Murakami and Themes - Wilson

 After doing a presentation on how often I see food in Murakami, I found so many other patterns in Murakami’s stories. The most recent one that we discussed is the common appearance of music in his stories. To me the music was Murakami’s way to convey a deeper understanding of the characters and their emotions. Another quite common theme in Murakami I have noticed is this combination of surrealism and memory. The characters would travel to this alternative reality where the characters go through their previous memories to reflect on themselves. The most well-known examples for us will be The Wild Sheep Chase and Norwegian Wood. Boku in The Wild Sheep Chase slowly heals and reflects after traveling to The Rat’s place. In Norwegian Wood, the book itself is just Toru recalling his memories about his time in university. Memories oftenly appear in Murakami’s writings as it is one of the ways to tie into surrealism because it invokes a sense of melancholy that the characters were in and now experiencing something completely different. I also noticed that Murakami always has that dark underlying tone in his stories. Although it feels like he describes this mundane life of his characters, the characters either have experienced or will experience some trauma. Sometimes, these trauma will only be known by the readers and the characters themselves will always be left in the dark. Currently, the most memorable is Barn Burning where the readers knows the truth while our main character does not understand what has happened.