PAPERCUT

Haruki Murakami and the Concept of Dreamlike Reality

or

How many moons are there in the sky?

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   In the book ichi-Q-hachi-yon (1Q84), Murakami creates a scene that, to me, sums up the essence of his magical realism; one of the characters, Aomame, has slipped into a parallel world which is similar, yet slightly different to ours. One of the most notable differences, is that there are now two moons in the sky. As Aomame speaks with another character on the phone, she casually asks towards the end of the conversation "have you looked at tsuki lately?". "Tsuki" means moon in Japanese and the word has no distinction between the singular and the plural form. Aomame is trying to ask how many moons the other character sees, without being too obvious about it, as, I imagine, most of us would do under such circumstances. In this scene, we therefore see a character who very realistically tries to explore the new, magical circumstances she is in. As a matter of fact, I am willing to bet that the book's translator in English had to explore some new circumstances as well, because in English, there is of course a distinction between "moon" and "moons". So, imagine this scenario: you now see two moons in the sky. The world you have accidentally entered is a parallel reality with minor differences to our world, but the two moons are a new truth, a new fact that is somewhat comforting in its consistency. Yet, you still wonder: do other people see this and if so, how do they experience it? And, of course, if you are Murakami's translator, you also have to figure out a way to ask the question without making reference to a singular or plural "moon".

   We all interpret and, as such, constantly construct the reality surrounding us based on our own, deeply personal experiences. We all know that things are a certain way, that they can be a certain way, and that, in any case, they ought to be a certain way. Whether we see one or two moons in the sky, this is an unchallenged reality to us because we are the unquestionably subjective protagonists of our lives. Perhaps here lies the key to understanding the allure of Murakami's main characters: the "Murakami man", the typical protagonist in Murakami novels, is someone who goes with the flow, in a characteristically non-judgemental way. One, two, or a thousand moons in the sky, can become a character's new reality, without said character suffering the kind of breakdown that most of us would, I imagine, if our perception of the way things are, was challenged so fundamentally. As a result, the Murakami man manages to transcend an out-of-sync, dull existence in the "normal"world and enter a surreal, dreamlike reality without experiencing the type of existential dread that Western audiences are accustomed to through the works of writers such as Poe, Kafka or Lovecraft, to name but a few.

   As far as questions of national-cultural authenticity go, Murakami has been criticised for writing in a non-Japanese style, however, I think that more than just establishing whether his writing is 60% Western and 40% Japanese for example, his narrative style can be decoded using musical rather than cultural elements. Indeed Murakami's storytelling style shows a musical understanding of harmony and improvisation; his characters do not violently react to the unconventional, but show an easy-going adjustability that sets the tone for the entirety of his oeuvre. Readers alike, tend to accept the writer's magical realism without questioning it; they are sympathetic to characters who seem more like observers of, rather than participants in, their own lives. In other words, Murakami readers turn into a Murakami audience because they experience his stories in a way similar to the way one listens to a new musical composition without prejudice.

   We perceive music with our sense and our emotions. We make it the soundtrack of certain instances or periods in our lives, without judging the the music itself. Perhaps the countless musical references in Murakami's works serve as the magical medium through which the seemingly impossible is achieved: for as long as a Murakami story lasts, the readers forget about their subjective preconceptions and feel the narrative's dreamlike surrealism, with the same ease and curiosity they would first hear a strange, yet somehow reassuring, musical piece.