Dances With Sheep: The Quest For Identity In The Fiction Of Murakami Haruki

by Matthew Carl Strecher

As a spokesman for disaffected youth of the post-1960s, Murakami Haruki has become one of the most important voices in contemporary Japanese literature, and he has gained a following in the United States through translations of his works. In Dances with Sheep , Matthew Strecher examines Murakami’s fiction—and, to a lesser extent, his nonfiction—for its most prevalent structures and themes. Strecher also delves into the paradoxes in Murakami’s writings that confront critics and casual readers alike. Murakami writes of “serious” themes yet expresses them in a relatively uncomplicated style that appeals to high school students as well as scholars; and his fictional work appears to celebrate the pastiche of postmodern expression, yet he rejects the effects of the postmodern on contemporary culture as dangerous.
Strecher’s methodology is both historical and cultural as he utilizes four distinct yet interwoven approaches to analyze Murakami’s major the writer’s “formulaic” structure with serious themes; his play with magical realism; the intense psychological underpinnings of his literary landscape; and his critique of language and its capacity to represent realities, past and present. Dances with Sheep links each of these approaches with Murakami’s critical focus on the fate of individual identity in contemporary Japan. The result is that the simplicity of the Murakami hero, marked by lethargy and nostalgia, emerges as emblematic of contemporary humankind, bereft of identity, direction, and meaning. Murakami’s fiction is reconstructed in Dances with Sheep as a warning against the dehumanizing effects of late-model capitalism, the homogenization of the marketplace, and the elimination of effective counterculture in Japan.

Genres: Nonfiction

254 pages, Hardcover

First published November 1, 2001

Reviews

[David · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is the second book I have read by Matthew Strecher. I much preferred the more recent and more readable The Forbidden Worlds of Haruki Murakami, but this one is interesting in its own way. It is a little more academic, more convoluted. However, it is a decent read and provides some useful insights into Murakami's early work.

[Hollie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Big fan of the Hard-Boiled Wonderland section that talks about the Dreamreader's decision as a form of suicide since there's no escape from State ideology. Stretcher cooked with that. Great read overall.


4/5

[Dr.Robert Babigan · Rating 5 out of 5]

Mesmerized from the 3rd page; this story has been the source of many conversation starters.

[Patrick McCoy · Rating 2 out of 5]

In Matthew Stretcher’s introduction to his book on the work of Haruki Murakami, Dances With Sheep, he states that he is trying to write a book that will appeal to academics and general enthusiasts alike. Stretcher is a former colleague of mine from Toyo University, and I think the book has merits, but I can't imagine that it would be of much interest to the general reader given its price and his emphasis on postmodern theorists like Althusser, Jameson, Lacan, and the like. In particular the third chapter, “Desire, The Symbolic Order, and Mass Society,” was difficult to get through. However, I think he has some interesting insights into the Murakami’s meditations on identity and his opposition to capitalist consumer life that has enveloped postwar Japan and the failure of the left to make a stronghold after 1969.