Not a book review: Reading Murakami

The BBC and the Cult of the Dispossessed

Reading Haruki Murakami’s novels has been described feeling like you've just awakened from a deep sleep and you aren’t sure if you're still dreaming. I agree. But I'm pretty sure I have woken up from this one. Pretty sure.

In “A Wild Sheep Chase”, the 1982 novel which cemented Murakami’s cult reputation in Japan, there are no kimonos. He strafes his prose with pop culture references. His style is reminiscent of Vonnegut and Carver peppered with the surrealism of Lynch and even Monty Python.

The “Wild Sheep” of the title, a possibly mythical beast, is a power hungry sheep set on global domination, with a red star emblazoned on it’s back. The characters, mostly nameless except for “Rat”, are seeking self identity in the face of anonymous modern culture.

In the novel, only the places and landmarks have names. “I”, the protagonist, is a freelance writer in the Tokyo ad industry. He is tasked by a mysterious “leader” to find the sheep or never work again. On the chase “I” stays in the Dolphin Hotel, site of the Ovine Association. The novel’s denouement takes place in Hokkaido, where “I” meets the mysterious “Sheep Man” who may or may not exist, and may be animal or man.

All the reviews I have ever read of this novel focus upon the hip references, the cool style and slick prose. They consider the subject as a 'screwball comedy', a 'detective story', a critique of contemporary Japanese culture. Hm.

In a BBC news report today, Phillipa Fogarty reports that; “In the 19th Century, Japanese people called the northern island of Hokkaido “Ezochi”. It meant "Land of the Ainu": a reference to the fair-skinned, long-haired people who had lived there for hundreds of years. The Ainu were farmers, hunters and fishermen with animist beliefs.”

The Ainu communities and traditions were eroded by waves of Japanese settlement and subsequent assimilation policies, including the Soviet invasion of the Ainu’s home islands and the Ainu’s subsequent expulsion from their homes.

For over 140 years, the Japanese government has refused to acknowledge their existence. There is no definitive theory as to where the Ainu come from. The Ainu frequently did not name themselves for fear of persecution. They only named places. The Ainu were persecuted in their thousands by the Soviets. The Ainu traditionally wore animal skins in winter. Their language shares no common roots with Japanese, or any other language known.

Feel free to join the dots. 

Oh by the way, the news the BBC reported today was that the Japanese government finally officially acknowledge “the existence” of the Ainu.

Does this mean the novel no longer exists?