Murakami: Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman - Invitation to view

[John Bailey]

The sentimental, "it's all good" angle on Murakami always seems to
take at face value what might elsewise be seen as a major deployment
of irony. His narrators are perhaps the most equivocating and
conditional in contemporary lit - cut out all the I guesses and
supposes and perhapses and you'll halve the book - but then it's hard
to marry the 'cute' to:

The lengthy scene in which a man is slowly flayed alive
The demonic avatar of corporate America whose pastimes include
decapitating cats with pruning shears
The soldier tasked with executing all of the animals in a zoo before
an invading army arrives (an amazingly evocative premise for a short
story): https://theeveningrednessinthewest.wordpress.com/2009/05/26/haruki-murakamis-another-way-to-die/

This kind of stuff is maybe 1% of his total output, but it's hard to forget.

On Sat, Oct 10, 2015 at 11:05 PM, Mark Kohut <mark.kohut at gmail.com> wrote:
>               " the old questions, the old answers. Nothing like
> them"---Beckett
>
> Fate, fGreek sense--classics major he was--up against Existentialism are the
> wells ( allusion intended) from which he uses metaphysics. deep enough?
> Beyond my judgment yet.
>
> So, David, nothing Jungian about his archetypes? Genuinely asking, no real
> idea.
>
> Sent from my iPad
>
> On Oct 9, 2015, at 7:01 PM, David Morris <fqmorris at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> My main problem is the tangential throwaway metaphysics. They are either
> silly and shallow or lead nowhere.  I've wondered if maybe it's due to my
> lack of Japanese cultural background.  If so, his archetypes are extremely
> parochial.  And the stories without them aren't compelling.
>
> David
>
> On Friday, October 9, 2015, David Kilroy <thesaintgodard at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>> My main argument against the Chronicle is the cast.  I find them all very
>> difficult to engage with, unlike most other Murakmi I've read.  I realize
>> this is more to do with the culture, set & setting, than anything else.  I
>> exist in a culture actively estranging itself so a story about coming to
>> terms with alienation has to have some emotional texture, some rock in the
>> stream with an irregular surface for me to cling to.
>>
>> Contrariwise, my favorite character in WUBC-- that is, the most clearly
>> embedded in my memory --is Noboru Wataya.  It's his cipherlike nature as an
>> antagonist.  He's a cloudy diamond, of the same water as Brock Vond or
>> Windust.  Could be I'm just a sucker for ambivalent villainy.  Could be
>> that's why I haven't absquatulated from Amerika already...
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Pynchon-l / http://www.waste.org/mail/?list=pynchon-l