As I have mentioned in my previous post, Murakami's book reminds me of Taniguchi's illustrated novel Quartier Lointain. The latter evidently includes less text but does contain images that accompany each text box. There is one particular scene in Taniguchi's novel that reminds me of Toru Okada in the well.
The image above represents the moment of transition that Taniguchi's character goes through when he changes from a grown adult to a 14 year old teenager. Although the scene does not explicitly portray this change, the images are laid out in such a way (especially the movement of the butterfly) to show this crucial moment of change. When I was reading the part of Murakami's novel in which Toru is in the well and begins to give deep thought about everything, this specific page of Taniguchi's novel popped up in my mind. To me, Toru experienced some type of change while he remained in that well; the man that went into the hole in the ground is not the same one that emerged from it. His intense and almost painful thought process combined with his aching hunger and thirst, changed the type of person he was. This is much like what happened to Creta Kano with Kumiko's brother.
“We die to each other daily. What we know of other people is only our memory of the moments during which we knew them. And they have changed since then. To pretend that they and we are the same is a useful and convenient social convention which must sometimes be broken. We must also remember that at every meeting we are meeting a stranger.”
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I also read Jiro Tanigushi's illustrated novel in French class, and I think it is similar in some ways with The Wind-up Bird Chronicle, since the two protagonists both have to some extent fictional experiences in their dreams. Jiro's main character encounters his older self while he is still in his young teenager one, which can be compared to Toru, since there is this idea of separation of two different entities and the body, like when Toru cannot control his body when anger takes part of him!!
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