Haruki Murakami, Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World (1985)

1. Haruki Murakami,Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World (1985)

2. Haruki Murakami • Japanese writer and translator, b. 1949 • Has translated American novels into Japanese • Taught at Princeton University • Owned a jazz club with his wife; began writing in 1978 after watching a baseball game • Often classified as a magical-realist writer; Hard-Boiled Wonderland uses more SF imagery than most of his other writings

3. The English Translation • Translated by Alfred Birnbaum in 1991 • Differences between narrative worlds and languages (different pronouns in Japanese; different tenses in English) • Untranslatable or awkward phrases? • Relations to Murakami’s work translating English texts into Japanese?

4. The Text and its Worlds • Hybridized fictional world(s) • Futuristic-modern (Hard-Boiled Wonderland) vs. quasi-medieval (End of the World) • Physical differences of text: type, title headings, map of the End of the World

5. The Library and the Librarian • Present in both realities (connections?) • Relationship to narrator • Librarian as guide and source of information (cf. Adams & Stephenson) • Library of “old dreams” - repository of memories • End-of-the-World Librarian’s memory of her mother • Role of information in both worlds: “infowars” vs. free access for all

6. “Hard-Boiled Wonderland” • Murakami’s use of cyberpunk elements • Role of Japanese folklore: the INKlings • Connections between the Calcutecs and the Semiotecs • Narrator as hard-boiled character • Recurring elements from “End of the World” chapters

7. “End of the World” • Physical or chronological sense - apocalypse or point of no return? • Utopia or dystopia? Both? Neither? • Use of the phrase in the “Hard-Boiled Wonderland” chapters • The novel’s ending • Relations to other, similar treatments: e.g. Kafka’s The Castle; the Village in The Prisoner

8. Names, Counterpart Theory, Multiple Personalities • Lack of names: clue to the connection between narrators and worlds? • Can the same individual exist in more than one possible world? • Can more than one possible world exist in the same individual? • Double consciousness (W.E.B. DuBois): existing in more than one grouping/world/etc. - e.g. being Japanese and being Western • Overlapping individuals (David Lewis): “one part in the actual world and one part in some other world. . . .Two worlds overlap if they share a common part” • Rigid and nonrigid designators (Saul Kripke): properties that distinguish individuals between and in possible worlds • Left/right-brain divisions • Multiple personalities / Dissociative Identity Disorder (cf. Dick’s A Scanner Darkly) • Memory implants?

9. “The world here and now does exist. But on the phenomenological level, this world is only one out of countless possibilities. . . .when your memory changes, the world changes. . . .as you create memories, you’re creatin’ a parallel world” • “The subconscious mind is always changin’. Like an encyclopedia that keeps puttin’ out a whole new edition every day” • “Outer space aside, this is truly humanity’s last terra incognita”

10. Awareness of one narrator/world of the other? • Characterizations of the narrator(s): skills, relation to the world(s) around them • “There are things we can remember and things we cannot remember” • Slippages between worlds (unicorns, paperclips, etc.) • The Professor’s explanation of the narrator’s divided self

11. Mind, Shadows, Unicorns • Carl Jung and the symbolism of the shadow, dreams, and the unconscious • Shadow as separate entity • “Dreamreader” - reference to Freud’s Interpretation of Dreams • Unicorns as embodiments of memory and identity • “My memories belonged to me. Stealing memories was stealing time”

12. The Professor • Diversity of his interests: “Everythin’ from neuropsychology to acoustics, linguistics to comparative religion” • Desire to control reality through his discoveries • “science for the sake of pure science”; isn’t concerned with the effects of his research on others

13. Other Characters • The granddaughter: socially isolated, but skilled at other things; asks lots of questions, especially inappropriate ones • End-of-the-World characters: no individuality • The Semiotecs: stereotypical “tough guys” with a twist

14. Murakami and Popular Culture • “I love pop culture -- the Rolling Stones, the Doors, David Lynch, things like that. That's why I said I don't like elitism. I like horror films, Stephen King, Raymond Chandler, detective stories. I don't want to write those things. What I want to do is use those structures, not the content. I like to put my content in that structure. That's my way, my style. So both of those kinds of writers don't like me. Entertainment writers don't like me, and serious literature people don't like me. I'm kind of in-between, doing a new kind of thing.”

15. “For a long time I made many references to Western culture in my books because that's the culture that surrounded me and that I liked. I am of the generation of Elvis Presley, the Beach Boys and television shows like Peter Gunn. Most Japanese people during the sixties were impressed by American culture because of what we saw on TV. When I was a boy, I was especially impressed when I saw American TV shows like Father Knows Best. The lifestyle of those people seemed almost unimaginably rich to the people in Japan of that time. These Americans had big cars and TVs and so many other gadgets. It was like heaven. Jazz, detective fiction, television, rock music--these were part of the world I am most familiar with, and so when I began writing, I naturally made references to them.”

16. “I had been so immersed in Western culture ever since I was about ten or twelve--not just jazz but also Elvis and Vonnegut. I think that my interest in these things was partly due to wanting to rebel against my father (he was a teacher of Japanese literature) and against other Japanese orthodoxies. So when I was sixteen I stopped reading Japanese novels and began reading Russian and French novelists, such as Dostoyevsky, Stendhal, and Balzac, in translation. After studying English for four years in high school, I began reading American books at used-bookstores. By reading American novels I could escape out of my loneliness into a different world. It felt like visiting Mars at first, but gradually I began to feel comfortable there.”

17. Murakami’s use of Western cultures vs. Gibson’s and Stephenson’s use of Japanese culture • Intercultural and intertextual references as elements in creating hybrid fictional worlds

18. Murakami’s Influence on Popular Culture • Has had film adaptations of some of his work, but not yet Hard-Boiled Wonderland • 1998-2002 manga/anime series Haibane Renmei (Charcoal Feather Federation) loosely inspired by the “End of the World” sections • Visual artworks influenced by his themes

19. Murakami and Other Writers • Murakami vs. Lem: questioning of knowledge; ironic use of academic discourse; role of memory and the unknown/unknowable • Murakami vs. Dick: questioning of reality and identity; references to entropy • Murakami vs. Adams: use of humour; ironic use of apocalyptic imagery; combination of the fantastic and the mundane • Murakami vs. Banks: use of utopian elements; unconventional narrators • Murakami vs. Gibson: cyberpunk themes; role of Japanese and Western cultures • Murakami vs. Stephenson: alternate realities; cross-cultural hybridization; satirical treatment of globalized cultures; role of librarians