Written for The New Yorker and translated into English by Philip Gabriel, Haruki Murakami tells a story from his childhood emphasizing his relationship with his father. Through these tales, he shares glimpses of what his father's life was like, who his mother was, Murakami's childhood and growing up, and the pets he had along the way. But what I found most interesting about reading this piece of nonfiction was how much of Murakami's fiction came through. It made me wonder how his writing has been affected by his memory, but even more how his memory has been affected by his writing.
Murakami's father served in WWII in a variety of positions but rarely spoke of his time in service. Murakami tells us of one of these rare moments where his father recounts the story of his regime beheading a captured Chinese soldier. Murakami emphasizes the weight of this story and its impact on both of them, writing "To put it another way, this heavyweight my father carried—a trauma, in today’s terminology—was handed down, in part, to me, his son. That’s how human connections work, how history works. It was an act of transference and ritual". Immediately I thought of the sheep professor and his dolphin-hotel-owning son. The transference of grief and its impact on a relationship. And just like the two characters in A Wild Sheep Chase, Murakami and his father barely spoke for about 20 years during Murakami's adult life. In this way, I think it's clear that Murakami's relationship made its way into A Wild Sheep Chase. Murakami goes on to write about rekindling his lost relationship with his father while visiting him in the hospital. On his deathbed (the father), Murakami feels closer to his father than he has in many years. In many ways, this also reminded me of the sheep professor and his son, whose relationship was saved by the death of the sheep.
Murakami speaks about the difference between himself and his father in terms of academia. His father, who taught for most of his life, excelled in school and put time and effort into what he enjoyed learning. Murakami was unable to do so and writes "I’m the type who eagerly pursues things I’m interested in but can’t be bothered with anything else. That was true of me when I was a student, and it is still true now." I think this is him further exemplifying this idea around his stream-of-consciousness style of writing. He follows his interests, which could be transferred to following the thoughts that he is most interested in.
Although Murakami admits to his lackadaisical mindset in school, he doesn't do so proudly. He emphasizes that this in part caused a lot of turbulence between his father and him, noting "This disappointed my father, who I’m sure compared me to himself at the same age. You were born in this peaceful time, he must have thought. You can study as much as you like, with nothing to get in the way. So why can’t you make more of an effort?". In many parts of this piece, Murakami talks about the realities of war and its ties to his family. Just like in his fiction, he takes a very critical standpoint, but not in favor of Japan or favor of the enemy. Just very thoughtfully lays out the realities of the experiences familiar to him. He talks about his father praying every day for the soldiers who he fought amongst that died in the war, mentioning how this took a toll on his father. I think in many ways Murakami's relationship with his father must play a huge role in his desire to talk about war so critically in his work.
Though Murakami is critical of himself for not taking the opportunities that his father wasn't lucky enough to have, he writes "All we can do is breathe the air of the period we live in, carry with us the special burdens of the time, and grow up within those confines. That’s just how things are." I think this is something that also resonates in many of his works. Although we spoke about how his characters can disconnect from time and its constraints, I think this quote still works. Because even in those moments, where time has changed on a conceptual level and the characters are watching how time is passing differently for them (Boku in the dolphin hotel watching the office workers out the window come and go while time is passing differently in his alternate dimension), his characters adjust and adapt to the new confines and air of the space and time they find themselves in.
Murakami's piece on his father starts and ends with the talk of cats, pets from his childhood. Speaking to the first memory he shares, Murakami recalls "the sound of the waves, the scent of the wind whistling through the stand of pines. It’s the accumulation of insignificant things like this that has made me the person I am." This resonates with the majority of his characters. Characters who find themselves out of nowhere in absurd circumstances, but who have lived exclusively in insignificance up until the story starts. This is quite remarkable to think about when reading it in such blatant terms. Because when it comes down to it, to me this suggests that Murakami is building all of his characters on a foundation of insignificance. There is something so appealing about the type of insignificance he creates in his characters, which must be due to his closeness and familiarity with the feeling.
In many ways, it is obvious to me that Murakami's relationship with his father has laid deep roots in his writing. But in many ways, I think because of his writing he can access these memories and reassess what they mean and how they can function. I don't think one can exist without the other.
Bergen
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2019/10/07/abandoning-a-cat
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