Since beginning this class, we have read many of Haruki Murakami's short stories that are clearly and obviously inspired and/or linked to other short stories written by different authors. Murakami's conceptions of these stories often relate to major themes in the original stories or even similar formats, but diverge in terms of their surrealism and strange metaphysical elements notorious with Murakami's style.
An archetypal example of this juxtaposition is between Murakami's The Year of Spaghetti and Brautigan's Cooking Spaghetti Dinner in Japan. These two short stories are blatantly related to each other. Each narrator cooks a very non-Japanese dish of spaghetti while in Japan. Each narrator visits a special American grocery store to gather the necessary ingredients and there is a common thread between each story regarding the dissonance of eating such an American food while in a different country. Notably, both stories also feature a similar list format, Murakami listing types of spaghetti dishes and Brautigan listing the ingredients he retrieves for dinner.
This comparison begins to grow fuzzy as Murakami introduces surreal elements to his short story. Boku eats nothing but spaghetti for an entire year, a fact which is neither explained nor elaborated on. Boku also inexplicably feels like someone will knock on his door every time he eats his spaghetti dinner. This, again, is an element that goes untouched for the remainder of the story. Adding to this, the strange phone call he receives from an old friend's ex feels particularly Murakami-esque, with only vague implications of what the phone call could mean.
This aspect of Murakami, his works laden with seemingly unfinished details, reminds me of the interview between Jay Rubin and Haruki Murakami, where he states that he "has a strong desire to write but nothing to say".
- May Painter
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