I haven't read any books by Haruki Murakami, and I believe that something that appeals so much to so many people and so consistently can only have an amorphous and nonintrusive essence, where the reader can make anything they like out of it and without any resistance from the material; like colorful clay that you enjoy playing with as a child, only now it's an adult mind that gets its play-doh in the form of books. When I read titles like "Kafka on the Shore", "A Wild Sheep Chase", "Norwegian Wood", "Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World", "Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and His Years of Pilgrimage", I feel a growing tiredness in my mind because I feel like I am already asked to decide what these senseless titles must mean without any cues or clues and how they connect to the content of the books and how exactly the content merits such titles in the first place? My impression is that catchy titles compensate for generic plots, that something valuable doesn't need a flashy package, and that something ordinary is heralded as extraordinary simply because it can be.
Murakami's works are praised to be so non-Japanese that they appeal even to Americans. How is this not an insult to both Murakami and American citizens? How come we never delve into the roots of why Americans did not appreciate more traditional Japanese literature in the first place, and what could be done about that - such as presenting Japanese literature in a new light rather than presenting a very different Japanese literature altogether and sighing with relief that "something Japanese" finally gets bought again? If Murakami's prose is so non-Japanese, what's the point of emphasizing his nationality and comparing his reception to that of Yukio Mishima? How come there apparently were no processes of trying to reframe the context of foreign literature and offering readers new angles to look at it, until the works get appreciated exactly for what they are? I think it would have been more interesting to read about how editors experimented with introductions rather than how they decided to translate a radio station name. I don't think such experiments were done, though - what's sought after is a book that will sell right away, and parts of it can get cut out or changed to get it sell, and there will be no attempt to try to make something sell just for how it is -> by revealing the reader the uniqueness of this book, and what they will personally get out of reading it, how their thinking will improve and their perception - expand. Oh, but it's only readers money that get cared about, not the readers themselves. There is a lot of "we worked together before, this one will get a big deal", "Elmer was wrong, this book sold the best of all!" and "They felt that the novel had even greater potential than A Wild Sheep Chase to capture the imagination of American readers", the latter making Murakami sound like some stage performer rather than a writer producing art.
I never learn what makes Murakami works meaningful apart from their sales. My guess at the amorphousness and passive shapelessness of his art gets confirmed by characterizations like these: "It seemed clear to me from the first that he was bringing something new to Japanese literature. There’s a peculiar lightness in what he’s doing that should not be confused with any lack of seriousness … But I’m talking here of a different kind of lightness, an antic and lyrical and sunny quality". This quote says nothing concrete. And it doesn't need to. It's good that people like Murakami because liking something is good. The fact that there is not even a requirement to analyze the possible underlying reasons behind phenomena to talk about them infuriates me. There is no integration into the bigger picture, no educated guesses made for future implications, no showing of how this intersects and impacts other fields and spheres of life, either. The self-isolation of industries leads to their stagnation, just as their taking of themselves for granted and not taking the time and effort to look at the meaning behind what occurs within them, thereby purposelessly doing something simply because they can, neglecting the complex relationships underlying the shaping of the market. Before, publishing detailed sex scenes was something they couldn't do, so they didn't. Now it's something they can do, so they do. Next, it will be something different. Why, how, why - doesn't matter, let's just see whatever ends up "capturing mass imagination" the most at any given time, with no second thoughts given.
Maybe I am incorrect about Murakami's works and for something to become popular these days, it does not need to be "colorless". In that case, it only makes sense that his meaningful works are to be discussed in a meaningful way - unless, of course, the only meaningful thing about them is that they sell well.
-Ksenia
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