Cindy/Jiahan's random post

 Murakami's fantastic simile:

Spring Bear and Butter Tiger

On page 231 in Norwegian Wood, Watanabe says that he likes Midori so much as a "spring bear", which is very intuitive, innovational, beautiful, and a little absurd. I like this part a lot. And near the end, on page 264-265, Watanabe says to Midori that he loves her as much as "enough to melt all the tigers in the world to butter", which again, I find absurd yet wondrously beautiful, and coincidentally, I found something interesting, too. Murakami often comes up with interesting idea to write a simile, or a metaphor. While the "spring bear" one is absolutely original, "melted butter tiger" has its root in Scottish author Helen Bannerman's children's book, "The Story of Little Black Sambo" (a summary of the story cited from Wiki: "Sambo is a South Indian boy who lives with his father and mother, named Black Jumbo and Black Mumbo respectively. While out walking, Sambo encounters four hungry tigers, and he surrenders his colorful new clothes, shoes and umbrella so that they will not eat him. The tigers are vain and each thinks that it is better dressed than the others. They have a massive argument and chase each other around a tree until they are reduced to a pool of ghee (clarified butter). Sambo recovers his clothes and goes home, and his father later collects the ghee, which his mother uses to make pancakes").

The original Sambo story has several interpretations available:

1. The tigers are symbols of pride and strength, which makes a fable that pursuing after vanity and power ends up self-destruction.

2. Fantastic surrealism, which turns strong tigers into harmless food, showing absurdity within real life.

3. An armless child succeeds fighting with danger with his own shrewdness, which is a typical and classical theme for a fairytale.

And these informations make me wonder why Murakami uses this simile for Watanabe to show his love for Midori?

Maybe it is because... tiger turns into butter, while showing surrealism as an usual phenomenon, also symbolizes an absurd yet irretrievable change/transformation, hinting that Watanabe although feels responsibility towards Naoko, has helplessly falls in love with Midori and does not regret it. But also, since Murakami's characters are a little passive in character, this might as well be an evasive answer to blur the focus of their conversation, such that he jokes off Midori's direct question.