An Ode To The World of Haruki Murakami

Perhaps one of the most renowned and well-known authors in contemporary literature, not just in Japan, is Haruki Murakami. His work is mesmerizing, funny, and well-known for striking a chord with young people across generations. But why do so many young people find themselves drawn to Murakami's works? What gives the narration its sardonic tone? The tiniest bits of fiction now appearing? Maybe it's the way absurdist humor has become so commonplace in the culture of the millennial generation. If questioned, I'd say I was unsure. This is because I, like Murakami, did not know the answer.

Haruki Murakami, birthed in 1949, was a member of the first generation of Japanese children born after the country's humiliating defeat in World War II. In the wake of their defeat, Japan was on the verge of launching the greatest social revolution in human history. When Murakami was a child, he realized that the Japan he was growing up in was not the same as the Japan he had been raised in. Japan experienced a period of exceptional economic prosperity during the 1960s. The youth grew up paralyzed by the silver spoons forced into their mouths as the value of their currency climbed rapidly. With all of their physical needs being easily met, their thoughts turned to more introspective inquiries like, "Who am I?" What is the point of living? Murakami's decade's youth, frustrated by their inability to find answers and envious of the preceding generation's ability to find meaning by participating in the war, decided to channel all of their frustration into one of the largest student protests in Japanese history: which rebelled against the US-Japan Security Treaty. Young people were a major part of the demonstration, but they weren't just a rambunctious bunch of teenagers. Those that do this are trying to figure out who they are by asking their motherland what it means to them, what they mean to their country, and what they mean to the world. People who were lost and lonely.

Being among this movement's youngest participants, Murakami personally experienced the problems of identity crises. As a result, issues of alienation and identity loss became recurring themes in several of his best-selling writings. Murakami didn't give any of his characters names in the early stages of his writing career. Murakami, in his detached tone, would have characters utilize first-person narration for the majority of the novel, though the names of the primary characters would be stated in passing. Even though Murakami's later works featured individuals with more conventional names, they were no less gloomy due to their focus on the psychological implications of isolation and dissolution of self. Murakami's distinctive magic realism, a storytelling method, only serves to amplify themes of identity loss by constructing a cosmos that, despite being cruelly founded in fact, doesn't disregard the silliness of daily existence. Murakami captures the ambiguity and bewilderment of youth by inserting enchantment into everyday life.

At the time, as a young reader from Bangladesh, I had a vague idea of how the Japanese youngsters of Murakami's generation felt about losing their national identity at the hands of Western capitalism. However, I could relate to the yearning to have some sort of emotional bond to my country, whether in times of celebration or mourning. The Bangladesh Liberation War ended fifty years ago, long before any of the people my age were born. Murakami's generation is no longer the only one grappling with concerns such, "What do I mean to my nation and what does my country mean to me?" With the freedom that comes from being a sovereign nation. To return to the original question, why do young people find Murakami's writing so appealing? It's the fact that there's just so much we don't know. That's because his stories never quite tie up their loose ends, the protagonists are always left with more questions than answers, and there's always a sense of dread at the end of each and every one of them. Murakami's work effortlessly achieves what few authors can: a common knowledge with his readers that life is a maelstrom in which there are far too many questions and never enough solutions.