Haruki Murakami: Storytelling and Productive Distance

by Chikako Nihei

Overview

Haruki Murakami: Storytelling and Productive Distance studies the evolution of the monogatari, or narrative and storytelling in the works of Haruki Murakami. Author Chikako Nihei argues that Murakami’s power of monogatari lies in his use of distancing effects; storytelling allows individuals to "cross" into a different context, through which they can effectively observe themselves and reality. His belief in the importance of monogatari is closely linked to his generation’s experience of the counter-­‐‑culture movement in the late1960s and his research on the 1995 Tokyo Sarin Gas Attack caused by the Aum shinrikyo cult, major events in postwar Japan that revealed many people’s desire for a stable narrative to interact with and form their identity from.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781000021189
Publisher:	Taylor & Francis
Publication date:	05/03/2019
Series:	Routledge Studies in Contemporary Literature
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	182
File size:	2 MB

About the Author

Chikako Nihei is an assistant professor at Yamaguchi University. She received her PhD in Japanese at the University of Sydney. Her publications include "The Productivity of a Space In-between: Murakami Haruki as a Translator" (2016) and "Resistance and Negotiation: The ‘Herbivorous Men’ and Murakami Haruki’s Gender and Political Ambiguity" (2013).

Table of Contents

Acknowledgements

1 Introduction

2 Distancing Japanese literary tradition: Monogatari and language

3 "Departure" from the distrust of language: Narration as engagement

4 Narrativising memories: Murakami’s attempt at a realist novel in Norwegian Wood

5 Distance within, will to imagine, and power of metaphor in Kafka on the Shore

6 Writing in the space in-between: Murakami’s exploration of cross-cultural effects

7 Conclusion: Monogatari as an antibody, 1Q84 and stories after "Fukushima"

Index

Editorial Reviews

"This is an important contribution to our understanding of the key concept of the monogatari in the Murakami literary world." — Matthew C. Strecher, Sophia University

From the Publisher