Listening to Women
Dec. 19th, 2012 11:03 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
mtvesselMay 2012
Norwegian Wood - Haruki Murakami - Vintage, 2003
* * * *
Murakami has been on my "authors to try" list for some time, partly because of the intriguing titles and covers of his books, but also because I am a bit of a Japanophile. There is something about the culture that fascinates me. It is very different from mine with its temples and its savoury doughnuts, but other aspects - the politeness, social stratification, obsession with nature and the weather, the long history, the occasional ruthlessness of political and military leaders, the empires gained and lost - are all very familiar. One difference that I really like is the fact that, as in Germany, public transport and other services just seem to work without fuss, bother or moaning. So unlike my own dear country.
Anyway, back to Murakami. Yes, he is definitely a find. Although the delicacy and refinement of feeling that is characteristic of Japanese art is there, it is combined with a heavy slew of western cultural references. This makes the book very approachable, but not as beautifully alien as I was expecting. Indeed, I am surprised that it was such a big hit in its home market.
The first western borrowing is the title, which comes from the Beatles song. It is appropriate not only because the book is set in the late sixties but also because it is essentially a series of one-on-one meetings between a man and a woman like the one described in the original lyrics (though fortunately without the deeply unpleasant mysogyny - I personally consider the song to be one of the vilest things ever committed to vinyl). The man is Toru Watanabe, a drama student whose best friend at school, Kizuki, unexpectedly committed suicide. The woman is Naoko, Kizuki's girlfriend. She is devastated by his death and becomes emotionally vulnerable, leading her and Toru to develop a close relationship. But a complication arises when Toru meets Midori, a lively young student who in many ways is Naoko's opposite and with whom he feels a strong connection.
There's not a lot more to say about the plot - there are various other characters, such as a dissolute diplomat-in-training called Nagasawa and Toru's memorably named room-mate Storm Trooper, but they are only bit parts. The pleasures of the book instead derive from the delicacy and detail of the feelings described and the lively portrayal of student life in late-sixties Tokyo. The latter seems surprisingly similar to western universities with its dormitories, refectory food and student politics, though one characteristic feature is the way that the threatened rebellion fizzles out without changing anything. Toru's enthusiasms are all western: The Great Gatsby is his favourite book, he is studying Strindberg, Euripedes and Dickens in his course, and he has a day job at a record store. But the conversations - with Naoko, Midori, Nagasawa's girlfriend Hatsumi and Naoko's friend Reiko - have a precision and delicacy that is characteristically Japanese.
Despite this sophistication, I do wonder about the realism of the women characters. For one thing, they all have a similar personality type that reminds me strongly of geishas, with a charming articulacy concealing vulnerability arising from a devastating lack of self-confidence. This is often how Japanese women are portrayed and may be intended as a criticism of his society by the author, or maybe he genuinely thinks that this is what the Japanese female personality is like. Also, the story is told entirely from Watanabe's point of view, which made it hard to understand why quite so many women wanted to spend so much time with him - he is not particularly good-looking and some of his behaviour towards them is at best ethically dubious (though realistically immature for someone in his late teens). Is it male wish fulfillment on the part of the author? Or is it a realistic response to the fact that Watanabe, unlike the other men in the story, genuinely appears to like listening to women? I couldn't make up my mind and would be interested to know what women readers - especially Japanese ones - think.
Norwegian Wood - Haruki Murakami - Vintage, 2003
* * * *
Murakami has been on my "authors to try" list for some time, partly because of the intriguing titles and covers of his books, but also because I am a bit of a Japanophile. There is something about the culture that fascinates me. It is very different from mine with its temples and its savoury doughnuts, but other aspects - the politeness, social stratification, obsession with nature and the weather, the long history, the occasional ruthlessness of political and military leaders, the empires gained and lost - are all very familiar. One difference that I really like is the fact that, as in Germany, public transport and other services just seem to work without fuss, bother or moaning. So unlike my own dear country.
Anyway, back to Murakami. Yes, he is definitely a find. Although the delicacy and refinement of feeling that is characteristic of Japanese art is there, it is combined with a heavy slew of western cultural references. This makes the book very approachable, but not as beautifully alien as I was expecting. Indeed, I am surprised that it was such a big hit in its home market.
The first western borrowing is the title, which comes from the Beatles song. It is appropriate not only because the book is set in the late sixties but also because it is essentially a series of one-on-one meetings between a man and a woman like the one described in the original lyrics (though fortunately without the deeply unpleasant mysogyny - I personally consider the song to be one of the vilest things ever committed to vinyl). The man is Toru Watanabe, a drama student whose best friend at school, Kizuki, unexpectedly committed suicide. The woman is Naoko, Kizuki's girlfriend. She is devastated by his death and becomes emotionally vulnerable, leading her and Toru to develop a close relationship. But a complication arises when Toru meets Midori, a lively young student who in many ways is Naoko's opposite and with whom he feels a strong connection.
There's not a lot more to say about the plot - there are various other characters, such as a dissolute diplomat-in-training called Nagasawa and Toru's memorably named room-mate Storm Trooper, but they are only bit parts. The pleasures of the book instead derive from the delicacy and detail of the feelings described and the lively portrayal of student life in late-sixties Tokyo. The latter seems surprisingly similar to western universities with its dormitories, refectory food and student politics, though one characteristic feature is the way that the threatened rebellion fizzles out without changing anything. Toru's enthusiasms are all western: The Great Gatsby is his favourite book, he is studying Strindberg, Euripedes and Dickens in his course, and he has a day job at a record store. But the conversations - with Naoko, Midori, Nagasawa's girlfriend Hatsumi and Naoko's friend Reiko - have a precision and delicacy that is characteristically Japanese.
Despite this sophistication, I do wonder about the realism of the women characters. For one thing, they all have a similar personality type that reminds me strongly of geishas, with a charming articulacy concealing vulnerability arising from a devastating lack of self-confidence. This is often how Japanese women are portrayed and may be intended as a criticism of his society by the author, or maybe he genuinely thinks that this is what the Japanese female personality is like. Also, the story is told entirely from Watanabe's point of view, which made it hard to understand why quite so many women wanted to spend so much time with him - he is not particularly good-looking and some of his behaviour towards them is at best ethically dubious (though realistically immature for someone in his late teens). Is it male wish fulfillment on the part of the author? Or is it a realistic response to the fact that Watanabe, unlike the other men in the story, genuinely appears to like listening to women? I couldn't make up my mind and would be interested to know what women readers - especially Japanese ones - think.