One contrasting view of this novel than the
one I’ve proposed is that this is a story about moving from a position of
numbness to a position of feeling. At the outset, Toru is completely vacant of
passion. He is not worried or excited by this limbo in his career, he isn’t
aware of his wife’s increasing absences and whenever anyone wants to see him,
he has no plans. His
central mission over the course of the novel is not to discover some profound
intellectual truth or even a factual explanation of the events that are occurring,
but merely to get in touch with how he feels, whether this might be
drawn out of him by the stories
and behaviors of other people (usually mirroring the same theme) or whether he
might go down a well and deprive himself of sustenance and stimulation until
that monster, emotion, finally emerges. Toru's
world is an alien world where darkness gets encrusted in his soul, tormenting
him to no end, driving him to descend to the depths of absolute darkness. When
the goes into the well, it symbolizes death with consciousness as he sees that
life is better lived in light. This poignant passage is reminiscent of Martin
Luther King Jr.'s words: "Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light
can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that." Nonetheless
while these trips can be rather scary adventures, with a lot of darkness in the
book, there’s also a lot of light and perhaps most importantly, a lot of beauty
- of both the dark and light as well as the ambiguous variety.
The style of Murakami came across as pretty astonishing;
it’s the manner by which he’s able to master both the art of being at once
verbose and at other instances minimalist. This irked me at first when reading
however despite crossing some complicated phrases and economical sentences, the
main reason I read this 607 page book was because the author insisted on
rephrasing and the repeating the same account or sentiment three times, after a
while I decided that this was part of its genius edifice. It becomes quite
amusing altogether. Also some of us might have noticed this while others may
have not paid as much attention to the fact that the word weird is utilized more frequently than any other adjective. What I
figured out was that this was that one word that allows Murakami to lead us
seamlessly backwards and forwards between the real and the surreal. This
writing style is definitely one of a kind; it is as though words are associated
to certain switches in the book that we should search for as we’re reading.
Do I get the impression, you are liking it better now? Very good point about Toru's changing character. He IS incredibly passive and indeed, numb, at first. His range of feelings seems limited (but then that's all you need in ordinary day to day life). As his life starts to change he is obliged both to feel more and to ACT!
ReplyDeleteI loved the book, but my previous criticism an attempt in finding feeble parts of the story that may not make it gripping to some of us. I mean, few people have the wisdom to prefer the criticism that would do them good, to the praise that deceives them. Sometimes it's interesting to be on the opposite side of what you think and attack your own thoughts. Of course we generally keep our opinions the same whether or not we criticize what we enjoy. I take it that you also have a penchant for this novel
ReplyDeleteAbsolutely! I think it has flaws... but I think he has superb passages and he is endlessly entertaining and full of mind-bending (mind-stretching) ideas.
DeleteMurakami explores this impression of numbness with Creta Kano too, as when she was younger her intense pain caused her to later fade into this emptiness. Perhaps, he wants to show how ones life can change to different extremes, but also how one can go back to the right "path" like Toru, who lost himself in his routine but found his way back through all these "supernatural" experiences. I noticed that all the characters in the book are atypical in their own way, which gives a variety of different stories shared by them, like May Kasahara's letters, Lientenant Mayima's stories, Cinnamon's secret files...
ReplyDeleteIn my opinion they went from feeling pain to feeling nothing at all, as in everything they say has no emotion. From example when the Lieutenant is telling Toru the story of the Man skinner, I found as if he was cold person who didnt feel any emotion at all. Its as if the pain is now completely gone and now its just something part of them, the same goes for Creta Kano, I think the pain is simply a part of her now. It is what defines her.The pain. It was the reason she suffered and changed to the person she is now.
ReplyDelete