Blog #2

     Looking back on these two books, while I enjoyed both quite a bit I did enjoy Norwegian Wood more between them. I think this was because of two main things. The first was the clearer theme of Japan, its politics, war, and what Murakami's own ideas about these are. In a Wild Sheep Chase, we see subtle hints to these themes, such as Mishima's suicide on the TV in the beginning, the use of sheep, a non native animal to Japan, and Alice's amazing description of the boss's house and its possible subtle meanings reflecting the left wing of Japan and the right wing of Japan. However, all these ideas were kept in the background and had to be looked for which made it feel like Murakami was not yet comfortable with making his opinions known to the public. Which of course, made sense with the atmosphere of Japan in the 70s, 80s, and 90s. But, in Norwegian Wood, Murakami is not afraid to implement more direct ideas towards war and show his opinions. For example, in the very beginning of the book we get the flag raising ceremony, accompanied with the national anthem as well as the description of the dorms creation. Murakami sums his scene structure greatly when Watanabe says the dormitory has "one problem with the place: its political smell." Murakami has taken from his life and experience at Waseda to make a plot of politics and almost even anti-left right separation. If we choose to see Watanabe's ideas as Murakami's own (being that we've already established many Murakami protagonists are based off himself) then we see that Watanabe doesn't quite care for the right or the left. When he says he does not care for the political smell of the right wing built dorms he shows his opinions for not enjoying politics as well as right wing politics. Similarly, when the leftist duo of students came into his Greek tragedy class, he did not really care saying "I had no problem what they were saying but the writing was lame" and continues to detail how their speech and writing was bad and how it was "same old tune with different words." He and Midori leave the class, all of these actions showing that Watanabe/Murakami don't mind the left wing but in a way, there's a disorganized sense to them. Especially using the same old tune with different words, yes it can be interpreted as the left explaining the same ideals over and over again, but it can also be interpreted as the right wing and the left wing having different ideas but they are the same in a sense, both poorly structured and unable to make Japan better with their extremist views making two halves of an ugly whole, again similar to the house in A Wild Sheep Chase. Maybe what Murakami is trying to say is that the separation between parties makes for a unnerving whole but possibly the blend of the two would allow for a better, more pleasing Japanese political system if we assume that is what we get when we put the two wings together. But that's just an idea!! This has gone on a bit too long, but the second part of Norwegian Wood that I loved was Midori, who in my opinion, is one of the best written woman we have read from Murakami in this course so far. 

- Anna-Maria Marinescu