I shouldn’t really bother trying to say anything about the writing here at the surface as language because I read the book in translation. I’m not saying that I believe in some pure iteration, but let’s face it, a translation is a second iteration, spoke on behalf of the author by somebody else, who despite all good intentions and respectful observance, is not the author, and so does not speak or write in the same way, and apart even from the issue of unavoidable if not deliberate intervention, the aura or shadow, of the translator and its consequence upon the writing, the languages (the source and the target) themselves have peculiarities that are expressed by those who speak them in idiosyncratic ways, and which, as Derrida wrote, harbour resistance to translation (a resistance that reverberates back and forth between the two iterations). So although I am tempted or inclined or have, really, to say it plainly, formed an opinion about the writing style, I realize that it is an improbable conviction, and so I can only state it in quotes, so to speak, (even more than usual). That being said, I could then say that the writing seems to be simple, but it could be doing things in Japanese that are not apparent in English. Regardless, the simplicity, even in English, is probably deceptive. It puts the story in the greater relief, the plot, that’s to say. But the story doesn’t really make much sense, and I like it fine that way. It’s not about the story, really, it’s about the telling of the story, of course, as usual, but not always, but usually for me, that’s the sort of story I am interested in reading, because as far as I’m concerned stories, plot lines, are largely predictable and unsatisfying in their conclusion. There are some remarkable exceptions, but this is not one of them. Still, I wouldn’t really say the story is predictable, but if there is a mystery within it, I had solved it about a quarter of the way through, so that didn’t matter much. There was a question regarding the final result, which was for me an experience like watching independent films, wherein you’re never quite sure if the protagonist is going to die or not (one of the salient features of a “non-hollywood” type movie), but also wherein you’re rather indifferent to the result in any case -- for the most part, anyway. So it was here. Well, maybe I was hoping for a few things here and there, which meant I had some expectations that were finally confounded. Some may find that entertaining. I do not. I don’t hate the fact of it, however, either.
I had heard that Murakami writes like as though it is jazz music. This might be true in his own language, but it wasn’t evident in translation.
Anyhow, it wasn’t about the writing, or the story plot lines, or the characters as such, although I did enjoy the characters, but mostly what it was I liked was the atmosphere of the piece and the associations. Since the time when Kerouac first wrote Visions of Cody and On the Road and many other things (since 1950), the practice of including cultural references has become rather common in contemporary writing, blurring border lines between fiction and non-fiction designates. The world of the novel and “our” world intersect. This is quite common now, but it still does register as something sort of funny when it happens. When in novels other novelists are mentioned, for instance. Or like in movies when a character will say this isn’t like some movie, you know, this is real life. It’s not unusual for these referential things to occur in all forms of story telling now a days. But it still is a thing that resonates, for me in any case, because it is a moment when the interiority of the story world is folded out into the world at large, and vice versa. We know it’s all just one big fiction anyway (with very real effects, however).
So anyway, I like the cultural allusions in the book. I find them playful and evocative, and it makes the writer, for me, register as kindred spirit, since I am rather inclined to do a lot of that sort of thing myself in my own book writing. I like the oblique short hand this provides for profiling the character and the writer and the book all at once. Those three entities blur and blend in ways that is agreeable to me.
But what I really like about the book is its atmosphere. It is very much like a movie, for me, in this regard, a certain sort of movie, that’s to say. Actually, it is like most movies really. But some sorts of movies are structured in such a way that their story gets less in the way of their atmosphere, and I do prefer those movies, but I like all kinds of movies anyway, and get the atmosphere from even those that have a story getting in the way of its atmosphere. Not just movies, everything, like music (which is more obvious, and being as it was my first love, my first form of expression that I was enthralled and captivated by, just slightly before writing, and anyway it is a form of writing in a sense, like everything that is expression really is, anyhow, seeing as it was my first love, a form of expression that most obviously conveys an atmosphere, the being of the atmosphere, the quality and meaning of an aura that infects and influences you, seeing then all that, it is not so strange that I would be tuned into that in general). Some movies can be awful in a lot of ways, but still convey an atmosphere that is great to me, and I come away from them completely satisfied and totally turned on. That’s what I’m open for.
So this book has a way about it, a spirit, an atmosphere, an aura, a personality (should that be “bookality”?) that I enjoyed and found infectious and an influence on me. It is like watching old Humphrey Bogart movies through a Bladerunner William Gibson Kurosawa Antonioni filter. What a filter. The odd thing is, I think it’s odd, is that it comes across as Japanese even though it is translated. I don’t know what that means exactly, other than to say that it is Japanese as mediated through certain film experiences, much as the character’s experience of Western culture is predicated (if not mediated) by exposure and indulgence in cultural icons of old American cinema, scotch, American beer, American cigarettes, and European & American literature. Which is to say that the atmosphere of the book reminds me a bit of the atmosphere in contemporary Japanese pop yakuza films of the 60s and 70s (Suzuki and Fukasaku), and as much as it does say the Japanese culture inspired books by William Gibson (Neuromancer, Pattern Recognition), which are also big on atmosphere. It also reminds me a bit of the staid beat (as in beat writer and all of its intended permutations -- beatific, exhausted, etc.) ironic film atmospheric persona of Takeshi Kitano in Sonatine. Again not the storyline, not the being gangster, or being detective, but rather being the empty (like Meursault in Camus’s l’etranger’) and yet somehow also vaguely profound and tragic (like Rick in Casablanca) disaffected pointless genius special one for nothing in particular and no one in particular character shuffling through life seeking really only peace observing everything from over here and that is fine.
It made me want to be quiet, to observe without judgement, to eat a lot, to listen to music, read, and drink scotch.
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