Murukami

[Mark Kohut]

Murakami is, partly at least, a writer of ideas, taking on ultimate questions as well as
historical ones and Japan-centered ones. He has translated many US writers and
has engaged in a fictional dialogue with them and some of their themes. Like Salinger. Others.
And Yukio Mishima, among many others I'm sure I don't know, in Japanese. 
 
Feeling/detecting the ideas in his vision is one way reading him well can be like reading Pynchon,
imho. He pays homage--or refutes--- many writers' works, more easily noticeable in various thematic stories. As with many a
good writer, he buries, alchemizes allusions in his novels too....
 
There are levels of ambivalence and equivocation in his writing, as John Bailey writes, of course. I think readers
have a lot to discover yet in the vision that builds to whatever 'ambiguity' [Empson] is there. Just as with Pynchon
and others. But so different in so many ways.
 
Women. Does he know them? His men listen to them, are changed by them, in his fiction.
 
His weakness is sentimentality. Soft-headedness in his 'magical realism'...maybe....he might be guilty of his 
own Cute Correspondences without any fan-creators of same. I have groaned under some of the seeming whimsy
but keep thinking about it. Some I can't ....believe in. His vision of things, of human nature, may not go deep enough.
 
Like many. 
 
 
 
 
 
 

From: John Bailey <sundayjb at gmail.com>
To: Joe Allonby <joeallonby at gmail.com>
Cc: Joseph Tracy <brook7 at sover.net>; pynchon-l at waste.org
Sent: Wednesday, September 21, 2011 7:41 PM
Subject: Re: Murukami

I'm a big fan but Murakami and Pynchon have very little in common -
although M is interested in revisiting the unacknowledged horrors of
his country's past, which might be a vague link.

I think his popularity in the west sort of overshadows what makes him
distinct in Japanese literature (and society) as what's sometimes
celebrated as unusual in his work is often quite traditional in his
country (eg writing a novel in which not one character is named), and
the more transgressive elements of his style are pretty familiar in
English.

Personally I enjoy the way he writes spaces and objects; they're often
indistinguishable from the psyche of those observing. Climbing down a
well or even walking along a corridor always involves a subconscious
journey as well, and the most material of everyday items have a
talismanic quality that's very Lynchian. The fantastic stuff rises
from a collective unconscious too, but I think a lot of it is probably
lost in the cross-cultural translation.

I'd guess that the outrageous levels of ambivalence and equivocation
in his writing is exactly what makes people love or detest him.

And yeah, he is obsessed with cats. He ran a jazz bar named after his
own feline.

On Thu, Sep 22, 2011 at 8:54 AM, Joe Allonby <joeallonby at gmail.com> wrote:
> I'm game.
>
> I'm a fan of Murakami. I liked "Kafka on the Shore" more than "Wind-Up
> BIrd".  The similarity to Pynchon that I see is that I like Pynchon
> and I like Murakami. That's about it. TRP's talking dog is a gag in
> one novel. Haruki seems obsessed with cats, particularly talking ones.
>
>
> On Wed, Sep 21, 2011 at 11:30 AM, Joseph Tracy <brook7 at sover.net> wrote:
>>  Trying again. Is there a plan for group read  of IQ 84?
>>
>
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