Murakami Haruki: The Simulacrum in Contemporary Japanese Culture

Studies of Modern Japan

by Michael Robert Seats

In his book,Murakami Haruki, Dr. Michael Seats offers an important philosophical intervention in the discussion of the relationship between Murakami's fiction and contemporary Japanese culture. Breaking through conventional analysis, Seats demonstrates how Murakami's first and later trilogies utilize the structure of the simulacrum, a second-order representation, to develop a complex critique of contemporary Japanese culture. By outlining the critical-fictional contours of the 'Murakami Phenomenon,' the discussion confronts the vexing question of Japanese modernity and subjectivity within the contexts of the national-cultural imaginary. Seats finds mirroring comparisons between Murakami's works and practices in current media-entertainment technologies, indicating a new politics of representation.Murakami Haruki is a critical text for scholars and students of Japanese Studies and Critical Theory, and is an essential guide for those interested in modern Japanese literature.

Genres: Nonfiction

384 pages, Hardcover

First published August 28, 2006

Reviews

[Kunzes · Rating 3 out of 5]

i read this for my thesis, im so dazed right now pls dont ask me for a review its like asking me for a review of a song after i made it my alarm tone.

[Marika · Rating 3 out of 5]

I finally finished this one and with that I feel like I should get some sort of an award, really. This was difficult reading. While Seats backs up his arguments very thoroughly (maybe too thoroughly), and the subject is compelling enough, Seats is buried under the weight of his words.

Seats brings key points that set Murakami's work apart from not only other Japanese writers - but other writers of surreal fiction. The main point being Murakami's use of a simulacrum (a copy or representation of something that's intentionally distorted) setting his fiction vividly apart from other fiction (and non-fiction) works that would address the same subject.

After so many pages of thoughtful discourse, I'm still brought back to the way Seats expresses one primary point: that perhaps the real can be 'theorized' through fiction in more comprehensive ways than the discourses of history and philosophy may allow.

Seats assumes much of his intended audience - familiarity with French cultural theorist Jean Baudrillard, methods of philosophical argument, Plato's aesthetics (regarding a copy of a copy), key points in Japanese World War II and post-war history, and already existing commentary on Japanese literature that will keep you flipping through the footnotes and looking up references in Wikipedia with wild abandon.

One theme that I would have loved to see written more cohesively is what Seats brings up in several places - Murakami's linking of how human beings deal with natural catastrophes and intentional acts of terrorism or violence. He calls back to Jean Baudrillard, "As Baudrillard points out, most people experience such calamities as the simulation of an object world where agency seems to have vanished and the real become indifferent to difference — and where terror and nature are viewed as malevolent and arbitrary."

Read Murakami's "After the Quake" and "Underground" back to back to get the full effect of this.

Gosh, I'm getting tired just writing this . . .

It's 365 pages of well-argued, but meandering, occasionally heavy-handed, frequently long-winded, but still compelling arguments that do eventually speak to the hows and whys Murakami has become one of the most well-read Japanese authors to date.

UPDATE: I just found this quote in my notes - and it's the perfect example of how there are great ideas in this book - but they're hidden in such a dense and frequently convoluted style, that it takes several readings of some passages to make sure you're getting the right idea:

"'Reference' indicates a process best described as a phantasm of the struggle for a re-representation of the real, yielding a trace of meaning which paradoxially leads the text squarely back into the vexed question of how to think Japanese modernity outside the tired and flawed rhetoric of either an under-theorized condition of postmodernity, or the 'overcoming' of a rejected and incomplete modernity. (pg 237)

I get it, but it takes very concentrated effort to get through 365 pages of that unwieldly style. Seats is capable, in places, of expressing his arguments and assertions beautifully - but those passages, like the one below, are few and far between.

"Here, then, lies the difference: modern aesthetics is an aesthetic of the sublime, though a nostalgic one. It allows the unpresentable to be put forward only as the missing contents; but the form, because of its recognizable consistency, continues to offer to the reader or viewer matter for solace and pleasure."‎ - Page 261

[Tim Lepczyk · Rating 1 out of 5]

I wanted to like this, but it was so dry not even all the water in the Great Lakes could bring some life to it.