At the end of the second book, I observed that Murakami has ceased to conceal Toru Okada’s emotions. In other words, the novelist has unfolded some of the deeper, more suppressed feelings and inner struggles of Toru Okada. However incomprehensible they may seem, the audience is able to understand that on the inside, this man is much more impacted and disturbed by the disappearance of his cat and his wife than one would have thought possible.
I think that the stories told by other characters like Lieutenant Mamiya are not only important in terms of contextual information and setting an oftentimes threatening, haunting, and confusing scene, but also help Toru Okada on his unconsciously desperate search for his identity and understanding of the world around him, from which he has almost isolated himself.
Perhaps the outburst of anger as he smashes the guitarist with the baseball bat at the end of the second book reflects how confused and tormented he is within, and that he is somehow lost and helpless. I found this quote revealing:
“The man could no longer get to his feet. But I couldn’t stop. There were two of me now, I realized. I had split in two, but this me had lost the power to stop the other me. An intense chill ran through my body. Then I realized the man was smiling” (336).
Toru has come to understand that he is not himself at the moment. He is a split character; putting the two halves together would require an immense effort. One of the halves has more reason than the other, we may say, telling him that he has defended himself and ought not to keep smashing the smirking corpse. The other half, I believe, is an extension of the tumult inside him, where reason is of no importance and where limits are meaningless because crossing them brings no sense of guilt or relief and where one limit overflows into the next.
Although the sentences are still as short as in the beginning, they have become somewhat more powerful and less superficial. Patterns also start to emerge. For instance, the word “realize” appears twice, suggesting that Toru Okada starts to observe himself in a different light than before, becoming aware of both his split identity and the danger of the world around him. Also, the intense chill followed by the observation that the man is smiling creates an ominous setting and escalates the tension. To encapsulate, Murakami uses short sentences both to describe the ordinary setting at the beginning and the rather lurking one that is intervened in order to highlight how difficult it is for Toru to distinguish between menace and harmlessness. I thought that the smile is a symbol of the rather evil forces that come into play and blend reality and imagination together.
The confusion and sense of being lost between two worlds haunts Toru. Perhaps he feels that he cannot escape whatever haunts him. Especially the atrocities of war told by the Lieutenant have a firm grip on him as he finds out more about his culture. As Alia mentioned before, the skinning of Yamamoto is a gruesome picture of violence. The following quote emphasizes the conflict within Toru as he attempts to comprehend the ghastliness of what human beings are capable of doing to one another:
“… but my legs wouldn’t move. The skin reached my feet and began to crawl upward. It crept over my own skin clinging to mine as an overlay. The heavy smell of blood was everywhere. Soon, my legs, my body, my face, were entirely covered by the thin membrane of the man’s skin. Then my eyes could no longer see, and the man’s laughter reverberated in the hollow darkness” (338).
Like in the deep well later in the book when the water rises, or when the person in the dark room stabs at him with a knife, Toru is paralyzed, unable to move. There is a deep sense of helplessness, creating pathos, as he cannot move, especially in the face of inevitable danger. The image of the crawling skin is so vividly painted in the reader’s mind and underlines the horridness of Toru’s nightmare of the guitarist skinning himself. His helplessness is intensified by his inability to see and the overpowering laughter creeping into the darkness under the man’s skin and over Toru’s.
I believe that being tormented by dreadful images and confusing feelings, Toru finds out more about his culture and his suppressed self and is able to realize that he wants Kumiko back in his life. He senses that she is in the grip of another world, yet he is determined not to let her vanish from his world.
What is the importance of the baseball bat?
There's a lot to follow up on here, Raphaela. Regarding Toru's feelings, confusion and the idea that he is haunted by his personal past and that of his culture, I totally agree. His isolation and suffering as time passes by with no change - each day like the last - and his increasing sense of helplessness is very poignant. He really misses his wife and life has lost its meaning. When he goes to the next city and spends all day sitting on a bench watching the crowds hurrying by, the sense of his loneliness is crushing.
ReplyDeleteThis is a book with some appalling scenes of violence, and we are shocked by these impulses and the cruelty of which humans are capable. The worst violence is the 'organized' (rational) systemic violence of war - shown in the scenes from the Manchurian war. I was particularly struck by the confrontation between the submarine and the boat full of refugees, and by the annihilation of the zoo animals and the Chinese men dressed as a baseball team. Surreal, unreal, yet rationally executed and completely possible in those circumstances.
Oh and the baseball bat, well Murakami is a big baseball fan in real life and a bat may double as a very 'satisfying' and lethal weapon. The bat is one of the links between characters, past and present, but it becomes Toru's weapon against Noboru Wataye in the dream world he crosses to. Beating someone with a bat is more brutal and disturbing than a gun or a knife. Violence then becomes intimate, almost like sex.
ReplyDeleteYes. I also thought that this violence connects Toru with the brutality in Manchuria. Perhaps the novelist therewith attempts to convey the idea that indeed we have not learned much from our past. Furthermore, there is a chance that it may repeat itself as seen in the violence that becomes part of Toru, as it has become part of the soldiers in the Manchurian war.
DeleteLonging for Kumiko:
ReplyDelete"The clouds looked like silent travelers headed for the edge of the earth... Kumiko was probably somewhere looking at them too" (445).
A beautiful mixture of emotion and imagination that builds a bridge between Toru and Kumiko. Through the use of a simile, the travelers are compared to soundless clouds hovering from one horizon to the other. It is as if Toru thinks of Kumiko and himself as fated travelers that come inevitably closer and closer to their destination. It may be an imaginary fate in the same way that the earth is round.
Another simile that fascinated me is:
"... silence descended and began to burrow its way into the folds of my brain, one after another, like an insect laying eggs... I began to move outside of myself..." (445).
This, I think, relates to his feeling of loneliness. Disguised as silence, it is compared to an insect using a simile. It is as if taking a look at loneliness in Toru's brain. The comparison also suggests the power of lonesome solitude and how it becomes stronger and stronger because new insects can emerge from the eggs.
Are there any similes that you liked?
Thank you for these beautiful and insightful lines, Raphaela. Sometimes I think Murakami is not only a novelist, but simultaneously a poet and a philosopher... I like a great many of his lines, but perhaps I should let other people choose some...
ReplyDeleteI agree with you Raphaela. The scene of the fight between Toru and the guitarist is quite striking but not only because of the violence described but more because of the implications that it has. As you said, even when the fight has ceased to be a true fight, meaning that the guitarist is absolutely helpless, Toru continues to beat him. Furthermore, the guitarist is actually laughing, whether it is at him or at the situation I am not sure. When I imagine this scene in my head however, I just feel as though it would give off an uncomfortable vibe: the victim is almost mocking the attacker which does in fact put Toru in an inferior place. It is true that it is no longer clear what is real and what is in his head, but for some reason I just feel that this particular scene is really meant to be a deeper analysis of Toru's character. As you said, he split in two which is also what Creta Kano speaks of being able to do. The man beating the guitarist is not the man rationalizing about it and recounting the story: they are two separate people it would seem. I find this concept of "splitting" yourself extremely intriguing. You can analyze your personality thus your flaws yourself, without having to ask an outside eye. Although Toru evidently did not intend to do this, it is fascinating to think of all of the different sides a single human being can have.
ReplyDeleteYou also asked what the significance of the bat could potentially be and I think that it is Toru's sole grip to reality. He takes the bat with him after he has seen himself split in two and from then on, he keeps in the well where it remains his only assurance that he is still in this world. The bat reminds me of the movie Inception where each character has a totem that indicated whether they are in a dream or in the "real" world.
Yes - the bat is his totem! I think this is a very helpful link! Thankyou, Majdouline!
ReplyDelete