Murakami on the Shore: beyond the dialogue between Japan and the West

Michele Eduarda Brasil De Sá

doi:10.4025/actascilangcult.v42i1.51791

Abstract

The novel Kafka on the Shore is one of the most enigmatic works of contemporary writer Haruki Murakami. Since its very release, critics and scholars have been sharing their impressions and interpretations on various aspects of the book, one of them being the abundant references to Western elements (myths, songs, writers, icons and so forth). The present paper is the final draft of the postdoctoral research ‘Murakami on the shore: the dialogue with the West in the construction of the novel’, developed from July 2015 to June 2016. It aims at rethinking (as well as questioning) the way the study of the relation between Japan and the West can be addressed in the novel. The research, conducted as a bibliographical investigation, used key concepts like cultural identity (Hall, 2006) and border-blurring (Auestad, 2008). It defies the tendency of studying cosmopolitan authors like Haruki Murakami from the perspective of East-West duality, and defends that such analysis ought to consider East and West as complementary, almost inextricable, not regarding them as opposite or impermeable, and never as a limitation to the author himself.

Highlights

This paper presents the results of the postdoctoral research named ‘Murakami on the Shore: the dialogue with the West in the construction of the novel’, developed from July 2015 to June 20161
The research aimed to study Murakami’s novel Kafka on the Shore (Umibe no Kafuka), starting from elements of Western literature and philosophy used by the author
The original idea of seeking and studying Western elements in Kafka on the Shore was destroyed for good when Murakami himself said in an interview, published in his own website: “When I write a novel I put into play all the information inside me

Summary

Introduction

This paper presents the results of the postdoctoral research named ‘Murakami on the Shore: the dialogue with the West in the construction of the novel’, developed from July 2015 to June 20161. The research aimed to study Murakami’s novel Kafka on the Shore (Umibe no Kafuka), starting from elements of Western literature and philosophy used by the author. Beyond the obvious reference to the Czech writer Franz Kafka, whose name Murakami takes for his protagonist, there are elements from Greek tragedy ( the Oedipus myth, in the son who lives under the constant burden of a prophecy according to which he would kill his father and marry his mother), the poetry of Yeats, Hegel’s philosophy, to cite some.

Results

Conclusion