Ryan's post

 

This post will be more of a meditation than an outright thesis, but I made what I think to be a very important connection in the understanding of both The Strange Library and Pornography As a Winter Museum. In Audre Lorde’s essay (I will link it below) The Uses of the Erotic, Lorde makes a clear distinction between the “pornographic” and the “erotic.” The “pornographic,” the obscene, the relegated-to-only-sexual, the masturbatory (both physically and conceptually), and the focus of Winter Museum, is a body of content developed from society’s repression of the “erotic”: the honestly pleasurable (sexual or otherwise), fulfilling, informational, and the focus of The Strange Library. The suppression of the erotic, as you will see Lorde describe, is intrinsic to the perpetuation of the power of the conventions of our contemporary society. Commodified work, the continuation of hierarchy, and the suppression of individual thought necessary for modern labor/ transaction/ political systems all hinge on the erotic being, at the minimum, sequestered to the limited context of the bedroom and the escape of intimacy or, worst case, obscured entirely; this can push to the extremity of an individual never knowing it at all, and thus needing to rediscover it for themselves. The Winter Museum primarily (and explicitly!) orbits the pornographic; sex is cold, a collision of bodies without the effort to understand the other, a moment of possible sensate pleasure only (“like orphans hoping for warmth”). Murakami does not provide an answer to the pornographic, but instead illustrates its existence—it’s something he’s not necessarily aware of in name, but very attuned to in phenomenon, as almost all of his sexual encounters play out this way (devoid of the erotic). Winter Museum is not a thesis in and of itself, but a display of evidence supplementary to his larger canon, to his larger illustration of contemporary society as prolifically, and almost inescapably, pornographic. The short story, then, acts as a contrasting work or primary example of this problem that helps us to better understand the outcome of The Strange Library. The Boku of the story engages, before anything else, in the erotic, and seeks to live his life erotically. He wishes to consume information for the thrill of the activity, for the fulfillment of knowledge, finds honest pleasure in good food, and learns to reject the pornographic, the commodification of his effort (as harvested by the old man), the destitute prison cell, and the ball and chain—all figments representative of external society, or internalizations of expectations of internal society, at large. The sparrow/ girl is the very internal, honest, communicative urge for the erotic, a human’s desire to chase it to freedom, the impetus with which one may escape the self-destructive labyrinth of the pornographic. Also significant is Lorde’s attribution of the erotic to the feminine (not the womanly) layer of society/ the unconscious, and the female human form of the sparrow.

 

https://www.centraleurasia.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/audre_lorde_cool-beans.pdf

Different Translation of "A perfect day for kangaroos"

Ted Goossen's translation uses more literal words than Philip Gabriel's which is the version we read first. For example, Goossen uses "Maybe it's turned neurotic and gone into seclusion," whereas Gabriel says "But what if it had a nervous breakdown and is hiding off in a corner." The latter is much more conversational and comprehensible. 

In Goossen's translation, the part where Boku tried to console his girlfriend by wrapping his arm around her is eliminated, shedding an indifferent light onto Boku's character. The context of the deleted part is the girlfriend is disappointed at the baby kangaroo growing into a teen kangaroo. The Boku in Goossen seems to make a minimal effort to console her by saying "it could still be called a baby" and goes off to buy ice cream without replying to his girlfriend's remark. But the Boku in Gabriel has much more internal thoughts like trying to console her but afraid to say anything to further upset his girlfriend. I wonder why Goossen's translation is missing that part. But Goossen's translation includes the girlfriend's remark about Doraemon that isn't included in Gabriel's translation. The added line adds more awkwardness to the conversation, furthering the gap between Boku and his girlfriend.

 

                                                                                                                            Xiaoya 

Either Way You Turn, I’ll Be There: The Wall That Moves With You

While reading The City and Its Uncertain Walls, I was reminded of Radiohead’s “Climbing Up the Walls.” The song's lyrics — “And either way you turn, I’ll be there / Open up your skull, I’ll be there” — echo the novel's unsettling sense that even in solitude, you are never truly alone. This struck me because it mirrors how Murakami’s wall doesn’t just keep people in or out, it infiltrates the mind – it moves, reappears, and watches. 

In Chapter 24, the narrator is confronted with this directly. He comes upon a wall that appears out of nowhere — one that wasn’t there before: “I suddenly knew: The wall was able to freely change its shape and location. It could move anywhere it wanted to. And the wall had decided not to let us get out.” This wall isn’t a fixed boundary. It’s an omnipresent, sentient force that adapts to your thoughts, your fears, your movements. It relies on fear to separate the inside from the outside. 

As the narrator continues forward, the wall shifts from threats to taunts that anticipate failure: “No way you guys can get through the wall. Even if you did get through one, another wall would be waiting for you” (Chapter 25). These are psychological tactics. The main deterrent is not physical – the wall doesn’t have to stop you; it just has to make you stop yourself. Thus, what actually stops you are the internalized rules that you accept before you even try to break them. 

This is where I saw the connection to the song — in “Climbing Up the Walls,” the haunting is embedded in your psyche, rather than being imposed from the outside: “Open up your skull, I’ll be there.” In The City and Its Uncertain Walls, chillingly, the wall mocks the narrator and says: “Run as far away as you’d like… I will always be there” (Chapter 24). 

Interestingly, this is not a warning — it’s a guarantee that no matter where you flee, no matter how fast or far, escape is just an illusion if the watcher is already inside you. The phrasing “I’ll be there” and “I will always be there” is also perturbing, since it subverts what is usually a comforting sentiment and turns it into a promise of invasive surveillance. 

The terrifying thing about Murakami’s wall isn’t that it can’t be climbed – It’s that it becomes a part of you. The City and Its Uncertain Walls reflects how fear can create walls within the psyche, leaving us trapped not by someone else but by ourselves.

Irina

Multiple selves in Murakami's writing

I am intrigued by the idea in Murakami’s writing that people have "multiple selves." In The City and its Uncertain Walls, Murakami uses the unusual phrases “the real me,” “the real you” in the conversation between the girl and Boku. The “real self” of the girl, and the self Boku is interacting with, are separate. Boku also separates into two, when his shadow (or maybe his real self?) splits from him. I thought this language—“the real me”—was very unique yet closely mirrored language Murakami used when talking of Miu’s experience on the ferris wheel in Sputnik Sweetheart. When Miu looks through her apartment windows from the ferris wheel, she sees herself. “I’m right here,” Miu thinks, “looking at my room through binoculars. And in that room is me.” Murakami didn’t write, “but in that room is me,” he wrote “and,” creating an emphasis that the two selves are not mutually exclusive, whether those two selves are Miu’s two selves, or the two selves of the girl or Boku in The City and its Uncertain Walls. In Sputnik Sweetheart, Miu continues to refer to her second self without negating its reality/existence: she refers to it as “the Miu in the apartment,” “the Miu inside the room,” and “another me.” And then there is the question of “Which me, on which side of the mirror, is the real me?” that is mirrored by the question in The City and its Uncertain Walls of whether the narrator Boku is a shadow or his real self, or whether his “shadow” is actually his real self. This clearly connects to Murakami’s exploration of the subconscious and conscious—but it also made me think of a NYT article I read recently on “The Artists Finding New Ways to Depict the Human Body.” The author talks about how even as we are becoming more able to regulate the body through medical treatments, hormone therapies, organ transplants etc, the body is simultaneously becoming more vulnerable, under increased scrutiny from social media and becoming increasingly and negatively subject to laws and environmental crises. As it becomes more apparent that there is no inherent “‘human’ body anymore,” art is starting to reflect “profound anxieties over permanence.” I think this, in a way, relates to these examples in Murakami’s writing. Murakami emphasizes that his characters have multiple selves when he is also emphasizing their vulnerability or a struggle they are going through. The girl in The City and its Uncertain Walls, in my opinion, is struggling with severe depression and that’s what creates this split—same with Boku, in a way. As for Miu, she has a traumatic experience: Ferdinando rapes her. I also think it connects to anxieties around eternity, particularly with the theme of eternity in The City and its Uncertain Walls.

Hallie

Emma's post on The Strange Library

 I really enjoyed The Strange Library, it was one of my first introductions to Murakami and it still sticks with me even after reading much more of his work. One thing I found interesting about the story was the topic of voice. Most of the characters in the story do not have access to their own voice in one way or another. As we learn, the young beautiful girl who turns out to be the starling cannot speak, this is the most physical example. I find this first example particularly interesting because she is a bird and birds are first and foremost known for their voices. Secondly, the protagonist finds himself unable to say no or be impolite in any way to the old man, even when he learns what his motives are. The sheep man, too, describes how he loses the ability to resist the old man when he is faced with the whip which can be seen as another inability to use one’s voice or own volition. Lastly, when the boy returns home at the end of the story, his mother does not ask him at all what happened and not a word about the event was ever spoken between them. I think that this must be connected with the mother’s death at the end of the story when she passes away from an inexplicable illness. Perhaps the mother’s death has something to do with internalized pain and the inability to share or express trauma?
Emma Larkin

Museums, Sex, and Lonliness

Pornography as a Winter Museum is emblematic of the character's psyche, encased in a physical space. Within the 'uncertain walls' of the museum encases the hallmark of human shame, sexual desire, "when sex becomes the talk of the town and the darkness is filled with its waves, I’m always standing at the door of the winter museum". This space appears to represent the nature of the narrators mind when engaging in sexual acts. The common and mundane objects that would normally represent artifacts of a museum, significant symbols of ones mind, are devoid of meaning to the narrator, "of course the stove and fridge and toothbrush have no history - they're just things I got at the nearby electric shop or general store". 

I interpreted this story as someone struggling with a plausible sex addiction, and their inability to experience intimacy as a result. When this man thinks of sex he is brought to a cold space where things seem devoid of meaning. The narrator attempts to find warmth in this space, he warms up milk for himself, which is probably representative of some female relationship he is longing for. His acts in the museum, which I think represent different sexual acts, are procedural. He checks off his list of what I interpret to be acts of arousal as if he is incapable of doing anything else. But once "sex strikes the door" of his museum, and he allows it in by opening the door, the milk loses its warmth. He is confronted with the opportunity of sex, Jar 36 slips into a dense slumber, and he is filled with a sense of meaninglessness. There is someone at the door, but the narrator doesn't care. He's "given up on people", given up on any form of intimacy, and is left devoid of feeling. I think this story is about internal world of a lonely sex addict, someone who is unable to curb their sexual urges, who is blinded by them until they are complete, and is ultimately left after completion with an overwhelming emptiness. He yearns for the warmth of another, but is too depressive and removed to make a change.

                                                                                                                            Gia

Shadows Blog Post 5

Throughout this course and my reading of Murakami something I have noticed is his focus on people who don't have shadows. When a person doesn't have a shadow, this entails them having some kind of quirk or difference that sets them apart from a "normal" human. I first noticed this reading, Kafka on the Shore where Nagata, one of the dual protagonists, who does not have a shadow. He once did have a shadow, but due to a random event, he lost it as a child. When he had his shadow he was normal, when he lost it he became "stupid," but also gained supernatural powers. He could call fish from the sky, see things others can't, and has an intrinsic understanding of magical events. Due to losing his shadow he can no longer exist in society as a normal member, but lives on the outskirts. 

Not all shadowless people have magical powers, but they all can no longer live in normal society. We can see this in A City and Its Uncertain Walls. In ACAIUW all residents of the City are shadowless. It is described in detail how they differ form normal human societies. They don't use clocks, they eat on a different schedule, are less social, among others. We see another shadowless person in part 2 of ACAIUW, with Mr. Kayasu. He does not have a shadow because he is dead. 

In both cases someone not having a shadow represents them no longer being just human. There is something special about them and should be regarded as such. They could have magical powers, be a ghost, or live in a magical place, but none-the-less they are no longer the same "species" as a person with a shadow. Therefore, I would say that shadows represent something distinctly human. When someone loses it they lose a bit of their ability to connect with other humans. A shadow is an intrinsic and necessary aspect of living in human society. 

One could further this and say that shadows don't just represent an aspect of humanity, but of being apart of the normal world itself. After-all animals still have shadows and so do the trees. Shadows could represent being a cog in the machine of "normal" society. A place without shadows would then be a "non-normal" society, such as the city in ACAIUW. 

-Cam Hoff