88 - 'Dance, Dance, Dance' by Haruki Murakami

"Yougottadance. Aslongasthemusicplays. Yougottadance."

Yes, the Sheep Man is back, and so is Murakami's first (anti) hero. Technically speaking, 'Dance, Dance, Dance' is not part of 'The Trilogy of the Rat'; realistically, however, to get the most out of this novel, it helps to have read the trilogy first. In these three books (the two novellas 'Hear the Wind Sing' and 'Pinball, 1973', plus Murakami's first full-length novel, 'A Wild Sheep Chase'), we learn about our nameless hero (let's call him Toru...) and meet some of the characters discussed in 'Dance, Dance, Dance' - including the enigmatic Sheep Man...

The story takes up events four-and-a-half years on from the end of 'A Wild Sheep Chase'. After a six-month mourning period, 'Toru' has tried to slip back into his monotonous daily life, writing excellent, but ultimately pointless, restaurant reviews for women's magazines and generally coasting through life without casting a shadow. Of course, this can only go on for so long, and, with cries from a lost friend echoing through his head, he decides to return to the eerie Dolphin Hotel in Sapporo. And that's where the adventures begin...

Toru's new quest takes him on a ride through a world which seems to have changed immensely in a few short years. His noble, Don Quixote-like, struggle against big business and faceless power is in the past: capitalism has arrived and conquered. Now is the time of mass consumption, and with a backdrop of Boy George and Talking Heads, where everything can be bought on expense accounts (even call girls...), Toru is forced to adapt to this new, unpalatable reality.

A symbol of this new world is Toru's old school friend, Gotanda, a successful television and film star who has made a career out of projecting an aura of honesty and proficiency. Gotanda becomes a part of Toru's search for his former girlfriend, the woman with the most beautiful ears in the world (I told you you need to read the other books first...) when Toru sees him on the screen in a scene with this woman, but the film star also becomes a friend. Unable to break out of the shallow world of showbiz, Gotanda is drawn to Toru's simplicity and down-to-earth attitude towards life. Unfortunately, this may not be enough to save Gotanda from his demons...

Gotanda is the key to this novel as he is inextricably caught up in the horrors of the modern consumer society. Fleeced by his ex-wife (whom he still loves) in a cynically orchestrated divorce, he is massively in debt to the studios who employ him, forcing him to carry on working in an industry he has come to despise. Despite these debts, however, he is able to (and, in fact, is urged to) live life to the fullest on his tax-deductible expense account. Murakami skilfully sketches the paradox of a man who is showered with Italian sports cars and free visits to the best restaurants and night clubs in Tokyo but is unable to step back and take a break from his life. The contrast with Toru is obvious.

Of course, the focus of the novel is still on Toru, who, having lost his friend, his wife, his girlfriend and his past, is wading through a miserable time in his life, trying to break through to 'normality'. A chance encounter with a young girl, Yuki, who somehow becomes his responsibility, is one of the factors which moves him along on his path, perhaps compelling him to snap out of his low and finally achieve real adulthood. Yuki's function in the novel is similar to that of May Kasahara in 'The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle', allowing Toru to see himself as other 'normal' people see him - a person detached from society. Having said that, Yuki is far from normal herself...

When you look past all the supernatural imagery and metaphor, the four novels represent a young man's struggle to mature and settle down. Toru, 34 years old in this instalment is finally able to tie up loose ends, sow a few wild oats and put the past behind him (Gotanda, on the other hand, is not). The university student of 'Hear the Wind Sing' has become - or, at least, will become - a (reluctant) member of society, if not a staunch believer in mass consumption. And so we bid farewell to our nameless friend (Toru was always my invention)... but is he so nameless? The dates and ages given in the four books always match up, allowing us to calculate his year of birth as 1949. So? Well, a certain Japanese author you might know also happened to be born in that year...

It's always with a feeling of regret that a reader says goodbye to a character they have spent so much time with. Whether it's Harry Potter and co., the inhabitants of Barsetshire or the vast cast of 'A Suitable Boy', the last page of a series, or a long novel, leaves you feeling a little sad and empty. Such is my feeling now. Until next time.

80 - 'A Wild Sheep Chase' by Haruki Murakami

So now we come to Murakami's first 'real' book, his first real novel, and the first one available in English without resorting to Amazon and internet searches for pirated PDFs. 'A Wild Sheep Chase' is the third book in 'The Trilogy of the Rat' and marks the first time that Murakami painted his views, themes and slightly bizarre imagination on a wider canvas. The first time I read this book, I think I must have been suffering from Murakami overload as I remember the story dragging a little. On a second reading, this was a superb story.

Our old nameless friend (whom, as regular readers will know, I decided to nickname 'Toru' - for the sake of convenience...) is now approaching thirty and is still working with his friend in their company, which has branched out from translation into advertising. In the five years which have elapsed since 'Pinball, 1973', Toru has married (possibly the secretary introduced in the previous book) and recently divorced, leaving him at a crossroads in his life. His good friend The Rat has recently made contact by letter for the first time since leaving their hometown five years ago and has sent Toru, amongst other things, a picture of a sheep farm, asking him to use it at some point. And then, one day, things take a turn for the... well, the only word for it would be weird.

Without giving too much away, the rest of the book involves a girl with the most beautiful ears in the world, a henchman of one of the most successful businessmen (and exerters of political influence) in the country, a strange hotel (where sheep are the main topic of discussion) and the enigmatic Sheepman (whotalkslikethisfornoapparentreasonthaticanthinkof). And that's without mentioning the sheep who may be looking to control the world...

It sounds crazy, and it quite possibly is, but the whole scenario is grounded by the everyman central character arbitrarily known as Toru. As a reader, we experience the events of the novel, the mundane and the extraordinary, through the eyes of an average Japanese man, disillusioned by life and the modern world. While the things that happen to him seem incredible, the reality is that, presented in the way they are, any of us would probably approach them in the same way.

Toru, in effect, has nothing to lose. As he says, once he makes the decision to quit his company, he has nothing to hold him down: no wife, no job, no hometown. His decision to go on, what is literally, a wild-sheep chase, is unsurprising given his situation in life and could even be a very attractive proposition for those of us who have left the globetrotting days of our twenties behind us. This quest for the sheep with the star on its back is also a search for a way to return to the carefree days of his youth, an attempt (an excuse even) to find The Rat again and go back to the good old days where the two of them sat for nights at a time at the counter of J's bar, talking about nothing and drinking way too much.

The search for the sheep is also a reaction against the modern world and its obsession with consumerism. Since taking on the added work in advertising, Toru has felt unhappy, and his partner has started drinking too much. The world has moved on from the simpler times of Toru's childhood (indeed, in his hometown, even the beach has moved on as the town has reclaimed land from the sea!), leaving him feeling at odds with the world he is now living in. Several scenes in the book, including his musical tastes, show that Toru has a strong sense of nostalgia and struggles to adapt to a modern, commercial environment.

One example of this is the way he interacts with the smooth-talking, highly-educated, well-dressed sidekick of the big boss. This is the classic encounter of capitalist success versus suburban mediocrity (and any casual Murakami fan will know which one the great man prefers...). The man in the suit represents everything which is bad with capitalism, everything which renders the common man paralysed in his dealings and comfortably numb in his everyday life. By standing up to him and taking him on, even at the expense of his livelihood, Toru represents all of us in our struggles to be more than just a statistic contributing to GDP (especially poignant to many readers and bloggers who are more concerned about quality of life than quality of furniture).

And the sheep (yes, there is a sheep)? Don't quote me on this, but I feel the sheep represents ambition and a drive to be as successful (as opposed to happy) as one can be. I'm not going to expand on this (I don't want to spoil the book for you); I just think that the sheep represents the driving force behind the ideology which Toru and The Rat are obviously so uncomfortable with.

But, of course, there is no Toru; this is just a name I chose (not entirely randomly) to represent a character whose name we never learn. This trick of generalising his characters, either by a lack of names or by spelling their names in the katakana syllabary (usually reserved for foreign loanwords), is a deliberate attempt on Murakami's part to make his 'heroes' as universal as possible. Our main man makes this quite clear himself in 'A Wild Sheep Chase': in a conversation with his girlfriend, he claims not to really need names - he, you, they, are all you really need. Before you scoff - how often do you actually use your partner's name (at least in their presence)...

'The Trilogy of the Rat' technically ends with this book (which, in case you hadn't realised, I now think is brilliant), but Murakami obviously wasn't quite finished with his first group of characters. Our friend returns one more time in 'Dance, Dance, Dance', a novel which I enjoyed immensely the first time I read it and one which I am planning to read before the end of the year. So here's an idea: why don't you come back in a month or so, and I'll tell you all about it? Agreed? See you then...

74 - 'Pinball, 1973' by Haruki Murakami

The first thing which comes to mind as I write this review is that I really should be more organised in future; this really should have been book 73... Oh well, moving along, please have a look at the beautiful cover picture on the left; nice isn't it? I imagine that it's an artist's rendition of J. and the Rat at J.'s bar (although I think I would have made it a lot darker and grimier). Sadly, I do not have that (or any) edition, and I am unlikely to in the near future. Shortly before starting this review, I had a quick look on Amazon to see how much it would set me back. Would you believe that a battered copy is available for US$446.20 while a (nearly) new copy is being offered for a cool US$2000?

The reason for this incredible over-pricing is that while 'Hear the Wind Sing', Murakami's first 'novel', is still readily available in the translation produced to help EFL learners, the English version of the follow-up book went out of print very quickly and is, therefore, now only available to the disgustingly rich. Luckily, a quick web search usually brings up a link to a PDF version - one more reason for book lovers to say hurrah for computers...

This novella takes up the story three years after the conclusion of 'Hear the Wind Sing', with our unnamed hero (who, for the sake of convenience - and for reasons which will be obvious to any true Murakami fans -, I will call Toru) now living on the outskirts of Tokyo and working in a translation agency which he has set up with a friend from university. Meanwhile, the Rat is still living in their home town, watching the sea, hanging out by the graveyard and whiling his hours away at J.'s bar at the end of the day.

As the story progresses, it becomes clear that neither of our old friends are particularly happy with their lot. Toru is stuck in a rut, accomplishing the same tedious translations day after day and spending several hours a day fighting the notoriously soul-destroying Tokyo commute; the Rat, having dropped out of university (and rich enough not to really need to do anything else), is just drifting around, waiting for something, or someone, to give his life some meaning.

The two friends, hundreds of miles apart, find different ways to deal with their existential angst (a pompous expression which, nevertheless, is particularly apt here). Toru reads Kant, spends his spare time with a nameless pair of identical twins who somehow seem to have stumbled into his life, and later goes on a quest in search of the pinball machine he used to spend his money (and time) on. The Rat, struggling to stay interested in life, falls into a convenient, yet unsatisfying, relationship with (yet another) unnamed woman, while mulling over whether or not to leave his town and follow his fate elsewhere...

At only 79 pages, the book is fairly brief, but Murakami packs a lot into his second novel, including many of the features which have won him worldwide fame. Anyone who has watched a lot of French films will be reminded of them by the mood of the book (it may, dare I say it, invoke a sense of deja vu...): the constant rain, the ever-present drinking and smoking... I think you could easily transplant this story to Paris (and the hometown to Brittany) and make a great interpretation. The sense of time passing wastefully and regret for times past are palpable, and the reader senses that something has to give. The lack of names only adds to this sense of disorientation (as do the twins; in a funny way, having two girlfriends - if that's what they are - instead of one, seems to make Toru appear lonelier than he would if he were alone).

Having talked about French films, it's an English one which comes to mind as you ponder the method to Murakami's madness - "What's it all about, Alfie?". Murakami certainly doesn't answer the big questions of life, but his protagonists definitely ponder them. Their respective efforts to shake themselves out of the rut they've fallen into may make many readers reconsider their own lifestyle choices (living in the outer suburbs of Melbourne - which, in England, would be in another county -I definitely sympathise with Toru). The big question, though, is how do the two friends resolve their issues?

Of course, Murakami's first two (short) works set up the third part of 'The Trilogy of the Rat', 'A Wild Sheep Chase', his first full-length novel, and the book where his passion for the bizarre really comes to fruition. Therefore, it's a shame that the great man is unwilling to sanction the publication of his first literary efforts; yes, I know that he probably doesn't need the money, but he'll definitely gain new fans (yes, and a few dollars too; I, for one, would snap them up in a heartbeat). You never know, it may just help him in the quest for that elusive Nobel Prize too...

60 - 'Hear the Wind Sing' by Haruki Murakami

We all have to start somewhere. Einstein messed around with bunsen burners at school like the rest of us, and there was a time when Andrew Flintoff was shorter than the cricket bat he was holding (sorry, just had to get a cricket reference in today!). For Haruki Murakami, author of such complex tomes as 'The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle' and 'Kafka on the Shore', 'Hear the Wind Sing' was the moment when he became a writer. There's a big difference between this tiny work (125 pages of a book the size of a postcard!) and his later efforts, but the seeds of his later ideas are already present in this coming-of-age story.

Murakami starts and ends the book with information from the life and works of a (fictional) American writer called Derek Heartfield, a novelist who writes stories based mainly in outer space (Kurt Vonnegut?), and this 'interesting' bookend surrounds a description of a few months in the life of a nameless university student who has come back to his sleepy hometown for the university summer holidays. Our protagonist spends his time lazing the days away, hanging around J.'s bar talking to his friend, Rat, and getting to know a girl he helped home after a drunken night out.

As alluded above, in this short but sweet tale, the elements which make up the themes of Murakami's later, more substantial works are already evident. University life (or the break therefrom), a symbol of rebellion and confusion which pops up in 'Norwegian Wood', serves as a metaphor for a period of life where you're not quite sure where you're going. Like Toru Watanabe, the central character seems stuck in a moment (and, as Bono so helpfully points out, he can't get out of it). As easy as it is to look back at such a period through nostalgia-tinted glasses as a golden era, at the time it can seem as if your life is never going to start; of course, with the manic, stressful life of the Japanese salaryman looming in the future, there is also the thought that you may not want it to...

When you mix his sense of dislocation to a growing feeling of the temporary nature of human relationships, it is no wonder that the slightly depressing, almost fatalistic nature of Murakami's world is also present in this book. Our hero has a few sad stories in his past, and the main female character is also far from happy with her lot. Despite this, they are able to continue with their daily lives and seek enjoyment from little things: good food, music, books; the things all of us use to help us through the day. However, when the student looks back at the end of the book, by now slightly distanced from the events of that summer, his connection to that time has become a lot weaker. All that remains is a Beach Boys album and a lot of memories...

The discerning reader (and my readers are nothing if not discerning) will have noticed that I haven't mentioned many names so far in my review, and this is because there are very few names actually used in the novel, something which makes describing it a tad tricky at times. This is deliberate and has the effect of reinforcing the temporary nature of the events; there is no need to use, or remember, the names as they are ultimately bound to be forgotten. This trend continues in Murakami's later works where many characters have names written in the 'katakana' syllabary used for foreign loanwords, rather than the 'kanji' (Chinese characters) or 'hiragana' which Japanese names are usually written in, instantly making the name stand out and appear slightly unusual (perhaps outside the usual society in a culture where conformity is prized).

This book is, of course, just as much about Murakami himself as it is about the story. The sections concerning the entirely invented Mr. Heartfield allow Murakami to play with his ideas about writing and to use an alter-ego to explain his first attempts at literature. The importance of writing about what is not known rather than what is known, as Heartfield tells a critic, could easily be (and, I suppose, is!) Murakami's own remark, and for anyone who has ever wasted countless hours wondering what on earth Toru Okada was actually doing down that well, a short perusal of Heartfield's short story collection 'The Wells of Mars' may bring enlightenment. Well, if not enlightenment, a little encouragement at least.

So there you have it; the start of a magnificent career, and, strangely enough, a start that old Haruki seems somewhat ashamed of. The edition I have is a translation by Alfred Birnbaum created purely for students of English as a Foreign Language (with several interesting translations in the glossary at the back!) which is not available outside Japan. It's easy to get your hands on it through Amazon or e-bay ('Pinball, 1973', the follow-up to this book, is another story entirely...), but Murakami refuses to allow the translations of his first two books to be published outside Japan. That's a shame, and I, for one, would be at the shops tomorrow if his first two mini-books were released together (in the beautiful British-style edition, of course). This may only have been his first effort, but this fascinating insight into the origins of a master novellist's career shows that even the best of us have to start somewhere.

Even Andrew Flintoff.

[Apologies to all of you who don't understand cricket for the references to Mr. Flintoff in this review; I'm sure all the English readers know what I mean. So will all the Australians but in a different way entirely...]