One of the main themes that we have discussed in class in the recurring idea of different worlds that Murakami discusses in his novels, specifically when his characters are traveling in between them. I also noticed this theme Tender is the Night by F. Scott Fitzgerald and wanted to discuss how Fitzgerald's explanation of this other world is similar and different to Murakami's.
In Tender is the Night, Fitzgerald writes a scene in which he describes Dick's wife, Nicole as "an ochre stitch along the edge of reality and unreality" (Fitzgerald 212). This is in the midst of a psychotic break that she is having while they are traveling with their children, and brings about a picture of Nicole living in some kind of unreality other than her own, and maybe it is significant that these are "unrealities" and not two realities. But she still remains in one body and one situation, and is able to subdue herself at one point once she realizes that she is going through a schizophrenic episode. Even though she is in both realities, the reader is able to see both and react to both from one perspective, specifically Dicks. We never get to see her mind or what she is experiencing during her episode.
It is interesting to contrast this example to some examples from Sputnik Sweetheart and The Wind-Up Bird Chronicles. Firstly, there is no mention of any type of specific mental disorder in Miu and Nutmeg's situations, unlike when Fitzgerald specifically brings up schizophrenia, so the reader does not initially have any preconceived notions of what is happening. When Miu is on the ferris wheel, she writes that "I was still on this side, here. But another me, maybe half of me, had gone to other side." (Murakami 157). Similarly to Nicole, she recognizes what is happening to her, and that she is going into the "other side" but she is not able to stop it, only to simply watch herself. Except, this time the reader is able to go into the mind of Miu and experience what it is like to be split into two personalities/bodies, making it all the more interesting.
The experience of Nutmeg is similar to Miu's as we can see what is happening in this other world in the Zoo. We can also feel what is happening to her through her mothers eyes, when Murakami writes "She might as well have sunk to the bottom of the sea...but when the ship arrived in Saesbo, she woke without warning, as if some great power had dragged her back into the world" (Murakami 413). So now we have somewhat of an idea of what is happening to her and the involvement of another power that was previously not mentioned in either Miu or Nicole's case. Even though only Nutmeg's body is not physically in the Zoo, her conscious is still there, and she is witnessing horrific events despite the fact that she is on a boat about to be attacked by a submarine. The fact that she remembers these events later on proves that there was some other world she was living in, that she was dragged out of by something else.
It is clear in both Sputnik Sweetheart and The Wind-Up Bird Chronicles that there are two realities, not just Miu and Nutmeg having psychotic breaks. This is a fascinating portrayal when comparing it to Nicole's, and brings up the question of whether or not Nicole's schizophrenic mind in Murakami's novels would have been explained away as an "unreality".
-Audrey
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