Murakami, the egg, & OWS -

[Mark Kohut]

Thanks for this Bekah. I had not seen it and it is good. Very Murakami to 
use such a fragile example.....so many others, from Camus, surely older too,
such examples were seldom of such vulnerability.
 
Like cats.
 
 
 
 
From: Bekah <bekah0176 at sbcglobal.net>
To: Joseph Tracy <brook7 at sover.net> 
Cc: pynchon-l at waste.org 
Sent: Monday, December 5, 2011 11:32 AM
Subject: Murakami, the egg, & OWS - 

Haruki Murkami'a acceptance speech for the  Jerusalem Prize (thematic - not a particular book) in 1999:  
http://www.haaretz.com/culture/arts-leisure/always-on-the-side-of-the-egg-1.270371

** a snip** 
Between a high, solid wall and an egg that breaks against it,  I will always stand on the side of the egg.

Yes, no matter how right the wall may be and how wrong the egg, I will stand with the egg. Someone else will have to decide what is right and what is wrong; perhaps time or history will decide. If there were a novelist who, for whatever reason, wrote works standing with the wall, of what value would such works be?

What is the meaning of this metaphor? In some cases, it is all too simple and clear. Bombers and tanks and rockets and white phosphorus shells are that high, solid wall. The eggs are the unarmed civilians who are crushed and burned and shot by them. This is one meaning of the metaphor.

This is not all, though. It carries a deeper meaning. Think of it this way. Each of us is, more or less, an egg. Each of us is a unique, irreplaceable soul enclosed in a fragile shell. This is true of me, and it is true of each of you. And each of us, to a greater or lesser degree, is confronting a high, solid wall. The wall has a name: It is The System. The System is supposed to protect us, but sometimes it takes on a life of its own, and then it begins to kill us and cause us to kill others - coldly, efficiently, systematically.

**
There are lots of folks interested in Murkami right now - Wild Sheep Chase is pretty political as is Wind-Up Bird Chronicle - both are fiercely anti-war, anti-imperialism, anti-big government and pro-small quiet person.    I'm not sure how  1Q84 fits yet except that it seems like a further exploration of those themes - very anti-System in many aspects - maybe anti-"religion" this time, too - any cults, really.  

Bekah


On Dec 4, 2011, at 6:45 PM, Joseph Tracy wrote:

> Hey Mark, Still have not read IQ 84, though about to order it .  Wondered if you read NYRB review by Charles Baxter and if so, what you thought?