-induced and a result of his apathetic approach to life. The story started with him talking about his ex-situationship from college and how she passed away in an accident. As he talked about their time together, although he could recount their encounters in detail, I did not feel like he was particularly moved by her passing or felt any regret or sadness about losing someone he had memories with. Later on in the story, when Boku is in the limo with the chauffeur, and he says he almost forgot he had a name, this shows how he barely cared about even his own existence. He had many more moments like this when he seemed like he just didn’t care enough, or seemed disconnected from life. 

It is also relevant to mention that I am suspicious of the girlfriend’s existence as well. The Sheep Man told Boku that his girlfriend left, and that Boku was “confusing,” her, and he “only thinks about himself” (Chapter 35). Instances like this in the story made me think that Boku created the Sheep Man to force him confront his insecurities about himself. In the same way, the girlfriends’ existence is also showing Boku how his lack of care for others will lead to him being alone. To prevent myself from becoming too long-winded, basically, I think Boku is emotionally stunted, and the people/characters he creates in his head are helping him to change his inability to feel. 

-Carly

Murakami Reshaping Japanese Identity -Alexia Koulikourdis

What struck me most in the interview between Mr. McInerney and Murakami was how Murakami describes the way he became an author. He reflects upon it as a break from tradition without fully abandoning it. His parents were both teachers of Japanese literature and his initial rejection of it appears to be a personal rebellion. Instead of following the traditional literary path, Murakami immersed himself in American culture, reading writers like Raymond Chandler, listening to jazz, and absorbing Western popular media. What’s interesting, though, is that this rebellion doesn’t result in Murakami abandoning his Japanese identity. Rather than setting his novels in America, he uses Western cultural references as a lens to portray Japan from an indirect angle. He describes wanting to depict what remains “Japanese” after stripping away elements that feel overly traditional. In this way, his work resists both literary nationalism and cultural imitation. 

This helps explain why A Wild Sheep Chase feels simultaneously global and deeply rooted in Japan. Even the surreal elements of the sheep hunt are treated as oddly ordinary, which mirrors Murakami’s goal of showing what remains after tradition has been stripped back. A Wild Sheep Chase fits neatly into this interview because it shows Murakami working through that balance, using distance and restraint not to escape Japanese identity, but to see it more clearly. 

Your Name, Please?

    What constitutes a name? This one thought has perplexed me more than any other after reading Haruki Murakami's A Wild Sheep Chase. Boku, the protagonist of the novel, has a complicated relationship with the idea of a "name". For one, he never names his own girlfriend, wife, or his work-partner, the people arguably closest to him in his life. In fact, just about every character in the book is predisposed without a name. The chauffeur is referred to as the "chauffeur", the secretary as "the Boss's secretary", and the Sheep Professor by his earned title; the same even applies to the Rat. Practically no one in the novel appears with a name. According to Boku, naming is primarily used to distinguish between distinct and non-distinct objects, or as Boku himself puts it,  "non-interchangeability is to say that they’re not mass-produced” (A Wild Sheep Chase, 181). We name objects, people, and concepts to give distinct identity to them, a way for the perceived "thing" to stand out against every other "thing". So to Boku, why does nobody stand out to him?
 

    Is his partner just a fellow being to share his labor with? Is his girlfriend nothing but an outlet of sexual impulse and desire? Furthermore, why does Boku never tell us his own name? Can this be due to a nihilistic perspective on Boku's end? Does Boku "want" to further his own disillusion and alienation from life? It's hard to say.
 

    What makes this all stranger is the fact that only one man is referred to by a "name" in the novel, J, the bar owner. Of course, it's not confirmed if J is the actual name of the bar owner or a nickname, but that's irrelevant.  A familiar use of the name "J" makes him stand out far amongst the other characters due to his distinct personalization attributed by the use of "J". Perhaps to Boku, J is a man that sees him for who he is; liberated by the freedoms alcoholism provides,  J is the only person in the world to see Boku for the truest individual he is. It's also worth noting that J is the only person to hint at the Rat and Boku being one in the same, implying a further understanding that Boku himself appears in-cognizant of.
 

    "Naming" is the consummate of Boku's fears -- a reminder of the alienation he has perpetually formulated in his personal life. If Boku chooses to leave things as nameless, abstract beings, then he has no reason to deal with the ramification of their actions towards him and vice versa. A "name" serves as a function to arise within the boundaries of the real, a lack of one allows the surreal to absolve oneself of all worldly consequences.      

I would like to end by quoting Albert Camus's The Rebel, "If one believes in nothing, if
nothing makes sense, if we can assert no value whatsoever, everything is permissible and nothing is important." (The Rebel, 13).

- DK 

Juliet's post

 

Hello! It’s Juliet.

I am convinced that Cervantes’ Don Quixote substantially influenced both Chandler and Murakami’s fictional works. Firstly, Don Quixote is centered around a protagonist out of step with his social world. His mission is to “do justice” according to a code that is no longer accepted as law. Marlowe and Boku, too, embark on explorations searching for something outside of the law, outside of convention—yet this object is ambiguous and doesn’t surely seem to exist. Interestingly, Don Quixote, Marlowe, and Boku each try to opt out of their respective societies’ money systems. Don Quixote goes from adventure to adventure without money, realizing a lifestyle which transcends the material world—even if this means frequent beatings and imprisonment. Similarly, Marlowe and Boku seem to see themselves as somehow above money—with Marlowe, in the case of rejecting Eileen’s money, and with Boku, the case of giving his money from the Boss’ people to J at the end. Also—Cervantes is known for parodying the literature of his contemporary society, particularly chivalric romances. He employs tropes from these romances and flips them on their head, exposing the absurdity of those stories which always tie up so neatly at the end. As Suter notes, Chandler is parodying rationalist detective stories, while Murakami parodies the Hard Boiled genre. Each of the three authors recombines different components of a conventional genre in a novel and subversive way. The parallels between A Wild Sheep Chase, Don Quixote, and The Long Goodbye are best brought to life by reading their endings. None of them are quite satisfying—or at least, none of them restore their world’s order as happy, fulfilling endings tend to do. We can’t make sense of Don Quixote’s regret at the end of the story, or Marlowe’s dispassionate reunion with Terry, or Boku’s relationship to rat, or what the sheep means in the end of it all. These unsatisfying endings are intentional—they challenge conventional narratives by showing that human journeys are cyclical by nature, never resolved. 

These ideas led me to think more about whether the parallels between Cervantes and Murakami/Chandler are just results of the intertextual nature of literature. After all, Don Quixote being (arguably) the first novel ever, I would be surprised if there were a novel entirely untouched by Cervantes’ influence. So, I sought out more explicit links. In The Long Goodbye, I found a line that I think must be a direct reference. 

Here are two lines, the first from Chandler and the second from Cervantes: 

“A difficult thing, being a cop. You never know whose stomach it’s safe to jump up and down on” (The Long Goodbye, 241).

“He climbed on top of his ribs and started to trop up and down from one end of them to the other” (Don Quixote, XVI). 

The idea of someone jumping up and down another’s stomach is very specific and unusual, which is why I think Chandler’s line must be a reference to the Quixote. In terms of Murakami, I did not find such an explicit link, but aside from the thematic parallels covered, it’s worth noting that Dostoevsky was one of his biggest influences. Dostoevsky writes that the Quixote is “the final and greatest utterance of the human mind.” As such an admirer of Dostoevsky, it would be shocking if he’d never thought to read his favorite book. 

Murakami's Use of Classical Music

Hello everyone!

In this post I would like to discuss the use and implications of classical music within Murakami's A Wild Sheep Chase. To many, the choice of music, form, and composer may seem insignificant. However if you dive into a little bit of music theory and backstory of some pieces, you can find a possible connection as to why Murakami chose these specific words in certain parts of the book.

On page 148, Boku is on his way back from the meeting with the Boss and the Chauffer happens to put on a Chopin Ballade. In music, a ballade is a single piece that is meant to tell a narrative story without the use of words. Chopin used them in a dramatic way, invoking a deep sense of yearning for an unobtainable goal often seen within romantic era music. In Chopin's case, these were all written during his time when he was exiled to France while longing to return to his homeland of Poland. If you've ever listened to any of his ballades before, it is easy to see how one can get lost and carried away on the wordless story Chopin takes you on. Having one of these emotional pieces played right before Boku must make a journey of his own foreshadows the highs and lows that he will experience; ie confronting the demons of his past, learning of the Rat's suicide, losing his girlfriend. 

Although he never specifies which of the 4 is played, I personally would like to infer that he hears Ballade No. 4 in F minor. After listening to all 4, I personally think that this one fits the most within the narrative of the story. Upon the piece starting, Boku remarks that, "I got the feeling I was in a dressing room at a wedding reception." Ballade No. 4 is dedicated to one of Chopin's best students and was written the year she was married off. In my opinion, I can also see the coda of this piece being linked to the release of emotions and tension built up over the course of the end of the book. Boku finding out that the Sheep Man is not real, realizing the Rat committed suicide to put an end to the Sheep's plan, and the explosion of the Rat's house, fully erasing anything left behind in their wake. 

Another example is the mention of a Mozart Concerto on page 43. Boku and his girlfriend are out on their first date at a restaurant while this piece starts to play. A concerto consists of a solo instrument that is accompanied by an entire orchestra. In this case, our solo instrument is his girlfriend and her ears, as Boku's entire focus and reason for wanting to see her is only for them. At the end of his journey, he is told by the Rat on page 338 that her ears have lost the special power that he once sought out and no longer have any meaning to him. If we look into Boku's perspective, ie only seeking this woman out for her ears, we can see how this is akin to a concerto piece without the soloist, as while the accompaniment is still nice to listen to, its nowhere near as nice compared to when we have the soloist. 

With all these small details, one can see why Murakami would choose these specific forms and associate them with certain people. However this is all up to personal interpretation as music can be interpreted in different ways, so I'd love to hear if anyone else has thought about these connections. Thank you!

- Angus Black

Further Influence

 Hello Class,

I’ve been appreciating the influence from previous works seen in Murakami’s writing, and I wanted to use this blog post to analyze another potential layer. We’ve discussed the influence of Conrad’s Heart of Darkness on the story of Murakami’s A Wild Sheep Chase. The stories both utilize the same motifs of obsessive pursuit of a mission with symbolic ambiguity and the main characters grappling with the instability of meaning. I believe these themes can be traced further back to Herman Melville’s Moby Dick. Moby Dick is even mentioned explicitly in Chapter 26 of A Wild Sheep Chase during the discussion with the desk clerk at the Dolphin Hotel. I also believe this influence led to the inclusion of Boku’s allusionary obsession with the whale genitalia in the aquarium. The elusive white whale can be seen as a precursor to the characters of Kurtz and the Sheep stripped of their respective political/societal themes. Conrad frames Kurtz within the context of imperialism and Murakami frames the sheep through postmodern alienation and absurdity. In Chapter 42 of Moby Dick, the narrator describes the whale, “the vague, nameless horror concerning him, which at times by its intensity completely overpowered all the rest; and yet so mystical and well nigh ineffable was it, that I almost despair of putting it in a comprehensible form.” This mirrors the indescribable nature of both Kurtz and the sheep, with Kurtz’ dying words echoing, “The horror!” with no further explanation and the sheep dissolving into abstraction. 

Bradley Rosen

Murakami's Modern Way of Finding

When reading Haruki Murakami's novels, I mostly have no idea what he is talking about at the very beginning of the story. It's not that I can't understand the sentences, but that I can't understand the "why". For example, in A Wild Sheep Chase, the beginning mentions divorce from his wife, as well as earmold photos, postcards sent by friends and so on. These are scattered in my mind like fragments, and I have no idea what the author really wants to express. Before reading it, my expectation was, isn't this a story about searching for "sheep"? It was not until later, with my confusion, that I followed boku to the Dolphin Hotel and then met Dr. Sheep, which gradually brought me back to what I thought was the process of finding the sheep.

Not only that, the same feeling is felt when reading a new short story by Haruki Murakami. Why would a man enter a room with a black travel bag, take out stockings, high heels and cheese cookies, and then answer a strange phone call? Why would a detective open an agency on the shabbiest street in Sydney, even though he is rich? Why would a stockbroker disappear in the stairwell from the 24th floor back to the 26th floor for a full twenty days?

It was not until I read Suter 's modernity that I seemed to have found a possible explanation. The word "imaginary" is mentioned in it. What interests Haruki Murakami is the United States imagined in his mind. So these things mentioned may not be reality, but the symbols mentioned in the modernity book. This makes readers realize that what we are reading is not a "true" story, but a text constructed by the text itself. Therefore, I feel that when reading Haruki Murakami's articles, one should not attempt to "understand" everything but rather feel it. It was not until later that we returned to the answer we were looking for.

Zihan Yan (Vivian)

Roll over basho

 After reading this conversation, I felt like my view of Murakami got changed. I used to treat the Western references in his books as more of a label: very pop culture heavy (well, western culture) maybe even a little bit intentionally anti traditional. But in this discussion, it became clearer that these details aren't decoration. They're part of how he builds a believable everyday world, where loneliness and detachment don't need dramatic explanation because they already feel natural inside that setting.

What stayed with me most was Murakami's point about language that he had to invent a new kind of Japanese for his fiction. That helped me understand why his writing can feel light and accessible without being shallow. It's not just emptiness but more of a choice to strip away a heavier, more ceremonial literary voice and replace it with something that travels across cultures more easily.

The contrast with Mishima also made the stakes feel real. Mishima is described as intense and grand. Murakami feels quieter, more skeptical, and closer to ordinary life, even when the plot turns surreal. For me, this talk showed that a writing style isn't just about how sentences sound. It's about what kind of world the author wants to make, and who they want that world to be able to speak to.

Wendy

A Protagonist Sequested - Isabella

 Hello Class, 

In this post I will be discussing some parallels between A Wild Sheep Chase, Kafka on the Shore, and IQ84, so please do not continue if you don't want any spoilers! If you have read these books, I would love to hear your thoughts. 

I feel like Murakami has a tendency to sequester his protagonist in the third act of his novels, typically before the big revelation or emotional resolution. In A Wild Sheep Chase, Murakami sequesters Boku in the cabin owned by the Rat, where, not much explicitly or explosively happens, rather, there are small moments, thoughts, or habits but which we are supposed to understand change or growth. For Boku, I think an intense representation of this could be the cleaning of the mirror, in which he is now able to see himself and not the Sheep Man (anyone else a big fan of the sheep man? I get a kick out of him.). I feel as though these periods of time are often characterized by really mundane habits like eating, cleaning, cooking and reading that often have insights to the story, or even, provide allusions to real life inspirations for the work. In both Kafka on the Shore and 1Q84 we spend considerable amount of time with our protagonists in isolation: for Kafka, he spends time in a cabin in the forest (another forrest of temporal anomaly) and Aomame, who spends a considerable amount of time in her safe house. All three of the characters read while in insolation. Aomame in particular, makes it a point to meditate on what she is reading, In Search of Lost Time by Marcel Proust. I think she is able to get through all seven volumes if I am not mistaken! I cannot think of a more poignant novel for her character to be reading, especially considering the events of the novel (which I will not get into here). I personally just love this trend in his novels. It doesn't ever really feel stale to me, even though all three of these characters go through, ostensibly, the same thing. These periods really showcase these characters in a vacuum, almost without the context or events of the story themselves, reminding the audience that the characters in these stories are just people. Even in the midst of trying to find a sheep, or trying to evade a prophecy or running after getting mixed up in destroying a cult, these characters still need to eat. Murakami zooms in and out like an accordion to show us the range in his characters and makes the implicit, explicit, which I always love. 

Lots of Murakami protagonists experience extreme isolation and loneliness, I think of K and Tsukuru, (Sputnik Sweetheart and Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and His Years of Pilgrimage) predominantly when I think of an almost palpable loneliness, that is more akin to Philip Marlowe's isolation maybe. These forms of isolation are different from this transformational phase of isolation we see in the books I have mentioned above, though I am sure there is some overlap. 

I would love to hear if anyone could think of other examples where Murakami protagonists are sequestered before the end of a novel. Thanks!

The Sheep Man Cometh Not

    In Murakami’s writing and some of his influences, mirrors are essential to the story. Just before the Rat’s arrival, the mirror in the house at the end of A Wild Sheep Chase helps Boku realize that the Sheep Man may not physically exist in the last visit. Similar to our discussion about pulling away the cloth draped over a mirror, Boku’s cleaning of the mirror reveals something about the “mirror world” (322), or enables him to see that he is alone in the house. After the Sheep Man’s initial visit, Boku speculates: “The area was being swept clean and purified. Something was about to happen” (308). He cleans the entire house, and only after finishing, he finds the mirror, the only exceptionally dirty item out of the lot. Upon examining the mirror, Boku exchanges possession of free will between himself and his reflection. Here the mirror is set up as a window to an alternate reality which he later uses to discover that the Sheep Man does not cast a reflection. This confirms his suspicions of the shared mannerisms between the Sheep Man and the Rat, leading to his declaration that the Rat will arrive in the evening. Although Boku indicates that he knows the Rat will be there, it seems more likely that Boku was telling the Rat through the Sheep Man that they must meet before Boku leaves the mountain the following day. It is an interesting coincidence that the timing of the Rat’s appearance aligns with the Secretary’s arrival. “Sixth sense”, as the man in the black suit suggests (345). Out of all the otherworldly occurrences in this novel, the last Sheep Man appearance being part of Boku’s mind, along with the dreamlike conversation with the Rat, doesn’t seem so unlikely. Additionally, the Rat makes no entrance, and their conversation is held back to back—a parallel to Boku’s interaction with his mirror self face to face. With this interpretation, Boku’s time alone in the house is a process that allows him to accept the Rat’s disappearance, end his sheep chase, and leave the mountain. He is disinterested in the Secretary’s check and the chauffeur’s description of the Boss’s funeral as a result. I am reminded by this—and the mention of "fourty-two" 4 times in reference to the amount of time passed after the Sheep Professor was abandoned by the Sheep—of a line in the song “42” (released in 2008, definitely not an influence): “Those who are dead are not dead / They're just living in my head”. Perhaps just as the mirror was never there in “The Mirror”, nor was the Sheep Man in the end.

 River 

Murakami's Protagonists

This blog post was inspired by my rereading of Pinball, 1973 last year. I noticed my feelings toward the book had shifted slightly from when I first encountered it in middle school, prompting the following reflections.

I've long pondered why I'm so captivated by Murakami's writing. I've turned it over and over in my mind, yet never quite grasped the reason. Much like the elusive perfect anime or film I seek within myself, I couldn't pinpoint exactly which element in Murakami's books satisfied me. I only know that I loved his writing.

Amidst this confusion, I found a clue in his Chinese translator Lin Shaohua's preface. He noted that in Murakami's early works, influenced by the spiritual void following Japan’s period of rapid economic growth and the disillusionment of the post-student movement era., protagonists tended toward “nihilism”—or what we might broadly call “lying flat” in modern terms.

This “lying flat” isn't the socially condemned version we see today: living off parents, complacency, lack of ambition, and so on (though I personally don't think that's necessarily a wrong way to live, but let's set that aside for now).

Murakami's protagonists are often single or divorced. They may have steady sexual partners or girlfriends, but never someone—especially of the opposite sex—to whom they can truly commit their hearts and souls. Most hold well-paying jobs: translators, portrait painters, or Calcutec. In short, they are people with stable careers and substantial incomes. Whence this sense of nihilism, then?

Murakami's protagonists generally enjoy beer, whiskey, jazz, and classical music. Outwardly cold, they seem detached from the world. After their homes are destroyed and someone slashes their stomach, they can still calmly sit on a surviving sofa drinking lukewarm beer. Yet inside, they carry a lock—only the right person or event holds the key to unlock it, prompting them to risk everything.

Yet what exactly is this nihilism, and what causes it in these protagonists? It still remain mystery for me. What I do know is that after navigating the adventures of an entire book, the protagonist always gains something. It is precisely this something that pulls them out of the void. This seems to be the spirit Murakami wishes to convey to his readers.

Returning to the original question, I recall my high shcool literature teacher once telling me that reading is the process by which the human mind constructs images through words. I believe the reason why reading evokes different feelings over time is that in the intervening years, people experience many different things. These experiences cause us to construct different scenes from the same passage of text.

Boran Xiang

Rat = Boku?

 Hello Class,

The last several chapters made me think a lot about the eerie similarity between Boku and the Rat. The first introduction of the Rat seemed odd because he is never given a name, just like our main character Boku. Then during his conversation with the Rat's woman friend only she seems to know his name but never says it. This lack of a name and Boku's further detatchment from reality blurs the line between what is real and what isn't. So when we never get to meet the Rat other than in the moment he is revealed to have commited suicide, it seems a little suspicious to me, almost as if the Rat exists more as a mirrored extension of Boku than as a fully independent character. 

Additionally, they are said to be extremely similar (almost Identical) in looks but have oposing personalities. The Rat doesn't smoke, while Boku does constantly. The Rat has a decisive mission to kill the sheep while Boku reluctantly seems to do anything important surrounding the sheep. Ultimitely, their goals not only intersect but reach the same end with the death of the sheep and also the death of the secretary (who wanted to take over with the sheep). The Rat allows the sheep to enter him and then sacrifices himself to destroy it. While Boku kills the would-be successor in a quiet, almost detached moment that feels less like triumph and more like completion. In this way, their paths feel parallel but also the same. Let me know what you all think about the weird connection between Boku and the Rat!

Raul J Valles III