Ryu Murakami Overview

"Now Japan is a very small, flat, unified world. Everything is very small and very much the same. There are no Others. It tends to be relaxing but it can also be dull. You can't meet with the New or the... [more]

"Now Japan is a very small, flat, unified world. Everything is very small and very much the same. There are no Others. It tends to be relaxing but it can also be dull. You can't meet with the New or the Strange." Ryu Murakami's words might seem bleak to a Western audience. But to better understand his meaning, we might note that the vernacular translation of "Japanese" most often results in the phrase "we Japanese." As in, "we Japanese are homogenous." From a historical standpoint, identity politics are almost unheard of -- in fact, the Japanese word for "different" ("chigau") is the same as the word for "wrong." So how does the inherently solitary task of writing fit into a world without an Other? For Murakami, writing is a seemingly contradictory act of communicative minimalism. "I think there are two types of people who depict things. One is the writer who believes that nobody would understand, so he puts all kinds of things into his work very vigorously. The other type is a writer who has some sort of belief that somebody might understand his or her work, and might be able to share the writer's loneliness or sadness together. This type will put only one keyword into his work." Murakami is distinctly the latter. His first novel, 1976's "Almost Transparent Blue," outlines the tensions between U. S. military presence in Japan and the absence of protest against these imperializing forces. The race, class, and national dynamics of this novel are complicated. African American soldiers use (and abuse) Japanese prostitutes under the shadow and "protection" of the American flag -- but even as the women lie hurt and bleeding, they inexplicably refuse to resist. Murakami lays such scenes out simply, allowing tragedy to quietly hint at itself. His second influential novel, "69" (1987), focuses on the phenomenon of a once-uniform social system confronting the challenge of foreign ideologies. Hence, the ramblings of an idealistic adolescent boy include ruminations on cultural icons as seemingly disparate as Che Guevara and Mick Jagger, Mao Tsedong and Jean-Luc Godard. In both novels, Murakami explores Japan's personal, subtle methods of dealing with violation of culture. Murakami turned to a different keyword in "Coinlocker Babies" (1997). Fascinated by the idea of alienation, he created a narrative that is part sci-fi, part socio-cultural instruction manual. The story follows two boys who are abandoned in coinlockers by their mothers. After being adopted and raised as brothers in rural Japan, both return to Tokyo to find their true roots. One finds success in an underground culture, while the other opts for a place in mainstream society. The message isn't subtle: the security of belonging is no longer guaranteed, and from this instability rises the possibility of the alter ego. But the ensuing question is haunting: what's left when our most fundamental but fragile social systems collapse? Murakami answers enigmatically with another question: "But important things do calm us and enrage us at the same time, don't they?" Certainly so, but they do not provide any tidy answers. [show less]