Suter and Murakami - Katakana

        In Rebecca Suter's The Japanization of Modernity: Murakami Haruki between Japan and the United States, she brings up many interesting points about Murakami's use of language, particularly in terms of how he uses katakana in his stories. Something that I found interesting and did not know about previously was the way that katakana is perceived by the Japanese. Since katakana is a means of bringing foreign words into the Japanese language, I guess it should not be too surprising that its use brings certain connotations with it. To be specific, using a katakana word--especially if it already has a close equivalent in Japanese--conveys a "sense of cosmopolitanism and prestige" that using a regular Japanese word would not. For example, regarding their profession, in certain positions, people can choose to refer to themselves as the original Japanese title or the katakana title. If someone is a journalist, they can choose between being called a ジャーナリスト and a 新聞記者, or if they are a photographer, they choose between フォトグラファー and 写真家. By choosing to call themselves by the katakana title, these people want their occupations to seem more attractive by implying their "modern and sophisticated lifestyle." 

        I also thought that it was interesting how Murakami "parodies the use of katakana words typical of advertising in the 1980s" in some of his works. In one example, he does this by repeating commercial-like phrases, all involving the word "unity," and using an abundance of katakana words--such as "dezain (design), baransu (balance), konseputo (concept), shiriizu (series), and shinpurusa (simpleness)." A character also mentions that the word, kicchin (kitchen), is preferable to daitokoro in the context of advertising because it implies a more spacious, modern kind of kitchen. After reading this example, I realized that I have seen this kind of katakana advertisement parody in Yoshimoto Banana's works, as well. One of her works is titled キッチン in katakana when the original Japanese word, 台所, exists and is even written in the first line. This may be a decision based on the connotation of kicchin being a modern, spacious kitchen. There is also a line later in this book that talks about a German vegetable peeler and how it's "a peeler so great that even the laziest of grandmothers will have a blast peel, peel, peeling away." This specific commercial-sounding phrase does not contain katakana in itself (besides the ドイツ part), but it is surrounded by a list of other kitchen appliances written in katakana, which infuses this same kind of ad-like tone and makes it stick out in the text as "foreign."

-Melody

The Desire to Forget

 A number of stories that were gone over so far seem to deal with a person's trauma or haunting of a past, but it isn't always fully clear as to the details of what happened, parts are forgotten or are tried to not be acknowledged by the recounter. In The Year of Spaghetti, the protagonist seemingly is in a state of cooking spaghetti as an excuse to get away from real world commitments or the business of people he knew in the past. The Second Bakery Attack has the protagonist recount his odd feelings towards his strange burglary, but those past quarrels are not immediately linked to the current oddities happening to him now, almost like he doesn't want to consider it to be relevant in the present and bury it in the past. The Zoo Attack has the woman recounting her experiences coming back to Japan from oversea territories but it is explained that during a crucial interaction with a U.S. submarine she fell unconscious for a time, until the traveling boat reached docked. These all have a connection of trying to not acknowledge the past, not necessarily move on from it but to not think that it even existed, which seems very much along the lines of trauma and the brain trying to erase the source as a precautionary measure. It's very interesting that this theme comes up so often from Murakami, the past coming to haunt the present day was also the case in A Wild Sheep Chase, with Boku's friend the Rat. What makes this theme so alluring to Murakami? It probably isn't a message of getting people to face their past traumas and overcome them, as the stories of A Year of Spaghetti and The Zoo Attack don't have those missing memories or past grievances cleared up, they're merely explained and left like that. Although it could be the case with those stories that they're meant to show that not facing past trauma leaves one to end up being a bit of a hollow person, that this is what can come of people if trauma isn't dealt with, being an indirect message to get people to face trauma. I'm unsure of how personal this theme of past grievances is to Murakami, but I can imagine one connection with his thoughts on Japan's World War II actions and subsequent actions of not fully apologizing or acknowledging the crimes Japan committed during the war, but whether this is an overarching idea for him or coincidental connections is something that I do not know.

-David Barnes

Blog Post 2 - My understanding of the "other world"

Reading Murakami’s writing always leaves the reader asking questions. In my experience with his writing, most of his works (short story or novel length) end with fantastical occurrences that could not occur in real life. Mentions of this other world can be implicit or explicit, depending on the needs of the story. In The Wild Sheep Chase, the events transpiring at the cabin after Boku’s girlfriend leaves are a good example of an implicit experience of the other world. In The Year of Spaghetti, there is an explicit example when Murakami writes “Sometimes I wonder what happened to the girl - the thought usually pops into my mind when I’m facing a steaming-hot plate of spaghetti. After she hung up, did she disappear forever, sucked into the four thirty p.m. shadows? Was I partly to blame?” This example shows the reader the narrators acknowledgement of the other world, while in The Wild Sheep Chase, Boku's finds himself interacting with the other world but does not acknowledge this fact. It is clear that in either case, the other world is a real occurrence that must be recognized. There are similarities between each mention - characteristics like darkness, cold, and physical response to the other world (like Boku getting sick) all accompany every interaction. Often, mirrors serve as a portal into (and out of)  this world, as in Where I’m Likely to Find It. In Sputnik Sweetheart, it seems it was the mirrors within the binoculars that opened up this other world.

The question I am always left with - what is the purpose of this other world? While it is undoubtedly good at keeping readers coming back for more, this seems to be a poor explanation for its existence. The consistent experiences throughout all of Murakami’s works make it seem real to dedicated readers. It presents itself as an intermediary between literature that is uncompromising real-world (Think To Kill a Mockingbird) , and complete fantasy (think LOTR). The omnipresent cloud hanging in the back of every story, the “other world” can be interpreted to mean many things. At times, it seems to be the deep part of every consciousness that is either too difficult or too painful to navigate and understand. At other times, it seems to resemble an alternate universe dictated by similar laws but inhabited by antithetical characters. It can even seem as a scapegoat for all inexplicable phenomena found in the natural world. It is nearly impossible to analyze it as a separate entity from the story it visits, and I cannot for the life of me comprehend its meaning. The most perplexing quality of the other world to me is that it maintains a similar composition, but impacts characters in wildly different ways. I am motivated to read more of Murakami’s works after the class is over, because I want to keep interacting with the other world. Despite the relatability of Boku and his toils in everyday life, it is the overarching theme of wonder that impressions me when reading Murakami’s work that I relate to most. I am still waiting for my letter from Hogwarts, and am perpetually confuddled by the world around me, so the other world is an entity whose existence I hope for. Reading Murakami’s works makes it seem discoverable. 

Andrew

Murakami's Female Characters

While reading Murakami's writings and his potential source of influence in pairs during the past few weeks, one thing that jumps out the most to me is how different Murakami portrays female characters when compared to other writers. Most, if not all, female characters in Murakami's stories we've read so far lack personality or individuality. The female characters in the other non-Murakami stories each have their individual passions and desires, pains and worries, which is very hard to detect in Murakami's writings.

The female characters in Murakami's books only occasionally help the lonesome male protagonist push the plot forward, then disappear to the background as the male protagonist goes on his journey to search for something to "complete" himself (for lack of a better term). The girlfriends in A Wild Sheep Chase and "A Perfect Day for Kangaroos" are portrayed to be bizarrely naive so that they can spark Boku to say something philosophical. Boku's girlfriend with beautiful ears in A Wild Sheep Chase is even given psychic ability that she cannot command, so that she can only passively wait for the hints and assist Boku in his journey to find Rat and the sheep, but disappears completely from the story when Boku reaches his destination. The wife in "Where I'm Likely to Find it" and the prostitute in "South Bay Strut" are also like non-player characters in a game, who the protagonist gets a task from or submit a task to, but are ultimately unimportant in the hero's quest.

The female characters of Murakami also seem to lack a voice of their own. It's the natural limitation of a first-person narration from male narrators that the inner psyche of other female characters, or any other characters at all, can rarely be explored. Boku in A Wild Sheep Chase is especially portrayed to have difficulties expressing and noticing emotions, and most of Murakami's other male narrators also seem to only be observant of factual details, such as the brand of clothing or the number of objects, but they rarely make conjectures about the surrounding characters' emotions based on their observance. In chapter 12 of Sputnik Sweetheart and chapter 9 of The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle, there are two female characters who recount their traumatic experience to the male narrator. Even when it is made clear that the narrator hears the story from the female characters during verbal conversations, neither stories are presented to the readers directly as they were told by the females but rather as a summarized / paraphrased version retold again by the narrator.

- Crystal

Reality and Unreality in Fitzgerald and Murakami

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 

Dissociative Disorders & Murakami

        After class on Friday, I could not stop thinking about how different types of dissociative disorders could explain some of the enigmatic features of Murakami's stories. Verywellmind.com defines dissociation as "a disconnection between a person's sensory experience, thoughts, sense of self, or personal history. People may feel a sense of unreality and lose their connection to time, place, and identity." There are multiple types of dissociative disorders, a couple of which I will discuss in two of Murakami's short stories.

    The discussion we had on Friday concerning Miu in "Sputnik Sweetheart" reminded me of a condition called depersonalization. Healthyplace.com describes depersonalization as a "feeling that one is detached from one's own life and mental processes or that one is viewing one's life as if it were a movie." As we know in the short story, Miu shares her experience of watching herself in her apartment with Ferdinando. I learned from a class last semester called "Abnormal Behavior" that depersonalization often occurs when people are experiencing, or have experienced in the past, a traumatic event. Clearly, this event left Miu traumatized since she kept this secret for over a decade and it caused her hair to turn white.

    Another short story we read that could describe yet another type of dissociative disorder is "Where I'm Likely to Find It." In this story, the protagonist is looking for a husband that went missing. At the end of the story, the wife calls the protagonist to inform him that her husband was found in another city, with no memory of how he got there. This situation is eerily similar to a condition known as dissociative fugue. Healthyplace.com describes dissociative fugue as a dissociative amnesia that "is associated with confused and bewildered wandering or a journey of some sort." Again, I learned about this condition in the class "Abnormal Behavior" and it was mentioned that in dissociative fugue, a person leaves unexpectedly and travels to another place, typically without telling other people that they are leaving. When they leave their dissociated state, they have no memory of how they got there or why they left.

    There are more examples I could discuss concerning other stories by Murakami and other dissociative disorders, but I found these two to be the most interesting. I'm not sure if Murakami knew of these disorders and intentionally wrote them in because of their unique characteristics, or if it was a coincidence. Either way, I found this very intriguing.

Works Cited

Matthew Tull, P. (2020, July 19). What does dissociation mean? Retrieved February 27, 2021, from https://www.verywellmind.com/dissociation-2797292

Tracy, N. (2015). Types of dissociative disorders, list of dissociative disorders. Retrieved February 27, 2021, from https://www.healthyplace.com/abuse/dissociative-identity-disorder/dissociative-disorders-types-list

Corrina

The Zone

In all the Murakami’s works we have read so far, I constantly came to perceive to a feeling of a “different zone” for all the characters, especially the protagonists. To me, it felt like Murakami is purposely placing them into this zone that separates them apart from the rest of the world and disconnect his relationships with everyone surrounding them. This is especially conspicuous in The Wild Sheep Chase, where the protagonist Boku is not only physically separated from the mundane world at last, but also mentally he was alienated from the surroundings. Boku was enticed to look for the sheep which made him detached from his work, and his divorce with his ex-wife and the death of the “girl who sleeps with everyone” are the demarcation between his seemingly normal life and the absurd adventure of the searching for the sheep. Further, at the end of the book, Boku was again separated from his girlfriend and eventually ended up being physically himself, but he entered a “world” that only himself was allowed to be entered, with the Rat. In fact, the character Rat was in that even deeper zone already as he was possessed by the sheep, but Boku was on the brink, which is a quite subtle position to be placed in, and this is where he differs from everyone else.

Other than The Wild Sheep Chase, in Chapter 12 of the Sputnik Sweetheart, the protagonist even experienced a sudden aging in one night where she couldn’t even tell the reason herself. It all happened in the gondola which acted as another zone that all things happened remain in that space. Other than the Sputnik Sweetheart, in Where I’m likely to find it, Murakami describes the character who vanishes from the stairs and reappeared after a (or two?) months. To me, the stairs is an analogy to the gondola, that not only people outside don’t know what happened in that space, neither does the person who experienced it know.

In addition, in The Year of Spaghetti, Murakami describes a period of his life when he spent with cooking spaghetti. To me, the apartment he lived in, the process of making the spaghetti and the time when he was remembering things when he was eating form another space that Murakami intentionally created for himself. Which he implied they all represent a sense of “loneliness”.

The point I attempt to make here is that, most characters Murakami created are normal people living a life that can’t be more normal, whether the guy working in Meryl Lynch, Boku, or Miu. However, the more insignificant Murakami makes these character, the more fantastical, miraculous and eccentric life and experiences he puts on them, as if to prove the world that no matter how normal and ordinary a person may seem, they could be experiencing or experienced something that you cannot imagine and will never know. To create something randomly out of air may be abrupt, but there are always significance and reason behind, and the zone may only be part of the process.

 

Alice

The Literary Memory of Murakami

     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

Self in A wild sheep chase

 

A Wild Sheep Chase presents the reader with a cast of characters living through an incredibly chaotic world, where miraculous events happen regularly and yet it is hard to say if there is any connection or significance for any of the things that happen. Through such a chaotic lens, we are able to see how the characters interact with the world, and thus how they see themselves internally.

The first person who presents a clear sense of self is the girlfriend. She does not present the things she must do to get by in the world, such as her prostitution and copywriting, as integral to her character, instead insisting that it is her miraculous ears that are the key to her identity. Since the ear’s strange abilities are what the girlfriend wishes to present as her true self, she is telling the world that she wants to be perceived as unusual, as while anyone can be an escort or copyist, not everyone can tell the future with their magic ears. She goes on to prove her status as extraordinary when she optimistically sticks with Boku through all the strange happenstance that befall him, far past what could reasonably be expected of her. When she leaves the sheep man says that she has lost her ear powers, perhaps indicating that this uniqueness was bestowed by the sheep itself to assist Boku in his mission. Either way, while she presents herself as unusual, when things began to get strange in the Rat’s house, she was not considered “special” enough to stay.

Where the girlfriend presents herself as extraordinary, Boku seems insistent on presenting himself as incredibly ordinary, as can be seen in the scene of their first date. It is hard to pin down exactly why Boku does not want to be noteworthy, but a worthwhile train of thought might be how he as the narrator handles names. In all the opportunities given to Boku to reveal himself to someone, he turns it down, both literally when he gives a fake name at the hotel and figuratively in the cold persona which he presents to people. By the end of the novel the weight of denying his unique personhood has taken such a toll on Boku that in the nightmare chapter after he says goodbye to Rat, he sees the limo driver say to him, “Names change all the time. I bet you can’t even remember your own name,” (288). As far as the reader is aware, Boku might have truly spent so long denying any shred of personhood, and thus personal responsibility, that he simply has forgotten his name by the end. Whether or not something in the experience taught him to stop self-sabotaging in this way, I don’t feel qualified to say.

The Rat offers the most surprising self-definition, as he is willing to kill himself rather than let what once was his body and mind be corrupted by the unstoppable power of the sheep. The Sheep Professor and the Boss were but two in a long line of people who were willing to let the sheep feed upon them until they were nothing but an empty husk without it, all for the promise of power. With such a deal offered to the Rat, it is surprising that he turns it down and instead opts to kill himself with the sheep still inside of him. When explaining why he did it, the Rat says, “I guess I felt too attached to my weakness. My pain and suffering too. Summer light, the smell of the breeze, the sound of cicadas- if I like these things, why should I apologize? The same with having a beer with you… I don’t know why,” (284). This explanation seems counter intuitive at first, as it seems like the things that might make someone dislike themselves, such as their weaknesses, are actually what made the Rat wish to keep his individuality. Having seen the effect of the sheep on the former holders, it makes sense why the Rat might feel that his weak self is better than becoming nothing but a drone. The Rat suggests that even if the main thing that defines his self is weakness, at least he can claim it as his own. Once he is aware of his true self, he is able to appreciate the mundane pleasures of the world, such as the feeling of a pleasant breeze or warm sunlight.

It is hard to say if any of the characters in the novel are necessarily in the right or wrong for living as they do, but it is more likely Marukami merely wanted to present the various ways in which people might choose to live in a world that often defies explanation.

-Luke Ptak

A Disillusioning Labyrinth

     The endings of neither The Long Goodbye nor A Wild Sheep Chase are satisfactory in a traditional sense. Both Marlowe and Boku's quests turned out to be rather pointless: no evil was punished, no justice was attained, no meaningful reward was given, and both were left alone by themselves with several unrepairable broken relationships. The characters in both books seemed trapped in a labyrinth, and after the readers think they've finally found a way out, it turns out that there is yet another layer of existential labyrinth out there with no escape.

    Throughout the book, the impression Marlowe gives me is that despite of his occasional reckless behavior, he is never disorientated and always in control of the situation, like the protagonist of a detective fiction is expected to be. He seems to have successfully disentangled himself from the crimes and complicated relationships among the Wades, Lorings, Potters and found justice for his friend until he realized that the friend he devoted so much for has emotionally betrayed him from the very beginning. Similarly, the impression Boku gives me is that he can usually examine situations quite objectively because he seems to be disinterested in human (and cat) emotions in general, which makes the final scene of him breaking down by the beach more striking. During his sheep chase, he seems to have spontaneously come across clues and decided to follow them to travel up the mountains and stayed there out of his free will, only in the end did he realize that his spontaneity is really part of an elaborate and incomprehensible set-up and has all been calculated.

    To me it feels like that both Marlowe and Boku are doomed from the beginning. Neither of them have personally done anything "wrong" to end up being trapped in the situation they found themselves in, yet they still each fall into an elaborate plan and end up being emotionally exhausted just because they are who they are and will make the choices they make. It's also interesting to note that both books have some sort of "evil" and powerful organization threatening to harm the protagonists, yet neither Marlowe nor Boku showed any desire to battle the "bad guys" and these deeper larger forces are not even too relevant to the endings of the stories.

    I'm wondering if this overarching sense of disillusionment is a reflection of the World Wars. The lives of every ordinary individual has been negatively affected by the war, and they can neither do anything to prevent it nor to combat the larger forces behind it.

Crystal

Free Will in A Wild Sheep Chase

After finishing Murakami’s A Wild Sheep Chase, I was stuck on the idea of free will. The phrase “free will” comes up when the secretary admits to Boku that “‘I wanted you to come all this way spontaneously of your own free will’” (Murakami 346). The irony behind the secretary’s statement is that he threatened Boku in order to push him into pursuing the journey; thus, it can be said that Boku would not have pursued the sheep chase if he weren’t approached by the secretary first. The illusion of free will, in this case, points to a larger idea that perhaps we are not in control of everything we do.  Without knowing what was at the end of the search, Boku embarks on his sheep chase, only to find out at the end that the secretary already knew everything about the sheep and was using Boku in order to catch the sheep. While Boku thought he was leading the search, it turns out that he was just a tool used to carry out an already complex plan. Boku’s lack of knowledge about the situation was actually his greatest strength, even though he himself thought it was his greatest weakness.

The secretary also associated “free will” with “blank slate”—  this reminded me of the  famous philosophy “tabula rasa,” which states that everyone is born without pre-determined traits and knowledge and our self is developed solely based on our experiences.  From all of this, I started to wonder if the ending of A Wild Sheep Chase was a sort of rebirth for Boku.  While searching for the sheep, his sense of reality is altered as he learns and experiences  magical elements that don’t seem to fit into his knowledge of the world. While looking at the mirror in the Rat’s house, Boku brings up the concept of “free will” and contemplates who is “real”: the person looking at the mirror, or the person looking back in the reflection (Murakami 319).  His brief identity crisis with his reflection in the mirror shows how the sheep chase has driven him to question even his own sense self. A reflection in the mirror supposedly has no free will, as it only exists to mimic our real self. Despite this, Boku wonders if our free will is only an illusion, and if the reflection in the mirror is what is “real.” The ending of the novel struck me as quite odd as well, since Boku was not one to be emotional about anything, yet the book ends with him crying by himself. This surprising show of emotions perhaps suggests that we as readers don’t truly know the “real” Boku, despite having followed him on this journey. 

-Michelle Han