Burning

    To me, Burning is a film concerning uncertainty, something that I didn't perceive as much during the reading of Barn Burning. In the reading, I felt more of a stream-of-consciousness in the writing, therefore didn't delve into a deeper contemplation of the meanings behind. However, the film gave me something much more impactful and deeper in meaning. 

    All three of the characters: Jong-su, Ben and Hae-mi are uncertain, to me. However, these uncertainties later extend, intertwine, and some collapse, or resolve. Jong-su is a writer who doesn't know what to write, as he says this world is still a "mystery" to him, he is lost in his life, he faces uncertainties and unknowns in his life. He is like a mayfly, except he does not live for only a day, but to many, he rarely exists. However, Hae-mi's appearance shed a light on him, just like the stream of light that sheds into the room. It is the only, temporary, short-lived light in his life, and he tries to grasp it desperately; possibly so as Hae-mi, who describes Jong-su as "the only person she trusts". These two characters are interdependent in the uncertain world. It suddenly reminds me of the boy and the girl in The Journey Under the Midnight Sun. 

    Whereas Hae-mi, she desperately attempts to find the meanings of life which she describes as the "Great Hunger", but to many, she also rarely exists. And to Ben, a possible serial killer, she is the perfect quarry. Burning the useless, no-one-would-care, and abandoned greenhouses, Ben could be implying those who he thinks as useless, abandoned people in the society, who, even he killed no on would seem to care or notice. To Ben, he comes to this world for "fun", not to actually live it, which I think matches the ideology of nihilism. He yawns when he sees Hae-mi dancing, and talking about her experiences in Africa and the girl describing her work in China. To him, these are the "funs" in his life, he is a bystander and finds no interest nor meaning in these people or in this world. So he goes onto the journey of killing these useless, abandoned people to satisfy his only need, and it becomes his only source of gratification. However, Hae-mi is special, because Jong-su is next to her. Hae-mi is an inessential person until Jong-su pops into her life, and they both become indispensable to each other, because they are all the property and meaning in the other's life. Both of them, especially Jong-su, for the first time in his life, finds the world meaningful, and gives him a sense of existence. And this is where existentialism and nihilism come to collide. And in this case, the power of existentialism is stronger and angrier. 

    Regarding uncertainty, there are a few places in the film that could symbolize it. Most importantly, we can never be sure whether Ben killed Hae-mi, or he is the serial killer, from all the hints we may deduce that, but it can never be confirmed. And the well, which its existence also can not be verified, and it is possibly the most important proof of how Hae-mi has become such a person who desperately seeks the meaning of life. Furthermore, the cat. With some of the paradoxical lines and scenes in the film, we also cannot be certain about its existence. It could be imaginary, just as the tangerine at the start of the film. 

    Overall, I think it is a great film about "metaphor", and the director is very good at playing with the uncertainties and leaves blank for audience to think more, and I think that makes a film great -- a space for communication and conversation. 

 

Alice

Thoughts on Burning - Caroline Huynh

 Do you feel it captures the atmosphere of the story?

I felt the movie captured the atmosphere of the story because it was mysterious and subtle just like the reading. However, I felt like the movie helped enhanced the underlying meaning of the story. I felt that making the two characters the same age with some love interest helped with the relationship between the two and made the relationship much deeper than in the story. We are able to see how Jong-Su is and his shifts in the movie such as his attachment to Hae-Mi and him going crazy after finding out that Ben killed her.

I felt that in the movie, it was more clear about the type of 'barns' that the boyfriend liked to burn. The 'greenhouses' in the movie, are people who don't have much meaning to life or any connections with anyone. Hae-Mi expresses how sometimes she wants to disappear and become nothing and that seems to fit what Ben was looking for. Ben also seems to choose females who have no real value to society but it is probably because in that way he won't get caught. However, when Ben implies that Hae-Mi was a great 'greenhouse' to burn but I am wondering was it because she had one real connection with someone besides him? I felt like Ben knew there was something in Jong-Su and he wanted that side of him to come out. I felt that Ben was playing dumb and he was also dropping a lot of major hints.

What Murakami themes and tropes did you notice, besides the plot elements of “Barn Burning”?

I noticed that the Jong-Su mentions the writer William Faulkner to Ben. In general, Murakami's stories are influenced by Western writers and William Faulkner being one as well. I felt that this mention from Jong-Su was a big hint to what Ben did to Hae-Mi. Some of scenes in the movie stood out to me like when Jong-Su was in front of the mirror and eating of pasta but I am not sure if there was any deeper meaning to those two scenes. I felt that Jong-Su was silgitly different in the mirror.

How did moving the story to Korea change it in your view?

I am not sure if there is a change in my view because the movie took place in Korea. I know the story changed by saying 'greenhouses' rather than 'barns' and the story took place in a smaller town that is not anywhere near as big as the city.

Did you enjoy the movie or not? Why, or why not?

I did enjoy the movie because I felt it had a lot of minor details that helped build up the story. The ending as well seemed like an interpretation of what the story left the atmosphere as. I was not expecting Jong-Su to end up killing Ben but I did feel like (even in the story) the main character knew who the boyfriend really was. In the movie, he acted on his emotions/resolved while in the short story, it left it open-ended. I felt the movie also portrayed their character really well because we were able to see more snippets of their lives and how they act.

Review on Burning

    The movie adaptation of burning was very interesting because it continues the story from where Murakami left off in his short story. Had the movie been a one-to-one adaptation, the story should've ended after Haemi disappeared. However, it continues on and depicts the impact Haemi's disappearance had on the main character. After Haemi disappears, the main character begins stalking Ben, because he suspects that he is involved with the disappearance of Haemi. I think both the main character and I were shocked at Ben living a normal life with a new girl and seems unaffected by the disappearance. To the main character, Haemi was basically everything to him in his empty life, and someone he could relate to in a way, as Haemi suffers from the same emptiness. The MC seeing how Ben casually mention Haemi has no money and is probably having a hard time, and how Ben replicates his toying behavior to the new girl as he did to Haemi made the MC realize that someone like Haemi, who is everything to him is just a replaceable toy in Ben's eyes. I think this along with finding Haemi's pink watch in Ben's bathroom made the MC determined to murder Ben. The movie in itself is open-ended in rather or not Ben murdered Haemi, as it doesn't specifically state if Ben did it or not. I think one thing that may support Ben's innocence is the fact that he agreed to meet the MC and Haemi at a remote place in the final scene. If Ben had killed Haemi, he would've been suspicious by the fact the MC offered him to join him and Haemi. However, I interpreted this scene as an overconfidence of Ben. Ben if not earlier, most likely realized the MC had figured out his crime when he sent the invitation. However, Ben believes that his influence and wealth will make the MC not be able to do anything to him, as the MC was submissive to Ben's offers in the past (Smoking Marijuana, joining dinner part and joining him at the cafe with Haemi, letting Ben visit his house etc). However, in Ben's miscalculation, he is stabbed and burned by the MC. I felt that the ending was similar to the ending to Parasite by Bong Joon ho as they both highlight the final retaliation/perceived victory of the lower class that will ultimately amount to nothing. In Burning, the MC will be arrested shortly, as a passing truck has witnessed his crime and will be remembered as a criminal like his father. In Parasite, the movie ends with the delusion of the son who believes that he can climb up the social class and ultimately buy the house his father is hiding at after murdering the rich family. I think the movie Burning left a bitter taste in my mouth because it highlights how powerless we are to social hierarchy.

Zion

Iwamoto Discussion Questions

 *Disclaimer: many of these questions pertain to "A Wild Sheep Chase"(often used in the reading) however, many of the questions can be answered referencing Murakami's other works.*

1. It is commonly known among Murakami enthusiasts, that he highly values Western literature and in particular, American Literature. Do you see a contradiction in Murakami using a postmodern style despite his numerous Western influences?

2. Knowing about postmodernism, and it's constraints surrounding meaning, will it be harder or easier to derive meaning from Murakami's works from now on? Do you believe Murakami's intention is just to tell a story?

3. Do you see shutaisei or individualism in Murakami's characters? If so, how is this displayed through their personalities and actions. (Feel free to compare characters from Murakami's works to other characters from previous readings)

3b. How would you define individualism? Do you agree with the author when he says Boku has little of it? *below is a quote that should help*

    "The thinness of Boku's shutaisei is exposed by the absence of an inferiority and in his relations with other people. If, as Jean-Pauls Sartre claims, true identity is forged in the crucible of the dialectic between self and other, Boku fails the test. The "other" is a problematic force for the subjective "I" or self, because it too, unlike inanimate objects, is endowed with a consciousness and subjectivity that often clash with those of the self. Consciously or unconsciously, Boku tries to escape the self-other confrontation by viewing others as objects, no doubt because his own subjective self is wanting in depth." (Jean Paul Sarte, Iwamoto, 297)

3c. Connecting to the previous question,  Iwamoto mentions in his article that Boku has: "no core, only vacuity" and "He is literally nothing without a past (or a future for that matter)" (Iwamoto 297). If you agree with this claim, why do you think Murakami chose to write Boku in this fashion? If not, how does Boku's character (whether he is empty or not) contribute to the significance of the overall story aesthetic?

4. Would you consider Murakami's works "noise" from a postmodernist perspective and why? If not, in what ways does Murakami's works fit within the post-modernist genre?

Murakami's Affectionate Imitations

     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

Trauma's Involvement In Character Development

    The two protagonists in Raymond Carver's A Small Good Thing are parents of a young boy who is suddenly struck by a car on the day of his birthday. Throughout the story, there is constant uncertainty about the boy's condition. Both the mother and the father experience tremendous worry and struggle. After the wife hears that the husband has been praying for his son to wake from his coma, "for the first time, she felt they were together in it, this trouble - she felt glad to be his wife." Both protagonists progressively bond during their time in the hospital. They both take turns staying at the hospital so the other can go home and shower. After the son dies, even the baker is brought closer to the parent as he shows his sympathy for the parents and makes them cinnamon rolls. 

    Similarly, in Haruki Murakami's Sputnik Sweetheart, both protagonists are brought closer together as Miu shares with him her traumatic experience in the Ferris wheel. It seems as though Miu feels comfortable and close enough to the man to share the story with him. Following her recollection of her traumatic experience, the man comes to realize his love for Miu. Not only this, but the man also feels a change within him, that leads him to question who he truly is.

Boston

Food in A Wild Sheep Chase

In Murakami’s literature, you may notice a particular emphasis on food descriptions. Murakami has said that he’d like the reader to become hungry or thirsty because of his vivid descriptions of food. Proof of his success in doing this can be found by taking a look at the numerous recipes inspired by Murakami’s books! (I think that Murakami would do quite well in the food marketing industry, but that’s besides the point). Just as food is very important in both Japanese and American culture, so too is food important in Murakami’s novels, especially A Wild Sheep Chase. There is also notable detail provided for the preparation of food. In this novel, the narrator, Boku, uses cooking as a way to ground himself and organize his thoughts after a particularly stressful day. The following are examples of how Boku uses cooking as a form of catharsis in A Wild Sheep Chase:

• “As a way to focus my thoughts, I went into the kitchen to fix some Salisbury steak...”
• “Scrambling eggs with a wooden spatula, I tossed these ideas around in my head.”
• "While waiting for the onions to cool, I sat down by the window and gazed back out at the pasture."

These quotes are from the end of chapter 35, “The Sheep Man Cometh,” after Boku encounters the Sheep Man for the first time. He asks himself whether the Sheep Man had been an illusion, and turns to cooking as a way to focus his thoughts. In fact, he ends up "cooking up a storm" with all of his free time stuck in the Rat's house in the mountains. To me, it seems like Boku cooks as a way to ground himself in reality and calm himself. When he’s feeling like things are out of control, he finds a sense of control in cooking. Boku thinks about opening a “mountain-chalet–style restaurant” where the Rat could run it and he himself could cook. He finds comfort in thinking about doing something that he enjoys doing and imagines it to help him feel better after a strange encounter with the Sheep Man. The juxtaposition between the mundaneness of preparing a meal and the more fantastical elements of Murakami’s books, such as the appearance of the Sheep Man, is a prime example of magical realism. Just as the act of cooking and eating is comforting to the character who performs these activities, so too is it comforting to the reader; it is one of the things that bring a sense of familiarity to the otherwise surreal novel.

- Christa (she/her)

Sputnik sweetheart

     Miu's story in "Sputnik sweetheart" seems to show how she is dealing with her trauma of being raped. There is a scene in the story where she is trapped in the Ferris wheel and sees herself in her apartment willingly having sex with Fernandino, who was a man she actively avoided. To me, it seems like her being trapped in the Ferris wheel is a representation of her dealing with the pain and trauma by thinking about a secure and happy time while being raped. Miu mentions earlier how she felt safe, secure, and happy when she went to the amusement park with her father, so her being in the Ferris wheel represents her thinking about those times to cope with the trauma. Miu's other self willingly having sex with Fernandino could also show her dealing with trauma by trying to her convince herself that the sex was consensual when it was not, to try to hide her shame, fear and trauma.

 Zion

Thoughts on the magical realism in The Zoo Attack

 I like the Zoo Attack for its magical realism. Murakami creates a unique writing style that is addictive to readers who like it by warping realistic accounts with unrealistic or supernatural events. He also invites his readers to think about these events' connotations and significance without giving a standard answer. 

For example, at the beginning of the chapter, Nutmeg was migrating back to Japan from Manchuria with her mother by ship, and a USS submarine intercepted the ship. All of that, including the open-fire ultimatum, seems realistic enough, but then Nutmeg fell asleep amid all the hustle. What's more, in her coma, she saw the events going on in a zoo back in Manchuria's capital, and she slept for 20 hours. How does that work? Well, in east Asian tradition, one's dream can be the means to connect to someone else, by having that other person entering one's dream and conversing, or by entering the other's experience. Some people believe such a dream predicts an important matter that concerns both the dreamer and the dreamed person. Nutmeg then revealed to Boku that her father was a vet, although she did not confirm that she saw her father in her dream. If I were reading the book as a whole, at this point, I would anticipate her father to have died in Manchuria, and I would want to keep reading to figure that out. This is how Murakami's magical realism attracts and addicts his readers. 

The more profound usage of magical realism lies within Nutmeg's dream. At first, the soldiers received an order to kill the animals by poison. It turned out there was no poison for them to use, and the soldiers had to kill the animals with guns. The soldiers killed many predators but decided to not kill the elephants. Then some Chinese workers appeared to take care of the bodies. I think declaring the whole process as realistic is a stretch. For one, the twist of the poison seems purposefully done by Murakami to present animals' massacre. Then he described how difficult it was for the soldiers to kill animals. Ordinarily, soldiers are trained to kill people on the battlefields, and animals are caged, so this is another disjoint between the story and reality. My interpretation is that Murakami wanted to emphasize how inexperienced these soldiers were. One soldier grew up in a peasant's family and enlisted only for a year. Of course, such an amateur was not ready to kill a big animal, let alone a human. With that in mind, readers can then interpret this book through an anti-war perspective, which deepens Murakami's significance. 

Marshal

The Ordinary

From what we’ve read in class, it seems that Murakami enjoys creating characters that are normal, ordinary, and relatable. Additionally, some of his short stories seem like glimpses into everyday life, and there isn’t always an extreme event that takes place. In the short story “A Perfect Day for Kangaroos,” the simplicity of the trip and the innocence of the baby kangaroo made me believe that perhaps Murakami is emphasizing the simple joys of life and the pleasures of the mundane. Unlike “A Perfect Day for Bananafish,” there is no dramatic ending where a character commits suicide, or hints of PTSD. The couple in “A Perfect Day for Kangaroos” have a busy schedule like most adults in the real world, and have to push back and reschedule plans accordingly. The dialogue between the pair flows smoothly and is a quick back and forth— accurate to what real conversations are like. The line, “Yep that’s life alright” (Murakami 95), is so nonchalantly mentioned, and it’s careless in a way that is meant to relate to how we feel, behave, and think in the real world, where we have to take what happens to us in stride and find ways to adapt as time as goes. I enjoyed reading “A Perfect Day for Kangaroos” because it was so uneventful; it showcases how even the smallest and most ordinary events in life are worth cherishing and reading about, and perhaps not everything we read needs to have some greater meaning behind it. The range of themes not everything we read needs to have some greater meaning behind it. The range of themes that Murakami covers in his writing (from magical realism in A Wild Sheep Chase, to feelings of loneliness in "The Year of Spaghetti", to the mundane in "A Perfect Day for Kangaroos") provides a diverse outlook at life and reality. The "worlds" that Murakami creates are unique but also connected, and leave the reader wondering why someone else's life can be so interesting from an outsider's perspective, while our own lives are seemingly "boring."

-Michelle

Murakami's Intercultural Stories

     As we've seen through reading Murakami's short stories, he was inspired by a great cohort of western writers like Salinger, Fitzgerald, and Brautigan. He often borrows elements like dialogue, plot lines, and pacing from these authors to create stories of his own. However, Murakami writes in his native Japanese, yet emulates the styles of these authors. In class, we discussed Murakami's liberal use of katakana in order to illicit a foreign feel to his work. I believe that this directly correlates with his adaptations of famous writers' stories. Evidently, as Murakami has translated a great number of works from English into Japanese, he has a naturally good feel for how the writing would sound in Japanese. For example, in "Cooking Spaghetti Dinner in Japan," Brautigan's listing of the ingredients in Japanese would look very similar to Murakami's listing of the different types of spaghetti in "The Year of Spaghetti." Having read Salinger's iconic "A Perfect Day for Bananafish," Murakami sought to incorporate that style of natural yet unnerving dialogue in his "A Perfect Day for Kangaroos." The suspense and mystery in "A Small, Good Thing" rears its head again in "The Second Bakery Attack." By using similar modality for his stories, Murakami takes elements from stories he enjoys and recreates them in Japanese, unwittingly blending the cultures together in a cacophony of stories. 

    A testament to Murakami's writing is the fact that when his Japanese is translated into English, those same elements he took remain. That recreation of western literature in Japanese, which is then back-translated into English, should, in theory, be ruined, lost in translation. However, clear stylistic choices are still present and still clearly allude to the source texts. The ability to be compared to its counterpart through the language barrier is a tall task, and yet Murakami seems to do it effortlessly while creating his own new style through katakana. He understands the essence of what makes each story so gripping, and then he uses it in his own writing in Japanese. And yet, when we translate it into English, that essence is not lost; rather, we can begin to appreciate the effort Murakami makes to almost pay respect to those great authors. Japanese and English are two starkly different languages, and being able to incorporate elements from both languages and writing cultures makes Murakami an extremely unique and talented writer. 

-James