At the beginning of Lieutenant Mamiya’s two-part story of his experience of the war, I was a bit confused as to how it correlated with the rest of the book. Sure it was thrilling to hear about how the Mongolians skinned Yamamoto alive in front of Mamiya’s eyes, but was this bit of narrative necessary to the rest of the story? It was only later, when the Lieutenant was spared by the Russian officer, taken to a well and given the chance to die quickly (by being shot) or jump into the well (and have a chance- as slim as it may be- of survival), that I realized that this story was connected to Mr. Honda’s lesson about the flow of life. Lieutenant Mamiya was told by Honda that he was going to live on, that he would not die in the hostile and barren land of Mongolia. He chose to take his word on it, however desperate and hopeless the situation, however slim the chances were at survival; when he was given the choice, Mamiya chose to jump in the well because there was still a tiny possibility of survival. Subject to intense pain, lack of food and water, and stifled senses (due to shock and darkness), he could have easily lost hope and let himself die. However, the daily glimpses of sun, however short the moments might have been, were enough for him to regain hope and unearth the true meaning of life, the core importance of his own life. Like he said in his narrative, Mamiya was able to rediscover himself and achieve a “feeling of oneness and unity”. Being stripped of basic human needs- senses, food/water, shelter, human contact- made him ironically feel more human than ever.
I think that, by bequeathing the empty box to Toru Watanabe, Honda was sending him the message that the “flow” of life is about to move and that he must follow it wherever it takes him in order to find the meaning of life. Just like Lieutenant Mamiya, Toru must “find the deepest well”, deprive himself of everything to find his path to life.
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ReplyDeleteOne reason for including the scenes from the Manchurian war may be to criticize Japanese culture in terms of the war-time atrocities that were committed in the name of nationalism and militarism.
ReplyDeleteI think that the novel as a whole brings to light that the past holds the key to the future. Murakami conveys the idea that nothing is more senseless than killing a living thing, be it a zoo animal or human being, under the command of a superior because then, soldiers are no longer individuals, but rather mechanical parts of a destructive whole that has no beginning nor end.
From the documentary posted by Majdouline:
"While he was writing the last part of The Wind-up Bird Chronicle, Murakami was asked: Why should your generation take responsibility for a war that happened before you were even born? And he replied: 'When I read about the atrocities in China, in some books, it's so absurd and meaningless. That were the generation of my father and grandfather, and I want to know what drove them to do such kind of things. To kill... thousands and thousands of people. I want to understand, but I don't... if we don't learn things from the past, the same thing could happen in the future."
I like Murakami's opinion on people, war, and the past because I feel like criticizing mankind and what has brought us to where we stand right now.
I actually never thought of that, Raphaela! Now that I think of it, I absolutely agree with you that Murakami may have been criticizing Japanese society and human morals (when it comes to following orders from a superior). In including such gruesome and violent scenes in the book- the Mongolians flaying a Japanese man, throwing Lt. Mamiya into a well because they were ordered to, and later in the book the Japanese being ordered to poison/shoot the zoo animals- Murakami was questioning how we function as a society and what crosses the line in terms of what we choose to accept to do. I still think that he was also trying to incorporate a historical piece/point of view to give the book a realistic aspect amidst all of the surrealism present throughout the second and third books!
ReplyDeletethnx for the help
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