Murakami & Pynchon

[Elaine M.M. Bell]

*Nicely stated, Bekah.  I think it is exactly the clashy blend of
Eastern/Western thinking that makes Murakami so absorbing.  It's as if his
work is Mozart played on a samisen.*

On Tue, Nov 15, 2011 at 12:09 PM, Bekah <bekah0176 at sbcglobal.net> wrote:

> Two round little souls in the cosmos.
>
> Perhaps none of us sees exactly the same thing anyway.   What do you see
> when you say red?   I know color wave-lengths are arbitrarily standard,
>  but what about the the reception/perception of red?   Can some of us not
> see what others see?  (I know this is not terribly new stuff in itself,
>  but I think Murakami's development is unusual if not unique.)
>
> A separate world(s) is fairly standard in many of Murakami's works - short
> stories especially.  In 1Q84 he has meshed two worlds, two realities,
>  better than in any of his prior novels.  He did it without the use of the
> dizzying hallucinogenics of "The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle" or the interior
> development of Kafka on the Shore or the geographical relocations of
> Norwegian Wood and Wild Sheep Chase.
>
> Another common theme , although sometimes inextricably related,  is that
> of alienation.  Characters distance themselves, or are distanced,  from the
> here-and-now right smack into another reality.
>
> Odd -  in Japan Murakami is viewed as a very Western writer and they love
> him. In the US he's viewed as a very Japanese writer and we love him.
>  Perhaps there really are two realities working themselves out in his
> works.  Like hearing two different radio stations going at the same time -
> one in Japanese and one in English.
> Two moons.
>
> Bekah
> needs caffeine
>
>
> On Nov 15, 2011, at 2:50 AM, Mark Kohut wrote:
>
> > The alternative two-mooned world?...as if time was split via Iceland
> Spar, so to speak?............
> >
> > ----- Original Message -----
> > From: Bekah <bekah0176 at sbcglobal.net>
> > To: Mark Kohut <markekohut at yahoo.com>
> > Cc: pynchon -l <pynchon-l at waste.org>
> > Sent: Monday, November 14, 2011 9:15 PM
> > Subject: Re: Murakami & Pynchon
> >
> > Well there are the old goodies vs baddies  -  The Vibes vs the
> Traverses,  Doc vs the Golden Fang folks,  Mason & Dixon vs the Jesuits,
>  Zoyd Wheeler (etc.)  vs Brock Vond (etc).  More karmic adjustment (per se)
>  in Vineland,  what with Takeshi Fumimoto's  (Japanese) karma adjustment
> business.
> >
> > But where Pynchon's characters look up to the skies and go high up there
> in rockets and balloons and airplanes and otherwise -  Murakami's
> characters look at the sky and dig in where they are -  to wells, to
> apartments,  to little houses,  etc.
> >
> > Bekah
> >
> >
> >
> > On Nov 14, 2011, at 5:02 PM, Mark Kohut wrote:
> >
> >> When I replied to a twitterer--Doug Amato--- reading 1Q84 linking
> "karmic adjustment"
> >> to a quote implying a kind of karmic balance in 1Q84---he responded by
> saying he had
> >> spoken to a reader who found lots in 1Q84 influenced he thought by
> 'later Pynchon".
> >>
> >> All reading 1Q84: write your essay post now.......................
>
>


-- 
Elaine M.M. Bell, Writer
860.833.2625
Have Laptop/Will Travel
(but wicked good to be back in Massachusetts)
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