“As long as I stared at the clock, at least the world remained in motion. Not a very consequential world, but in motion nonetheless. And as long as I knew the world was in motion, I knew I existed. Not a very consequential existence, but an existence nonetheless. It struck me as wanting that someone should confirm his own existence only by the hands of an electric wall clock. There had to be a more cognitive means of confirmation. But try as I might, nothing less facile came to mind.” (Murakami, 73)
“You’re only half-living…The other half is still untapped somewhere….In that sense, you’re not unlike me. I’m sitting on my ears, and you’ve got only half of you that’s really living.’” (47)
I find the connection between time and feeling alive in A Wild Sheep Chase really interesting. A feeling of being stuck, and a feeling of being stuck in time, is associated with not feeling alive. I think it’s interesting that this idea, that Boku does not feel alive, is introduced right from the beginning. On page 8, when Boku is 21, he says “For months I’d been stuck, unable to take one step in any new direction. The world kept moving on; I alone was at a standstill.” (8). I think the story could be read as two moments: this moment, when he is twenty-one and sleeping with “the girl who’d sleep with anyone” and first feels stuck, and the moment 10 years later, when he goes on the wild sheep chase and finally becomes unstuck, and feels alive again. In the first moment, he tells the girl, “You know, I never meant to shut you out […] I don’t understand what gets into me. I’m trying my damnedest to figure it out [...] It takes time.’” The girl asks him how much time it will take, and he responds, “‘Who knows? Maybe a year, maybe ten.’” She responds, “‘Ten years? C’mon, isn’t that like forever?’” (9). I don’t think it’s a coincidence that the rest of the story, the start of the wild sheep chase, takes place ten years later. It’s similar to what Boku notes himself, when arriving in Hokkaido: “I’d lost my autumn. There’d been the beginning and the end, but none of the heart of autumn” (266). Right before leaving Tokyo on the wild sheep chase, Boku is talking with his girlfriend and says, “I just can’t get it through my head that here and now is really here and now. Or that I am really me…For the last ten years, it’s been like this.’” His girlfriend says “‘Ten years?’” and he responds, “‘There’s been no end to it. That’s all’” (167). Besides this conversation, there are other parallels between ten years ago and the “now” in the story: his girlfriend with the ears is reminiscent of the girl who’d sleep with anyone, and in Junitaki, nearing the end of his journey, he weighs himself for the first time in a long while. He makes a point to note that he weighs “One hundred thirty-two pounds, same as ten years ago” (264). It’s almost like he’s returning to the state he was in ten years ago. From the start of the sheep chase, he starts to come alive—and comment on his aliveness and the passing of time (82, 83, 162, 167, 202, etc). I also think it’s interesting how the Rat’s story mirrors his own, but goes in the opposite direction. Like Boku, the Rat writes in his letter that “I think I’ve gradually lost my sense of time” (87). He also can’t count. And, whenever something unusual is happening, it gets very very quiet. I’ve heard that sound is actually one of our main strategies for tracking the passage of time, so this quiet could tie into the stopping of time. The Rat doesn’t come alive at the end of the book, instead he commits suicide. In contrast, Boku does come alive. I'm not sure how or if it all ties together in one idea, but I found these patterns and connections really interesting.
No comments:
Post a Comment