Blog post #4

I really enjoyed Sensei’s Testament in Kokoro, so I went ahead and read the rest of the novel. I remember it being suggested in class that K might parallel Naoko with Toru as Sensei, becoming isolated from society over grief at the other’s suicide, but I wonder if Sensei might be more like Naoko with K as Kizuki and the narrator/addressee of the letter as Toru. K and Kizuki’s suicides isolate Sensei and Naoko from society, leave them with a sense of guilt that overshadows their romantic relationships (Sensei's sense of responsibility for K's death and Naoko's breakdown when she has sex with Watanabe), and ultimately contribute to them committing suicide themselves. Both characters are blocked from progressing into the future: Watanabe talks about the idea of Naoko going back and forth between 18 and 19 forever, while Sensei is shaken by the end of the Meiji era and decides to die alongside it. Toru and the narrator of Kokoro struggle with an obsession over someone with whom they can never fully connect or understand and can do nothing to save. 

Additionally, the relationship between the narrator of Kokoro and Sensei reminded me of some of the relationships in Murakami in which the Boku character is both attractive to others yet somehow isolated from society. I was moved by what I saw as Kokoro’s narrator’s frustration that someone has to be perceived as conventionally useful to society to deserve respect, and I thought that the reason he eventually earns Sensei’s trust is because he has no desire to “use” him for anything. While I don’t see their particular dynamic totally reflected in any of the other stories we've read, I wonder if this kind of spontaneous, inexplicable fixation could be found in Murakami’s works. 

-Kate Waldron