國
立
交
通
大
學
外國語文學系外國文學與語言學碩士班
碩
士
論
文
村上春樹《海邊的卡夫卡》中
暴力與性關係的魔幻寫實論述
Magical Realist Treatments of Violence and Sexual Relations
in Haruki Murakami’s Kafka on the Shore
研 究 生：楊雅如
指導教授：余君偉 博士
村上春樹《海邊的卡夫卡》中
暴力與性關係的魔幻寫實論述
Magical Realist Treatments of Violence and Sexual Relations
in Haruki Murakami’s Kafka on the Shore
研 究 生：楊雅如 Student：Ya-ru Yang
指導教授：余君偉 Advisor：Eric Kwan-Wai Yu
國 立 交 通 大 學
外國語文學系外國文學與語言學碩士班
碩 士 論 文
A ThesisSubmitted to Institute of Foreign Literatures and Linguistics College of Humanities and Sciences
National Chiao Tung University in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements
for the Degree of Master
in
Foreign Literatures and Linguistics
July 2012
Hsinchu, Taiwan, Republic of China
村上春樹《海邊的卡夫卡》中暴力與性關係的魔幻寫實論述
研究生：楊雅如 指導教授：余君偉 博士 國立交通大學外國語文學系暨外國文學與語言學碩士班
摘要
本文旨在探討村上春樹（Haruki Mukarami）如何運用魔幻寫實（magical realism）論述模糊小說《海邊的卡夫卡》（Kafka on the Shore, 海辺のカフカ, 2002） 中的虛實界線，以及透過該手法呈現小說中暴力與性關係兩大議題。這種手法不 僅帶來閱讀樂趣與諸多闡釋的可能性，令該作品更具挑戰性，同時亦可引發讀者 對此兩大議題的反思。 本論文第一章將介紹魔幻寫實主義的歷史背景與特色，以及村上春樹特有的 魔幻寫實寫作風格與技巧。作者的魔幻寫實論述不僅模糊小說中虛實的界線、製 造虛實交錯的現象，也隱含諸多諷喻。同時，村上透過魔幻寫實的手法點出兩大 議題：暴力與性關係。而這些魔幻的元素亦可能超越一般的解釋與評論。 第二章針對小說中暴力的議題進行文本分析與可能的寓意式閱讀 （allegorical reading）。村上春樹在小說中描寫許多關於日本的二戰經驗，同時， 角色的暴力行為也暗指相關倫理問題。這些描寫暗示了在和平主義（pacifism） 與受害者（victimhood）論述的背後，戰後的道德責任與戰時日本作為侵略者的 角色一直都存在。對日本人來說，如何面對二戰歷史、受害者／加害者 （victimization）的論述與相關的道德責任仍是一大挑戰。 第三章則分析《海邊的卡夫卡》中主角田村卡夫卡與櫻花的姐弟之情、與佐 伯小姐的忘年戀／亂倫以及卡夫卡父親的「伊底帕斯的詛咒」（the “Oedipal
malediction”）。村上春樹在小說中顛覆了伊底帕斯情結（the Oedipus complex）， 並運用魔幻寫實的手法使「詛咒」成真。但事實上，角色的關係有著象徵性的意 義，並隱含關於慾望（desire）流動投注的問題。小說中父親的死並非真正的死 亡，反而暗示父權（paternity）一直存在。卡夫卡與櫻花的關係也絕非一般的姐 弟之情，而包含著性幻想與慾望的壓抑。卡夫卡與佐伯小姐的曖昧關係，涉及複 雜曖昧的慾望投注。 關鍵字：村上春樹、《海邊的卡夫卡》、魔幻寫實主義、和平主義、受害者、伊底 帕斯情結、慾望。
Magical Realist Treatments of Violence and Sexual Relations in Haruki Murakami’s
Kafka on the Shore
Postgraduate: Ya-ru Yang Advisor: Dr. Eric Kwan-Wai Yu
Institute of Foreign Literatures and Linguistics National Chiao Tung University
Abstract
This thesis discusses Haruki Murakami’s magical realist treatments of violence and sexual relations in Kafka on the Shore (海辺のカフカ, 2002). His narrative not only blurs the boundary between the real and fantastic but also brings a special kind of reading pleasure, and defies any simple interpretations of the text. Through this means, the author deals with traumatic history obliquely, inviting readers to reflect on such important issues as violence and sex.
Chapter One briefly introduces the history and characteristics of magical realism and explores Murakami’s particular kind of magical realist style. In Kafka on the
Shore, Murakami confuses the real with the magical, creating ironic effects. I explain
how Murakami complicates and problematizes violence and sexual relations. Chapter Two explores violence and ethical questions concerned in the novel. Murakami’s recurring depictions of the Japanese experiences of World War II and other violent historical events suggest that militarism, victimhood, and related ethical problems remain what the Japanese have to face.
Chapter Three focuses on the protagonist Kafka Tamura’s unconventional relationships with Sakura and Miss Saeki, and the “Oedipal malediction” from Kafka’s father. On the one hand, the author has significantly transformed the features of the Oedipus complex with his magical realist writing. On the other, Kafka’s curious relationships with Sakura and Miss Saeki involve strange “sisterly” love and
“motherly” love respectively, both are worthy of deeper enquiries.
Keywords: Haruki Murakami, Kafka on the Shore, magical realism, pacifism, victimization, Oedipus complex, desire.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
I am a Haruki Murakami fan. Personally speaking, this thesis means a great deal and brings me new insights of his works, yet without those helping this project would not have been possible.
First and foremost, I am most indebted to my advisor, Dr. Eric Kwan-Wai Yu, for his insightful suggestions, constant support, great patience, and huge aids to my life. This thesis would not have been possible without his guidance. I am also grateful to my committee members Professor Ying-Hsiung Chou and Dr. Shih-Szu Hsu for their precious comments. Thanks also goes to Miss Ya-ling Chen and Miss Lu-ying Chen for their help in many aspects of my graduate life.
Special thanks are due Professor Reiko Abe Auestad at the University of Oslo, for generously sharing her essays and emailing them to me. Her solid scholarship has been a great help for my research.
I would also like to thank all my school mates, especially Alice Hsu, Mei-shu Lin, Wan-ting Yang, and Yu-jung Yen, for their comfort and timely assistance.
My deepest gratitude goes to my family. Thanks for their great tolerance, patience, and care for their youngest daughter/sister. Without their understanding, I would not have completed my thesis successfully.
Finally, I would like to express my sincere appreciation of Jia-hao Chen, my beloved and soul mate: thank you so much for your warm support all along the way.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Chinese Abstract………...i
Abstract………..ii
Acknowledgements...………iii
Introduction………1
Chapter One: Magical Realist Narrative in Kafka on the Shore………...…….9
Chapter Two: WWII Experiences, Pacifism, and Victimization……….35
Chapter Three: Death, Desire, and the “Oedipal Malediction”………....60
Afterwords………83
Introduction
Haruki Murakami (村上春樹), one of the most popular and controversial contemporary Japanese writers, gained his popularity after winning Gunzo
Newcomers Award (群像新人文学賞) with his first novel Hear the Wind Sing (風の 歌を聴け) in 1979.1
At that time he was an owner of a piano jazz bar, writing only for interest. Afterwards, he began his new career as a full-time writer— working on novels, short stories, travelogues, non-fictions, and even translations of American literature from time to time. His works have won wide reception not only in Japan but also worldwide. According to a survey conducted by the Japan Foundation,
Murakami’s works have been translated into more than 40 languages, and major works such as A Wild Sheep Chase (羊をめぐる冒険, 1982) and Norwegian Wood (ノルウェイの森, 1987) have been circulated among 37 countries and regions around the globe (136). Murakami’s novels and short stories have won awards domestically and internationally. For instance, his Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the
End of the World (世界の終りとハードボイルド・ワンダーランド, 1985) received
the prestigious Tanizaki Literary Prize (谷崎潤一郎賞), and The Wind-Up Bird
Chronicle (ねじまき鳥クロニクル, 1995) won the Yomiuri [Newspaper] Literary
Prize (読売文学賞). In 2006, Murakami was awarded Frank O'Connor Short Story Award for his short story anthology Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman (2006). In the same year, his novel Kafka on the Shore (海辺のカフカ, 2002) was awarded both Franz Kafka Prize of the Czech Republic and World Fantasy Award. Despite the polarized comments and reviews that Haruki Murakami and his works have received, it is without question that his works have gained great recognition and reception
1 Japanese names in my thesis are in the first name/last name order. The title of the books, which may
worldwide.2
The popular and award-winning novel Kafka on the Shore has its significance among Murakami’s oeuvre. To start with, this novel can be viewed as a transition work in terms of the focalization. Murakami used to write his novels in the first-person perspective. In his interview, he said that such a transition could help include more elements into his works (Murakami, Long Interview 9). Thus, one can see that one of the storylines (Satoru Nakata’s line) in Kafka on the Shore is narrated from a third-person viewpoint. In addition, it is the first time the author chooses an adolescent, the 15-year-old Kafka Tamura (田村カフカ), to be the protognist. The other “hero,” Satoru Nakata (中田悟), is a slightly eccentric old man over 60. Such character setting has influneced how Murakami deals with the recurrent themes: violence and sex in this novel. Moreover, the author chooses the magical realist approach to discuss the two major issues, which not only creates the commingling effects of the real and fanatsic but also complicates the two themes. In the following I would briefly summarize the storyplot.
Kafka on the Shore consists of two major storylines. Odd-numbered chapters
center upon the teenager protagonist Kafka Tamura. At the age of four, his mother along with his adopted sister left him. Since then, he had lived with his father Koichi Tamura (田村浩一), who was a famous sculptor, yet Kafka and his father were on bad terms and avoided meeting each other. On his fifteenth birthday, Kafka decided to run away from home to escape from his father’s “prophecy” and hoped to search for his mother and adopted sister. Accompanied by the magical character Crow, Kafka traveled to Takamatsu, Shikoku (高松, 四国). On his way he met Sakura (さくら), a girl in her twenties—around the same age as his sister. He thus viewed Sakura as his
2 For instance, there was criticism from Donald Keene and Masao Miyoshi. See Jay Rubin, Haruki
possible sister. Kafka lived his new life peacefully, yet one night he suddenly lost his consciousness. As he woke up, he found himself stained with blood—probably somebody else. He turned to Sakura for help and stayed overnight at her place. Kafka left the next day for fear that he would bother Sakura. Or more importantly, he was afraid of having incestuous relationship with this sister figure, which might fulfill part of his father’s prophecy. Later, he turned to the librarian Oshima (大島さん) in Komura Memorial Library (甲村記念図書館) for help. Oshima firstly took Kafka to his mountain cabin in Kochi (高知); later they decided to welcome Kafka. Afterwards, Kafka settled down in the library, living in the room which Miss Saeki’s (佐伯さん) lover, the eldest son of the Komura family, used to live. (Miss Saeki was in charge of the library.) He later learned his father’s death; the date coincided with the day when he fainted behind the Shinto shrine. When Kafka lived in the library, he inadvertently encountered the no-longer-existent 15-year-old Saeki and desperately fell for her. Meanwhile, Kafka suspected that Miss Saeki was highly possibly his mother. One night, however, the real Miss Saeki showed up and made love to Kafka, while she was sleep-walking. After that, Kafka asked Miss Saeki to have sex with him; they thus began their unconventional relationship. Yet, Oshima sent him to the mountain cabin again, for the police was eagerly searching for Kafka because they suspected that Kafka might have conspired with someone to murder his father. Kafka traveled deep into the forest, encountered the two Imperial soldiers, and entered the other world. In that world, he met the young Saeki again, yet she was nameless, memory-less, and very detached. Kafka also met the real (but dead) Miss Saeki. She urged Kafka to go back to the real world, to take the painting “Kafka on the Shore” with him, and to remember her. At the same time, Kafka had found a resolution with this mother figure. At the end, Kafka left the other world and went back to Tokyo to face everything.
encounters. The author firstly uses flashbacks to present some pseudo-official military top-secret documents on the “Rice Bowl Hill Incident,” a mysterious group
unconscious incident in Yamanashi Prefecture (山梨県) in 1944, near the end of World War Two (WWII). The puzzles of the group fainting remained unsolved, yet the teacher Setsuko Okamochi’s (岡持節子) letter had given the hidden truth: her vivid dream of having sex with her absent husband, the menstrual blood, and her physical punishment upon the student Satoru Nakata. Later readers realize that the incident had to do with Nakata’s childhood. Nakata, as the only exception of the group fainting (he did not come to until a couple of weeks later), became an illiterate but was able to communicate with cats, living on government welfare and his
part-time job as a cat tracker. He was entrusted with the task of looking for a missing tortoise-shell cat Goma (ゴマ). Nakata was warned by his cat friend Mimi (ミミ) that there was a cat catcher, Johnnie Walker. One day, a black dog came to Nakata
unexpectedly and led him to Johnnie Walker’s place. To provoke Nakata into killing him, Johnnie Walker performed cat decapitation in front of Nakata. In order to rescue his cat friends, Nakata finally stabbed Johnnie Walker to death. However, when he woke up, Nakata was at the vacant lot (where he looked for cats) and blood-stainless. Without reason, he felt impelled to head west to Shikoku—the same destination where Kafka had traveled to. With the help and company of Mr. Hoshino (星野さん), a truck driver in his twenties, Nakata found the “entrance stone” and opened “the entrance.” They also went to Komura Memorial Library, met Miss Saeki, and helped her burn up all her memoirs. Afterwards, Nakata fell deep in sleep and died peacefully. Hoshino, on the other hand, somehow acquired (or inherited) the ability to speak with cats. A black cat Toro came to inform Hoshino that he had to close the entrance and stop it from entering the entrance by killing it (the white stuff). Finally, Hoshino completed the task of closing the entrance and killing the mysterious creature and left.
Kafka on the Shore involves Murakami’s magical realist narrative when he deals
with the recurrent themes of violence and sex—which are also the two major themes that I intend to discuss in my thesis. Indeed, some critics view Murakami’s works as a kind of pop literature which seldom deals seriously with social, political and historical issues (Suter 52). Such comment might not be implausible. In fact, in The Wind-up
Bird Chronicle, the author largely portrays Japan’s wartime experiences, especially
the Nomonhan Incident.3 In Kafka on the Shore, Murakami deals with Japanese historical violence more extensively, especially WWII experiences such as the Rice Bowl Hill Incident, Japan-U.S. relations, and the Japanese student movement in the late 1960s. More significantly, the author has touched upon the justification of using violence and potential ethical responsibilities in his presentation of violent acts in the novel. At the same time, one might not come up with simple interpretations and critiques with the author’s magical realist treatments of those events. On the other hand, Murakami used to deal with the issue of sex through his adult characters. In
Norwegian Wood, for instance, the protagonist Toru Watanabe’s (渡辺徹) sexual
relations and experiences have played an essential part in the novel. In The Wind-up
Bird Chronicle, Murakami depicts the deteriorating marital relation between Toru
Okada (岡田徹) and Kumiko Okada (岡田久美子), adultery, and prostitution (with Crete Kano 加納クレタ). In Kafka on the Shore, however, the author chooses 15-year-old Kafka Tamura to be the protagonist, a choice that can be viewed as a crucial transition among his works.4 The “Oedipal malediction” and Kafka’s curious
3 The Nomonhan Incident, or the Second Soviet–Japanese (Border) War, was the military conflict
among the Soviet Union, Mongolia and the Empire of Japan in 1939. It took place near the border between Mongolia and Manchuria (the puppy state that Japan had established in northeast China). This unofficially-declared conflict (the Soviet Union and Japan did not announce a war) was due to the disagreement about the borderline between Manchuria and the Mongolian People's Republic (supported by the Soviet forces). However, the Japanese imperial army was totally defeated by the Soviet army. See Edward J. Drea, “Nomonhan: Japanese Soviet Tactical Combat, 1939,” Leavenworth Papers 2 (1981).
4 Discussing his latest novel 1Q84 in an interview, Murakami said that he believed that sex, or puberty,
relations with (hypothetical) family members (biological father and possible sister and mother) have become the focus of the issue of sex. Besides the magical realist effects, it also involves characters’ sexual seduction, repression, possible ethical problems, and desire—which appears more complicated than the simple family relation.
My thesis is divided into three chapters, exploring the magical realist narrative, the issue of violence, and that of sex in Kafka on the Shore respectively. Chapter One deals with Murakami’s magical realist narrative style. Starting with the history and the characteristics of magical realism, I would like to explore Murakami’s magical realist writing style in the novel. Some critics such as Susan Napier and Matthew Strecher have discussed magical realism in Murakami’s other writings. They regard the author’s magical realist strategies as a way of highlighting such themes as identity crisis (Strecher 82) and the problem of modernity (Napier 473). However, none of these critics have explored in depth the commingling effects that such a writing style can make, nor have they attended to the ironic effects so created. One should also note that sometimes the author might have chosen to use magical realism in order to tackle certain complicated issues more obliquely and suggestively. I would thus probe into several major episodes in the novel—the Rice Bowl Hill Incident, the murder, the alternative world, and sisterly love and motherly love—to demonstrate the author’s commingling of the real and magical. The magical realist writing can be ironic, pleasurable, and further making allusions to the two critical themes in Kafka on the
Shore: violence and sex. At the same time, such writing strategies could also
complicate the two issues, rejecting simple interpretations and critiques.
In Chapter Two, I would like to focus on Murakami’s magical realist treatments of and allusions to historical violence, the possible critiques, and the author’s attitude
their hands together when they were 10 years old. Their destinies were closely tied at that moment. See Haruki Murakami, Murakami Haruki Long Interview (Tokyo: SHINCHOCHA, 2010) 58.
toward WWII experiences, victimization, and related ethical questions in Kafka on the
Shore. The author has made many references to the historical past of Japan, especially
the war-related ones. In his magical realist writings, Murakami combines the historical and the fictional, recounting other facets or versions of history. The Rice Bowl Hill Incident is one of the best examples. The author also indirectly refers to Japan’s wartime activities through the protagonist Kafka Tamura’s reading of trials of Nazi criminals, Napoleon Invasion of Russia in 1812, and his encounter with the two Imperial soldiers lost in the maneuvers. In the post-war era, the relation with the U.S. has greatly influenced Japan in many aspects. One can observe Japan-U.S. post-war relations from the characters Hoshino and Colonel Sanders and the author’s recurring depictions of American (western) pop cultural elements in the novel. They may
signify certain forms of violence that the U.S. might have inflicted on Japan, yet at the same time it is not simple (political and cultural) oppression but more complicated. Japanese student movement in the late 1960s, an episode related to Japan-U.S. relation, is another event that Murakami often portrays. However, the author
expresses a more critical attitude toward the rationale behind the movement and the violence they had imposed on others. Besides the allusions of and possible critiques toward historical events, the author’s depictions of violence, such as cat killing, rescuing, and white stuff, indicate the problem of morality as well as justification of using violence. The depictions of violence might suggest that violence and the corresponding issues are the undercurrents beneath the surface of pacifism and victimhood in contemporary Japanese society, which might urge one to contemplate upon historical past, violence, victimizer/victim dichotomy, and ethical responsibility.
In Chapter Three, I would like to explore the other major issue, sex, in the novel. The author presents readers Kafka’s elusive family relations and the “Oedipal
mother and sister, which is exactly the Oedipus complex (as well as the related Greek tragedy). The taboos of patricide and incest are somehow fulfilled in the novel with the author’s magical realist techniques. In addition to the confusing effects between the real and magical of the occurrence of the taboos, what is more significant is Kafka’s poetic patricide, his unorthodox relationships with his potential sister and mother (Sakura and Miss Saeki), and the implied ethical questions. Koichi Tamura’s death involves Kafka in his poetic responsibility (for patricide), though he might not be the one that stabs his father to death. Yet, even if the father figure was dead already, Crow’s magical attack on Johnnie Walker may suggest that the paternity always
haunts. Brother-sister-hood between Kafka and Sakura is in fact related to the sexual initiation and seduction, the repression of desire, and their appealing to the sisterly love. The problematic mother-son and lover relations between Kafka and Miss Saeki have to do with their investment in the subject position/role “Kafka” and “mother.” In addition, their ambivalent relationship revolves around painting “Kafka on the Shore.” The painting, as a token of love, has become a significant symbol of the memory of love and desire.
Finally, I would conclude that the author’s magical realist writing techniques have brought more reading pleasures, alerting us the issue of violence and the related ethical problems, and has immensely complicated the characters’ equivocal
relationships. The magical realist narratives of violence and sex might intrigue readers to reflect on the possible interpretations and meanings behind the novels. Also, it is the magical realist writings that have made his text challenging as well as fascinating.
Chapter One
Magical Realist Narrative in Kafka on the Shore
Kafka on the Shore might be one of the most fascinating novels among Haruki
Murakami’s works. It involves the author’s commingling of the realist and the magical realist modes. The story consists of two major storylines, one of the writing strategies the author frequently uses. The odd-number chapters show us the story of the 15-year-old protagonist Kafka Tamura. On his fifteenth birthday, Kafka decided to run away from home to Shikoku. Later readers realize that his father had an “Oedipal malediction,” prophesying that Kafka would someday murder his father and sleep with his mother and sister. Strangely, his unusual encounters somehow led him to the course of his father’s prognostication: his fainting and his father’s death, his intriguing relations with Sakura (potential sister) and Miss Saeki (potential mother). In
even-number chapters, the author firstly flashes backward the mysterious Rice Bowl Hill Incident, an uncanny group fainting incident near the end of WWII. Later in chapter 6, the story shifts to the present, and the “hero” of this storyline Satoru Nakata appears. Though a victim of the Rice Bowl Hill Incident, he is able to communicate with cats. His special ability to converse with cats also brings him on a magical realistic journey: the cat rescue, the killing of Johnnie Walker, finding the entrance stone, and going to the other world.
These two separate lines are quite irrelevant at first glance, yet the magical realist writing has created latent connections, making the two storylines indistinctly echo and influence each other on the same realistic base. For instance, the date of Koichi
Tamura’s death coincides with Kafka’s fainting and Nakata’s cat saving and killing of Johnnie Walker. The entrance stone in Miss Saeki’s surreal lyrics of “Kafka on the Shore” really appears in Nakata’s line, and Kafka’s going to the other world is made
possible with the help of Nakata and Hoshino—to open the entrance. In addition, Kafka’s curious (and incestuous) relations with the sister figure Sakura and the mother figure Miss Saeki have to do with the author’s magical realist writing. Kafka dreams of raping Sakura; the uncertainty between the reality and dreams confuses him as well as readers. The ghostly young Saeki’s appearance attracts Kafka on the one hand; Kafka hypothesizes Miss Saeki to be his mother on the other. Moreover, the painting “Kafka on the Shore” has become a crucial symbol to suggest the baffling between the real and magical, and the elusive amatory and mother-son relations between Kafka Tamura (and Crow), Komura, and (young) Miss Saeki.
In the following I will first introduce the major characteristics of magical realism and Murakami’s particular kind of magical realist styles. In fact, some critics such as Susan Napier and Matthew Strecher have discussed the magical realist writing in Murakami’s writings. They tend to view Murakami’s magical realist writing as an approach to point out certain themes such as identity crisis (Strecher 82) and the problem of modernity (Napier 473) but focus less on its magical effects and oblique and elusive association—which I intend to explore. In addition, I would further probe into several major episodes in Kafka on the Shore—the Rice Bowl Hill Incident, the murder event, the alternative world, and sisterly love and motherly love—to
demonstrate how Murakami deliberately obscures the boundary between the real and the magical. His magical realist writings not only bring certain effects and pleasure for reading but also allude to two crucial themes: violence and sex. In addition, the magical realist strategies complicate the two issues because they help resist simple ideological critiques and conventional interpretations. His text often intimates some “excessive” or surplus of meaning not readily contained by neat allegorical readings, a feature that makes the novel all the more fascinating and challenging.
Magical Realism
Before we discuss magical realism, we may first briefly trace back to the “realist” tradition. Realism was an artistic movement that began in the mid-19th
century. It has to do with the historical background of the 19th century: the political, social, and economic changes, the rise of bourgeoisie, and the popularity and dominance of the novel. Meanwhile, the novel has also become the vehicle for the expression of values and life styles of the middle class. The realist style in literature tends to provide detailed, unembellished depiction of everyday life, and creates a verisimilitude of the objects, characters, and physical environment that conforms to certain historical or cultural settings. In other words, a realist novel would present its fictional world that closely resembles the real world that we live in. Realist works would usually prefer a more impersonal tone and more objective third-person perspective to depict things; since writers might try to represent the fictional-real world as faithfully as possible. Realism also chooses to portray the common folks (people of the middle or lower classes) and ordinary lives, which could reflect certain social problems and reveal some critiques. Briefly defined, one can say that the realist style in literature aims to faithfully represent “reality,” or as Roland Barthes argues that Realism is to constitute with all the details an “illusion of reality,” a “reality effect,” for readers to accept it as a “fact” (148).
As to “magical realism,” the term first appeared in German art critic Franz Roh’s 1925 essay on a new painting style after Expressionism (i.e. Post-Expressionism). The Post-Expressionist painting, which differs from Expressionist abstract style, returns to realism, yet at the same time integrates Expressionism. The word “magic” aims to point out that “the mystery does not descend to the represented world, but rather hides and palpitates behind it” (Roh 15). The term “magical realism” later was used to refer to the style in Latin American fictions in literary field (Faris 1). Some critics such as
Alejo Carpentier and Angel Flores strongly believe that magical realism has its cultural and political specificities to Latin American literature (Strecher 80). Gabriel García Márquez’s One Hundred Years of Solitude (1967) is considered one of the representative works in Latin American magical realistic fictions. Gradually, magical realism is not specific to Latin American works; post-colonial writers also use magical realism in their writings to show the hybridity of their cultures and socio-political situations. Salman Rushdie’s Midnight Children (1980) is one of the examples. Perhaps one can view magical realism nowadays, as Wendy B. Faris maintains, as a significant “mode of expression” in literary works worldwide (1).
Yet one might ask what “magical realism” is. In a much briefer definition,
according to Faris, magical realism is to combine “realism and the fantastic so that the marvelous seems to grow organically within the ordinary, blurring the distinction between them” (1). She further points out “five primary characteristics” of the magical realist mode: irreducible (magical) element, phenomenal world, readers’ unsettling doubts, merging realms, and disruption of time, space, and identity (7). To start with, the irreducible element is something that our common sense, empirical experiences, or logic cannot explain well. At the same time, they are basically based on the phenomenal world; that is to say, they “exist” in the realistic fictional world. This has to do with the realist tradition in magical realism. One of the major features of the realist style, as above mentioned, is its objective representation of reality in the fictional world. It is undeniable that magical realism “follows” the realist tradition and presents a seemingly real “fictional world that resembles the one we live in” (Faris 14). Such “realistic” delineation of the fictional world is with purpose: it helps distinguish magical realism from fantasy and allegory and emphasizes the “clear departure from realism” of magical elements (14). Because of the magic’s “organic growing” from the realistic setting, readers would doubt and hesitate to make
judgments and interpretations—which is exactly the third trait “unsettling doubts” in Faris’ definition of magical realism. In addition, the merging of magical elements blurs the border between the real/factual and magical/fictional, disturbing one’s “received ideas about time, space, and identity” (23).
With the basic definition of magical realism, one may further examine the magical realist traits in Murakami’s works. In fact, some critics have considered Murakami’s works to be magical realist writings. In her essay “The Magic of Identity: Magic Realism in Modern Japanese Fiction,” Susan Napier maintains that the use of magical realism, especially the “duality” and “unsettling tension between real and unreal,” (453) has become “a means to search for Japanese identity” in modern Japanese literature (455). She argues that Murakami’s works “are permeated with the presence of the marvelous and uncanny” in clearly modern settings along with the contemporary characters, which are the good examples of magical realism in
contemporary Japanese literature (471). Murakami’s short story “TV people” (TV ピ ープル, 1989), for instance, has revealed the passive reception of one’s identity, reflecting the Japanese younger generation’s “unwillingness to assert themselves” (472-73). In his scholarly work on Murakami’s fictions Dances with Sheep, Matthew Strecher also maintains that magical realism could be applied to Murakami’s works. He follows Luis Leal’s much liberal definition of magical realism, regarding magical realism as “an attitude toward reality that can be expressed in popular or cultured terms” (qtd. in Strecher 81). This is also quite similar to Faris’ idea that magical realism is a “mode of expression” (Faris 1). Strecher argues that Murakami’s works simply borrow the writing techniques and style of magical realism but “without necessarily connecting itself in the regional attachments” (82).
The short story “The Tale of the Library” (図書館奇譚, 1982) can be one of the examples to demonstrate Murakami’s magical realist writing. The protagonist “I”
went to a public library to borrow books. He walked down to the room 107 at
basement, which he just knew for the first time even though he was a frequent visitor to the library. The bold old man there led him to go through many hallways,
crossroads, and dark stairs—a labyrinth beneath the library—to reach the reading room. As the protagonist read “Diary of the Tax Gatherer of the Ottoman Empire,” he just became the tax gatherer wandering along the street (my translation, Murakami, “The Tale of the Library” 172). The author ingeniously makes the unusual (an underground maze) “grow” from the ordinary (a public library). Besides, those
“magical” and unusual encounters raise one’s doubt of their actual happenings. As the protagonist finally escaped from the library, he was left alone. One thing for certain was that his newly-bought pair of leather shoes were missing (a symbol of “reality,” perhaps), which he believed that they were still at the basement of the library (195). Meanwhile, he was confused whether those things really had happened. Such lingering effect has created a feeling of uncertainty between the real and the fantasy.
Napier emphasizes that Murakami’s use of magical realism suggests the “problems of identity” in contemporary Japan (473), and Strecher argues that Murakami’s magical realist writing is to depict the inner mind, or “the unconscious Other” (82-83). However, they pay less attention to the “effects” that magical realist writings bring; that is, Murakami’s use of magical realism is not simply to explore the characters’ unconscious or to refer to the problems of identity. To start with, the interweavement of the magical and the real in his works does create baffling effects in the novel. As I have demonstrated in “The Tale of the Library,” the confusion between the real and magical is the intriguing part of the story. Also, sometimes the fantastic happenings may become critical points in the plot development. Besides its narrative functions, the magical realist writing brings certain irony, satires, and entertainment (pleasure for reading). Moreover, those magical elements can be excessive; that is,
they would go beyond simple interpretations. The excessive and unsettling puzzles are also the challenging but fascinating parts of Murakami’s works. In Kafka on the Shore, one can observe such magical realist style of Haruki Murakami. With the interlocking among the factual history, fictional reality, dreams, and the supernatural, the author blurs the real and fantastic, brings certain ironic or satirical effects, and alludes to the two major themes, violence and sex. Meanwhile, those magical events might help resist facile argumentation. In the following, I would like to examine some crucial events in the novel to demonstrate Murakami’s magical realistic style and the issues that those episodes have indicated.
The Rice Bowl Hill Incident: Between History and Fiction
In even-number chapters, a pseudo-official document on the Rice Bowl Hill Incident unfolds the story. The document recorded interviews of the uncanny incident of group unconsciousness in Yamanashi Prefecture near the end of WWII. Teacher Setsuko Okamochi and her 16 primary school students went to Rice Bowl Hill to collect mushrooms. Before they entered the hill, they saw a B-29 flying over it. When they arrived at a clearing, they started to collect mushrooms. However, soon after the students fainted one after another. The cause was thought to be sunstroke, food poison, or gas poison, yet none of them could perfectly explicate the situation. Strangely, the students gradually woke up, yet they have lost the memory of what had happened shortly before they fainted.
It is not difficult for readers to associate the Rice Bowl Hill Incident with the historical past of Japan, and the incident was not too remote from the historical background concerned: the military coercion, food rationing, and B-29 bombing during WWII. Murakami makes the incident more realistic-looking by presenting it in the form of a pseudo-official document:
The following document, classified Top Secret by the US Department of Defense…. The document is now kept in the National Archives in Washington, DC, and can be accessed there….
U.S. ARMY INTELLIGNECE SECTION (MIS) REPORT
Dated: May 12, 1946
Title: Report on the Rice Bowl Hill Incident, 1944
Document Number: PTYX-722-8936745-42216-WWN. (12-13)
The move to present the incident as a historical “episode” during WWII is meant to confuse history and fiction. The form of reportage may aim to convince readers of its “authenticity.” When being asked about the “authenticity” and the historical facts of the Rice Bowl Hill Incident in an interview about Kafka on the Shore, Murakami replied that he would “rather not to go into that.”5
In fact, it is not difficult to see such depictions of the characters’ experiences based on some historical events and
moments in Murakami’s previous works. In Wind-up Bird Chronicle, for instance, he depicts the wartime experiences of the characters such as Nutmeg Akasaka (赤坂ナツ メグ) and Lieutenant Mamiya (間宮徳太郎) in Manchuria based on his historical research of the Nomonhan Incident (Rubin, Music of Words 223). Those are not simply historical facts but with his magical realistic and imaginative writing techniques. As Strecher observes, Murakami is quite talented in mingling “the elements of fantasy, of magical realism, of historical and fictional narrative, into an imaginative presentation of ‘real’ historical moments” (160). In other words, the authenticity might be less important; the incident itself aims to write back to WWII, creating new facets of the “historical truths” to challenge and criticize the war.
One can observe such an inversion of history in the Rice Bowl Hill Incident in
5
“Questions for Haruki Murakami about KAFKA ON THE SHORE,” Haruki Murakami, 2004, 20 March 2012 <http://www.randomhouse.com/features/murakami/site.php?id=>.
Kafka on the Shore. Murakami makes up the rumor of B-29 planes using poison gas
to attack the Japanese. In fact, the B-29s usually came in large formation bombing the Japanese cities,6 and it was Japan rather than the U.S. that (secretly) developed poison gas as a weapon.7 Instead of dealing with history in a realist mode, Murakami re-writes history by blurring the boundary between the historical and fictional in the novel. Yet such inverted treatments and blurring of historical facts do not mean that Murakami intends to reduce history as merely “discourses” as postmodern
historiography does. The historiographic metafiction aims to juxtapose “historical and literary discourses” and to “enact a deconstruction of ‘history’ as the holder of
ultimate truth” (Strecher 164-65). In other words, history, or histories, has become merely discourses rather than “truths” as far as postmodernism is concerned
(Hutcheon 89). Yet, Murakami may not intend to deny the historical past. As Strecher observes, Murakami aims to rewrite “the conventional interpretations of history” (i.e. Japanese historical textbooks) and “rehumanize” of the participants in those history instead of showing facts like “B-29s bombed the cities” or “the student movement occurred in the late 1960s” (180). That is, Murakami turns those historical events into subjective and personal life encounters; he “recuperates (or invents) the highly
personalized stories of individuals” rather than portrays “an impersonal landscape” of the war (182). One can say that Murakami borrows some historical facts and turns them into the characters’ encounters to show that history is not something abstract and
6
B-29 Superfortress, is the type of the aircraft that the U.S. used to bomb Japan territory during WWII (from June 1944 to August 1945). With its inconclusive attacks, cities in Japan were ruined and hundreds of thousands Japanese were killed or injured. The mission of dropping 2 atomic
bombs—“Little Boy” on Hiroshima and “Fat Man” on Nagasaki were also carried by separate B-29s (Enola Gay and Bockscar). See Gordon Daniels, “Before Hiroshima: The Bombing of Japan 1944-45,”
History Today 32.1 (1982), History Today, 2012, 5 June 2012
<http://www.historytoday.com/gordon-daniels/hiroshima-bombing-japan-1944-45>.
remote but very personal lived experiences. It thus becomes possible that his characters who were involved “in WWII” (in the fictional world) held more critical attitudes toward and had negative impressions on the military and the war, which are quite different from Japanese patriotic sentiment and “military mentality” during WWII (Perez 137). The psychiatrist Shigenori Tsukayama (塚山重則), for instance, disliked the military very much. He censures the military for reaching conclusions that meet their preconceptions rather than “pursuing academic truth” (Murakami,
Kafka 65). His words possibly suggest that the U.S. army is just the other Japanese
Imperial Army for ordinary people; both are basically the same: pursuing their own interest and concealing information to the public. Such representations of historical facts, fictional events, and the characters’ attitudes might be the author’s invitation and challenge to readers to contemplate on the wartime past of Japan and the issue of historical violence.
If the author’s presentation of the Rice Bowl Hill Incident aims to confuse the historical and the fictional, the “hidden truth” from the teacher Okamochi further complicates what the characters as well as readers have gained from the fabricated historical incident. In chapter 12, the author presents a letter to “Dear Professor.”8
Okamochi wrote a letter (presumably) to the psychiatrist Tsukayama, who joined the investigation of the incident. This letter of confession revealed the “hidden truth;” that is, Okamochi had a dream at the night before outing, which was so “extremely
realistic and sexually charged” that she could not “distinguish between dream and reality” (105). She dreamed of her husband, who had been drafted to the war, and they crazily had sex and reached orgasm again and again in that dream. The next morning, when Okamochi took those children up to the hill, she could still feel the strong
8 In fact, the letter did not have any signature. From the content readers could infer that it was highly
“lingering effects of sex” as if she were still in that realistic dream (106). Unexpectedly, her menstrual period came. The children had started to collect
mushrooms, yet one of the students, Satoru Nakata, discovered the bloody towels that Okamochi had used. Out of shame and anger, she slapped Nakata hard on his cheeks. Not long after the group unconsciousness started.9
The “confession” reveals the other facet of the incident: Okamochi’s personal deeds. This hidden truth also makes an irony to the cause of the group fainting that the military had strived to dig out. In the meantime, her letter has pointed out the other significant issue—sex—in Kafka on the Shore. That is, as individuals who are the victims of historical violence (i.e. WWII), Nakata and other students might also be sexually traumatized because of the teacher’s towel with the menstrual blood and accompanying “punishment.” Their collective amnesia of the specific violence (Okamochi’s physical punishment on Nakata) can be the best illustration. Moreover, because of their memory loss, the “real” cause of the incident would ever be
unknown—be it violence or sex, or even both. Yet, the teacher is not a pure victimizer on those children. Since her husband was drafted to the war and died, she was in fact a victim under historical violence. Murakami mingles the historical facts with the uncanny fainting in tackling the Rice Bowl Hill Incident, which is an oblique treatment of WWII. Moreover, Okamochi’s dream of the sexual intercourse and her menstrual blood further complicate the incident. The juxtaposition of the historical and fictional has made the issue of violence and sex (sexual trauma) highly related in the incident. Murakami’s use of magical elements creates a puzzling effect and
possibly satirizes the history. However, the criticism is in fact quite ambivalent, which indicates that there might not be clear-cut explications for the victimization and
9 A letter to “Dear Professor,” chapter 12 in Kafka on the Shore. See Haruki Murakami, Kafka on the
traumatization of those children, the teacher, and even the Japanese.
Murder in Nakano Ward: Death of Johnnie Walker and Patricide
Following the Rice Bowl Hill Incident, the author shows us a strange
conversation between the old man Satoru Nakata and a cat in chapter 6. It reminds readers of the traumatized child in the incident, who had become a mentally-impaired person. As a victim of the strange incident, Nakata also suffered from his illiteracy and peer bullying (227-28). Interestingly, he was somehow gifted with a special ability to speak with cats. The author even earnestly explains to readers Nakata’s magical “language acquisition” (228). His blessed gift might echo with the strange incident, suggesting that there is no simple interpretation of the traumatization and victimization. Moreover, his special ability makes him a “hero” in his cat rescue task (and a murderer); that is, he killed Johnnie Walker and saved his cat friends. Nakata’s unusual encounter, however, echoes with the other storyline in the novel. On the very same day, Kafka found himself losing consciousness for several hours after supper. He woke up at a Shinto, discovered the blood stain on his t-shirt, and got hurt on his shoulder. Several days later, Kafka learned the news of his father’s death (211). As to Nakata, after he stabbed the cat killer Johnnie Walker to death, he fell asleep. When he woke up, he found he was right at the vacant plot where he looked for the missing Goma. There was not any blood-stain on his shirt, yet the two cats Mimi and Goma beside him showed that the killing was not a dream. What is more intriguing is that, the identity of the deceased was not the cat-psychopath Johnnie Walker but the famous sculptor Koichi Tamura, Kafka’s father. These two parallel storylines
suddenly converge on the murder event. At the same time, the author’s use of magical realist elements such as the supernatural and speaking cats creates the baffling effects between the reality and fantasy and draws the connections between the two storylines.
Also, the magical realist writings have certain ironic effects and bring out the issue of violence and the potential introspections for readers to reflect upon.
In chapter 6, the story unfolds with a conversation between Satoru Nakata and a cat (47). Though kind of traumatized by the childhood incident, Nakata developed his “foreign language” skills to speak with cats. Nakata also named his cat friends after “human-like” Japanese last names (48). The cats he met were all quite characteristic like every (human) individual was, such as the kind-of-nonsense Kawamura (80-83) and the clever and educated Mimi (84). With his special language gift, Nakata was able to establish friendship and intimacy with cats. One day, the commanding black dog came to Nakata and led him to a big house. There he met the strange cat killer Johnnie Walker, who borrowed the “appearance and name” from the world-famous whisky icon (135). With debuts of the cats, the dog, and a weird “cosplayer” (costume player) one after another, one has gradually been snared into the author’s
magical-realistic narrative. Yet, the characters take such happening quite naturally, or one can say that the author’s “reticence” has naturalized the unusualness in the magical realist writings (Faris 20). Meanwhile, one can sense that the magical does not melt into the realistic setting but become “a grain of sand in the oyster of that realism” (8-9). The most confusing scene is the transition from Nakata’s impetuous killing of Johnnie Walker and cat-rescuing to his waking up in the vacant plot with two meowing cats. Johnnie Walker performed his procedure of cat killing in front of Nakata, provoking Nakata into killing him (Murakami, Kafka 155-56). Finally, Nakata could no longer stand the brutal scene; he grabbed a kitchen knife and stabbed Johnnie Walker to death (159). The massive blood spewed on Nakata, Mimi, and Goma, and Nakata held the two cats and fell asleep (160). However, when Nakata woke up, he was right at the vacant plot where he stayed for several days. At the same time, he somehow lost his ability to converse with cats (175).
The sudden turn of the story and Nakata’s loss of his language gift just lead readers back to the “ordinary” world; all the extraordinariness just evaporates. Such a “return to the reality” is quite intriguing. One may hesitate to judge the magical real nature of Nakata’s previous experiences: he might have imagined that he could talk to cats and fabricated himself a story of cat-rescuing task in a dreamy state—a total fantasy. Readers are exactly like the young police officer in the novel, being perplexed with and hesitating to believe in Nakata’s confession. However, when one is still left undetermined to judge from the real and fantasy/dream, Nakata’s weather forecast of “fish rain” has confirmed, at the same time confused, that his encounters were not mere fabrications. The author skillfully merges the magical events into the ordinary for readers to view them as a part of the fictional reality. As readers are snared into accepting the strangeness (i.e. speaking cats and Johnnie Walker), the author somehow “betrays” the magical realistic world he has created (Nakata’s waking up from a “dream”). Again, Nakata’s dream is confirmed with the supernatural fish rain. The deliberate and continuing alternations between the real and fantastic do bring a strong confusing effect on reading.
This murder event is further complicated by the author’s juxtaposition of Nakata’s magical killing of Johnnie Walker and Kafka Tamura’s fainting and “poetic patricide.” Koichi Tamura’s death happened to be the exact day (May 28th
) that Kafka found himself blood-stained and unconscious at a Shinto shrine in Takamastu. Kafka believed that he might have gone through “some special dream circuit” and he was “poetically responsible” for his father’s death (219). Interestingly, it was also the day that Nakata made his fish-rain prophecy (215).10 One could juxtapose Nakata’s situation (killing but with no blood) with Kafka’s (getting hurt on shoulders, fainting,
10 The fish rain occurred on May 29th; therefore, Nakata should make his weather forecast on May 28th
and blood), which draws certain connection and makes a comparison between the two. Besides, Nakata’s travel route just coincided with Kafka’s: both of them lived in Nakano Ward and traveled directly to Takamatsu, Shikoku. Such coincidence of time, itinerary, and blood/no blood raises one’s doubt if Kafka and Nakata are related to each other—though realistically speaking Nakata does not know 15-year-old Kafka (387); neither does Kafka knows Nakata (357). A possible connection between the two characters might lie in the “living spirits.” Jay Rubin argues that readers could surmise that Kafka’s hatred for his father turns Kafka into a living spirit to do the killing (Music of Words 276). Through the mechanism of “dream circuit” and “living spirits,” the blood that is supposed to be on Nakata is able to be transferred onto Kafka. Rubin may provide the possible explanation for the readers, yet he just ignores the “illogical” nature of the magical realist writings. In fact, magical realist works tend to find its magical elements in myths and folklores. “Living spirits,” which might derive from the Japanese “monogatari” (物語, i.e. The Tale of Genji), has become one of the magical realist elements in Kafka on the Shore.11 In other words, what is more intriguing is that the author has made the living spirit an “irreducible element,” a crucial point to connect the two characters as well as the storylines (Faris 8).
Moreover, toward the end of novel, in his conversation with Miss Saeki, Nakata stated that he “took the place of the 15-year-old boy who should’ve been there” (Murakami,
Kafka 421). Nakata’s words might further suggest that the murder in Nakano Ward
was not simply his killing of Johnnie Walker but also Kafka’s “poetic responsibility” for his father’s death. However, one could not assert there is any actual connection between them. Such elusiveness is exactly in which the pleasure of the magical realist writing lies. The “room for speculations” creates an ostensible relation between the
11 “Monogatari” (物語) means the Japanese “story” or “narrative.” “Monogatari,” Encyclopæ dia
Britannica. Encyclopæ dia Britannica Online, Encyclopæ dia Britannica Inc., 2012, 23 June 2012
two characters and storylines, an enigmatic truth of the murder incident, and the pleasure for reading and interpretations.
In addition to the boundary blurring and the interweavement of Johnnie
Walker’s/Koichi Tamura’s death, Murakami’s magical realist writing is also ironic and playful. To start with, besides their “unusualness,” the speaking cats and the black dog make a great contrast to humans and invert the ordinary and extraordinary. Nakata has been enjoying making friends with cats after he discovered his special language gift. In fact, the cats were the ones that taught him about basic knowledge in the world (228). Compared with bullying peers (in school) and his deceiving cousin (230-31), Nakata’s feline friends were more reliable and trustworthy. Nakata was an illiterate and a “dumb” in the public’s eyes, yet he was “fairly intelligent” as far as a cat could tell (53). Readers may also feel sympathetic for Nakata’s situation because of his childhood accident and other misfortune encounters. A social-peripheral or
social-inferior he might be, however, his special ability to speak with cats has made him a kind of special “hero” in the story. Besides, he is not totally naïve in terms of adapting into the society; he knows how to use his “inferiority” to enjoy the welfare he could get, such as free bus pass and subsidy. The comparison between humans and cats creates ironic effects on humans’ arrogance and discriminations against the inferior. Similarly, the black dog has reversed the master-subordinate relation between humans and animals that one used to take for granted. It was the dog that
“commanded” Nakata to follow instead of Nakata walking the huge dog (131). The dog’s aggressiveness and masculinity also sharply contrast with Nakata’s
powerlessness and asexuality. It subverts the sense of superiority/inferiority and the subjugator/the subjugated between a human and a dog in people’s perception.
However, people (in the novel) were not aware of such an inversion; they gave Nakata, the supposed master of the dog, “reproachful looks” (132). The deliberate narrative
tone and focalization (in a third-person position) provide readers with the pleasure and “superiority” of omniscience in the position of readers, mocking humans’ ignorance.
In addition to the ironic effects and playfulness in the magical realist narratives, this episode has indicated the issue of violence and related ethical questions in Kafka
on the Shore. In order to provoke Nakata, Johnnie Walker performed his cat
maltreatment show in front of Nakata. He justified his mistreat on those cats, claiming that it was part of the procedure to make his special flute by collecting those cats’ souls (151). Johnnie Walker further compared their situation to the war, an either-or choice between killing cats or him; Nakata was forced/invited to join his “human history in a nutshell” (Murakami, Kafka 153 and Rubin, Music of Words 282). In order to save his cat friends, Nakata stabbed Johnnie Walker to death. The cat killing, as Rubin states, has taken on “a highly personalized aspect” when the author makes those cats “recognized individuals” rather than “faceless victims” (281). In addition, Nakata’s “innocuous” being makes a contrast to his involvement into the violence. When Colonel Sanders informed that the police were after Nakata, Hoshino could hardly believe that, since Nakata was “the last person you’d ever imagine committing a crime” (Murakami, Kafka 366). Rubin argues that with this “surreal drama,”
Murakami might want to make his readers “feel the dilemma faced by those who want peace but also human justice” (Music of Words 282).
Rubin’s association with the cat killing and the comparison to the war and peace might be quite true, yet what is at issue perhaps lies in the justification of violence and the ethical problems concerned rather than the allegorical readings on the war. The author has chosen to present a magical cat killing rather than a realistic human-killing. Such intentional depictions can help reduce the violent effects, yet it does not mean maltreatment of cats is justified—it is life-threatening case, at least for the cat-friendly Nakata. Nakata finally took extreme measures to save his cat friends—to kill Johnnie
Walker. The once victimized harmless old man just turned into a murderer. Yet, one may stand on Nakata’s side; since Johnnie Walker is a villain character. Meanwhile, one could associate it with the death of Kafka’s father. Murakami portrays a BAD father and bad father-son relation; this father is also a villain character to some extent (Murakami, Kafka 214 and 217-18). On the one hand, to kill one (the villain) in order to save more (i.e. cats and the son), utilitarianly speaking, might appear permissible. On the other, to kill or to take away one’s life might not be morally sound. More significantly, there are ethical questions that if violence is some necessary evil (to stop other form of violence), and if one has the right and is justifiable to impose violence on others. Such morally ambivalent situations also appear when Nakata uses leech rain to stop gang of bikers from bullying a man (207) and when Hoshino has to kill the white stuff to prevent it from entering the other world (489). With the magical realistic portrayal of the murder event, Murakami elusively indicates the problem of violence and its ethical questions. It might intrigue his readers to reflect upon the cycle of violence, the justification of violence, and the ethical problems—which transcend the simple dichotomy or the allegorical reading of peace and the war/violence. (I would further elaborate on the issue of violence in the second chapter.)
Entrance Stone, Colonel Sanders, and the Other World
The alternative world in Kafka on the Shore is the other significant allusion to the issue of violence (as well as sex and desire, which I would discuss later in this chapter and in the third chapter). With the magical realist writing and interlocking narrative, the author foreshadows the existence of the entrance stone and the other world in the novel. On the one hand, Hoshino met Colonel Sanders, who helped him get the entrance stone. He “opened” the entrance by flipping it over. On the other,
Kafka was able to meet the two nameless Imperial soldiers when he traveled deep into the forest—with the open of the entrance in the other storyline. This alternative world, however, was neither like a world of the dead nor like a fairyland, but more like a plain small countryside deep in the mountain. Yet “people” there looked quite
comfortable with the place. In the following section, I will examine the magical realist writings of this episode, the potential interpretations, and its elusive indications of violence.
After killing of Johnnie Walker, Nakata felt impelled (without any reason) to head west for Shikoku to find the “entrance stone” (257). It strikes readers that in Kafka’s line, the “entrance stone” appeared in the lyrics of “Kafka on the Shore” written by Miss Saeki: The drowning girl’s fingers/ Search for the entrance stone, and more (245 and 270). It suggested that Miss Saeki might have found the stone and reached the other world, a place where she could go beyond “the flow of time” (267-68). The surreal lyrics and Nakata’s search for the stone hinted the possible existence of the other world. Though an important stone, it was in fact quite ordinary, contrasting with is importance and “divinity.” With the help of the “pimp” Colonel Sanders, Hoshino got the stone. Obviously, one could see that Murakami plays with the icon Colonel Sanders (American fast-food “grandfather”). His appearance does bring certain “comic effect” and make fun of the capitalism, saying that he did not choose to be Mickey Mouse because Disney might be “particular about the rights to their characters” (305). As a pimp, he was in fact quite knowledgeable (talking about Japanese classics, 305) and very experienced in dealing with mundane affairs—kind of ironic to the class/knowledge hierarchy and secularity/divinity (sexual transaction at a Shinto shrine). Sanders with his magical power had become a crucial character to help the story move on: to hand Hoshino “Chekhov’s pistol,” the entrance stone (309). The author uses a plain stone to represent the entrance to the other world, playing with
the idea of “Chekhov’s pistol,” or the dramaturgy. Yet, the stone is not always a common one. When it had to be “the entrance,” its weight increased to an extreme, going against the logic—a magical treatment (333). Also, the flipping of the stone in Nakata’s story had a “butterfly effect” impacting Kafka’s storyline: his encounter with the two Imperial soldiers and visit to the other world.
During Kafka’s second-time dwelling in the mountain cabin, he decided to travel deep into the forest. The appearance of the two unaging soldiers lost in the maneuvers, marked Kafka’s entering into the fantastic world. They were still wearing
Imperial-army uniforms and carrying rifles (432 and 434). They were like Charon, ferrymen of Styx in Western mythology, and with their help Kafka traveled to “the other world.” However, unlike the underworld in mythologies, this “other world” in
Kafka on the Shore looked just like some neighboring tiny community: a basin
surrounded by the forest, with a stream, roads, and buildings (448). One may find this alternative world familiar; since Murakami has written about “the Town” (“the end of the world”) in his previous work Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World (thus HBW & EW). It is quite possible that the author uses the Town in HBW & EW as a prototype for the town in Kafka on the Shore. Differing from the Town in HBW &
EW, which “exists” in the conscious circuit of protagonist “Watashi” in the plot of
“Hard-Boiled Wonderland,” the small town in Kafka on the Shore appears to be “realistic” existence, a parallel world or reality.12
Though geographically isolated, the town was not, as the two soldiers explained, “cut off from the world” (450). Instead, they did connect with “outside” and have food transaction. There was also electricity
12
This would lead us to another storyline in HBW & EW. In the “Hard-Boil Wonderland,” the protagonist Watashi (私, “I “in Japanese, a formal one) worked as a Calcutec. As a Calcutec, he had to shuffle data in and out of his brain. Watashi was the one with special abilities; that is, there existed another conscious circuit inside him when he did the shuffling. The name of alternative conscious circuit was exactly “The End of the World,” which was also the town and the protagonist Boku (僕, “I” in Japanese as well) in the storyline “The End of the World.” In other words, the town actually belongs to Watashi’s consciousness, one of his conscious circuits. See Haruki Murakami, Hard-Boiled
so that they could use appliances like fridges and TV (it only showed The Sound of
Music). Paradoxically, the more realistic and ordinary the town and the life appear to
be, the more unusual the world is. Such oddity confuses one with the real and magical, the effect that the author’s magical realist writing intends to create. Murakami further creates its baffling effect with the great resemblance between the mountain cabin and the house in the other world (449) and Kafka’s conversation with Oshima’s brother Sada, who had met the two soldiers as well (496), to “support” the idea that this alternative world could really exist.
Besides the unsettling doubts between the real and the magical, what is more significant is the allusions to the issue of violence and the possible sociopolitical connotations in this episode. The “being” of the pop-cultural iconic figure Colonel Sanders, for instance, could allude to Japan’s historical past: the U.S. occupation after WWII and the American cultural invasion. The “intrusion” of this American pop cultural figure is metaphorical of the cultural invasion or the Americanization after WWII. His humorous but kind of ironic remarks on the de-mythification of the
Japanese emperor have just implied the U.S. power over the Japanese (308). Similarly, the two soldiers in their Imperial uniforms do not intend to show the once-glory
Imperial Japan; instead, they insist that the uniforms are the signs of “what we left behind” (434). Interestingly, they choose to remain as “soldiers” rather than to give up such an identity. In fact, they used to be a farmer and a fresh graduate before they were drafted (433). However, they behave in a soldier’s way, doing a soldier’s job in that world; they stand at attention, salute, and are always on sentry (451 and 480). Their deeds contradict their comments on the war and violence, hinting that it is not easy to come up with a lucid explanation of such ambivalence (447). Similarly, the alternative world in the novel is not like a world of the dead (i.e. a hell) or a fairyland. The realistic setting (with an objective description) and the familiarity of the
alternative world could upset the readers if one expects to see something extraordinary. It looks like a utopia, a social-political ideal place, yet there is no exact “rule” for one to obey. Or, the rule is something very philosophical: “when you’re in the forest, you become a seamless part of it. When you’re in the rain, you’re a part of the rain…” (472). There is also something excessive that one cannot find some appropriate interpretation to “contain” it. For instance, there is no written word in any form: neither labels on clothes nor books (470). The author deliberately expunges any kind of word from this alterative world. If its letter-less-ness suggests the prevention of civilization from infiltrating to this world, it somehow contradicts their use of products that civilization has brought. Such ambivalence and excessiveness are also the fascinating but challenging part in Murakami’s magical realistic presentations of the issue of violence in Kafka on the Shore.
Sex, Incest, and Desire
With the magical-realistic writings and interweavement of the narratives, Kafka had certain relation with Satoru Nakata and got involved in his father’s death, which coincidentally fulfilled his father’s “Oedipal malediction” against him (patricide). The other part of his father’s curse was that Kafka would have incestuous relations with his sister and mother. In the novel, Kafka met two women that he viewed as his potential sister and mother: Sakura and Miss Saeki. With the magical realistic narrative effects and “play” of the Oedipus complex, Murakami not only blurs the realistic and fantastic but also creates certain “relationships”—partly incest and partly romances—between Kafka and Sakura, and Kafka and Miss Saeki: Sakura’s “hand job” on Kafka, Kafka’s dream of rape, Kafka’s love for the ghostly young Saeki/the real Miss Saeki, and their potential mother-son and lover relations. The elusive relationships between the characters also complicate the possible interpretations.
