Murakami: Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman - Invitation to view

[Mark Kohut]

True, true, very true and a bit more(at least)  than 1% even. 

Sent from my iPad

> On Oct 10, 2015, at 8:31 AM, John Bailey <sundayjb at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> 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