"Maybe I hit my head in the accident, and the position of my brain got messed up. Or maybe the psychological shock of it started me covering up all kinds of memories, the way a squirrel hides a nut and forgets where he's buried it. (have you ever seen that happen, Mr. Wind-up Bird? I have. When I was little. I though the stupid squirrel was sooo funny! It never occurred to me the same thing was going to happen to me." (page 462)
This passage is an extract from one of May's letters to Toru Okada. She questions her decision of going to a wig company and is unable to find a sustainable answer. The allusion to the squirrel forgetting where he has hidden a nut is actually similar to many human beings. We sometimes do things without truly knowing why we are doing it. I think that Toru Okada is somewhat concerned by this topic because it would almost seem as though his daily activities have no definite or explicit purpose. He no longer has a job, his wife has left him, he is on a search for something unknown to him and the events in his life are all extremely confusing.
This equally reminds me of May's speech about death. She mentioned that without death, life would not be deep anymore because we would not have to think about these philosophical questions about the after life or what the purpose of life is. It would seem that the squirrel epitomizes this. It cannot remember the location of an item that is of significant importance to it. If we were to ponder deeply about the true purpose of all of our actions, I am quite sure that the answer would not come very quickly.
This passage is an extract from one of May's letters to Toru Okada. She questions her decision of going to a wig company and is unable to find a sustainable answer. The allusion to the squirrel forgetting where he has hidden a nut is actually similar to many human beings. We sometimes do things without truly knowing why we are doing it. I think that Toru Okada is somewhat concerned by this topic because it would almost seem as though his daily activities have no definite or explicit purpose. He no longer has a job, his wife has left him, he is on a search for something unknown to him and the events in his life are all extremely confusing.
This equally reminds me of May's speech about death. She mentioned that without death, life would not be deep anymore because we would not have to think about these philosophical questions about the after life or what the purpose of life is. It would seem that the squirrel epitomizes this. It cannot remember the location of an item that is of significant importance to it. If we were to ponder deeply about the true purpose of all of our actions, I am quite sure that the answer would not come very quickly.
You know I find what you're saying remarkably true! And what a great quote indeed from May! I've learned to appreciate May Kasahara as a character over the course of the book, we first underestimate her ability to reflect on the bigger picture of life, however, regardless of her age and her obstinacy to go to school, she very well maybe the only character who really has questioned and found the answer to her life. After all she is the one who made Toru an archetype for the wind-up bird after she gave him that very name (Mr. Wind-up Bird). So we see that she's of great importance to the story. Moreover every time that she makes Toru aware of something related to life, we find that he's going through some kind of calamity at that juncture.
ReplyDeleteTaking this instant for example, one chapter behind (chapter 17) we find that Nutmeg is talking about her profession and its troubles. She had set in motion with her husband, both working together to satisfy customers, they had a goal in life which really wasn't about wealth. Later on after he dies, Toru as the narrator says, "'Do I have a 'something' inside me as well?' But Nutmeg did not really want to know the answers to her questions. All she could be sure of was that circumstances had somehow conspired to confine her in her fitting room."(459) Almost identical to this squirrel's position, she doesn't know where she's put her life. She's placed it in a hole and has forgotten where it was she stowed it. So she doesn't know where to go from here.
Furthermore, we see how Toru himself has lost a certain grip of his wife, Kumiko. He thought he was well acquainted with his wife but in reality he doesn't know who she is. He has lost her identity in his mind. In the following chapter he comes one step closer to reaching her by being able to log onto cinnamon's computer.
I can add my personal experience to this and note that at times I myself set out to complete a goal and when I try to recall why I'm doing this I find no answer that bounces back in my mind. As humans we tend to fail to recall why we're carrying out certain actions namely(as you said) why May is going to a wig company.
This is all interesting, and shows how we relate literature to our own lives and experiences as we read... I love that moment of recognition when you read something in a novel that hits exactly the right note in your own head... It's like recognition of something ineffable, or hard to explain, and you have the feeling you got to the essential truth of something! For me, though, this squirrel forgetting where it hid its nut, is that frustrating sensation of knowing you know something (and it is lurking somewhere deep inside your brain) but you can't remember or retrieve it. Maddening!
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