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Haruki Murakami
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Murakami at Home Jay Rubin
Haruki Murakami has been raising eyebrows in English-speaking countries since 1989 when he debuted here with a cool, crazy novel about a search for a sheep with mysterious powers. It seems like a long time ago now, but Japanese readers have been enjoying him even longer than that. Late last year, Japan’s leading newspaper, the Asahi Shimbun, carried a full-page feature marking the 25th anniversary of the publication of Murakami’s first novel. The anniversary has marked Murakami’s decisive victory over the substantial chorus who dismissed him from the outset as a temporary pop phenomenon.
His most authoritative early critic was Kenzaburo Oe (b. 1935), the 1994 Nobel Prize-winning novelist, who accused him of cynically documenting the most superficial aspects of contemporary society – in particular, the mores of the younger generation – for commercial gain. Meanwhile, actual readers belonging to that younger generation were shocked by Murakami’s critical acumen. Psychologist Kayama Rika (b. 1960), felt that Murakami had seen through to the emptiness of her generation’s mindless pursuit of sensual gratification in the early ’80s and laid bare her own secret thoughts.
Whether we read Murakami as a bell-weather sensitive to social changes and historical trends or a philosopher probing into more universal questions of human nature, the most common reaction among admirers both in Japan and abroad seems to be a sense of identification with his reassuringly muted voice. As filmmaker Tatsuya Mori (b. 1956) has noted, Murakami is disarmingly honest: ‘He doesn’t pretend to understand what he doesn’t understand.’ We experience the mystery together.
Previously published in Waterstone’s Books Quarterly
topStarting Points for Discussion
- The Oedipus myth is a central motif in the novel. How does this act as a catalyst to main events in the narrative? And how is it a precursor to the emergence of other themes such as incest, loss and running away?
- Kafka on the Shore displays characteristics of many familiar strands of fiction, from sci-fi to romance; fairy tale to mystery; teenage rights-of-passage novel to philosophy. How would you categorise Kafka on the Shore in terms of genre, and why?
- Murakami’s novels are known for their many and diverse references to Western brands and culture (from Ray-Ban and Nike to Freud and Beethoven). But Kafka on the Shore is the first time that he has taken the step to introduced such brand names as characters in their own right, in the guises of Johnnie Walker and Colonel Sanders. What do you think Murakami is trying to say about 21st Century culture through this fictionalised use of brand names?
- Is this a novel about identity? The reader is deliberately left in doubt as to the ‘true’ identities of many of the characters. How do you think this facilitates the narrative/forwards the plot?
- Murakami’s novels are rooted both in western and in eastern culture. In Kafka on the Shore we have the western register of classical and popular music, Greek mythology, the writings of T.S. Eliot and W.B. Yeats (visible in Kafka’s narrative) and the eastern register of Shinto shrines, holy stones and living ghosts (seen primarily in Nakata’s narrative). In what way do you think these vivid cultural references inform the reader’s understanding of the story and events?
- For both Kafka and Nakata, this is a journey of self-discovery. As Kafka is planning to run away, the Boy Named Crow tells him: ‘When you come out of the storm you won’t be the same person who walked in. That’s what the storm’s all about.’ (p.4) What do you think Kafka and Nakata are really looking for? Do you think that either of them succeeds in their quest?
- ‘You’re afraid of imagination. And even more afraid of dreams. Afraid of the responsibility that begins in dreams.’ Oshima tells Kafka on p.195. What are the roles played by dreams and imagination in this story?
Other Books by Haruki Murakami
A Wild Sheep Chase
His life was like his recurring nightmare: a train to nowhere. But an ordinary…
After Dark
The midnight hour approaches in an almost empty all-night diner. Mari sips her…
After The Quake
The economy was booming. People had more money than they knew what to do with…
Birthday Stories: Selected…
In this enviable gathering, Haruki Murakami has chosen for his party some of…
Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman…
A young man accompanies his cousin to the hospital to check an unusual hearing…
Dance Dance Dance
High-class call girls billed to Mastercard. A psychic 13-year-old dropout with…
Hard-Boiled Wonderland And…
A narrative particle accelerator that zooms between Wild Turkey Whiskey and Bob…
Suggested Further Reading
- The Castle ~ Franz Kafka
- Murakami and the Music of Words ~ Jay Rubin
- The Catcher in the Rye ~ J.D. Salinger
- Out ~ Natsuo Kirino
- Memoirs of a Geisha ~ Arthur Golden
- V ~ Thomas Pynchon