The Existentialist Vision of Haruki Murakami

"This is a well-written, engaging, and comprehensive study of the literary world of Haruki Murakami. It explores the trajectory of Murakami’s existentialist fiction, elucidating, both theoretically and biographically, how Murakami came in contact with Western philosophical writing; how his encounters with Sartre, Camus, and Kafka in particular had a decisive impact on his own creative career; and how his existentialist vision underwent different stages as he engaged in a unique, life-long project to respond creatively and critically to the sociocultural environment of his time. This work convincingly demonstrates that Murakami’s fiction is not a mere product of popular culture intended for light reading—Michael Ackland explores Murakami’s work in its totality, paying attention to recurring themes and motives as well as favored metaphors and bringing into relief a vision that penetrates Murakami’s kaleidoscopic literary space. This is a significant achievement, opening up room for new ways of reading Murakami, deciphering the key themes that constitute his fictional world and shedding light on the underpinning problem of consciousness that runs through Murakami’s oeuvre. This study is also appealing in that it contains great explication-de-texte of Murakami’s major works. Ackland navigates the reader into the depths of Murakami’s literary space through the analysis of metaphors, recurring images, and evolving themes, introducing the relevant texts roughly in the chronological order of publication, and allows the reader to get a grasp of the key features of the respective stories/novels. Attention given to the images woven in a number of Murakami’s fiction (e.g., the deep, dark well, white-walled hospitals, the paranormal yokai) helps the reader to achieve a satisfactory understanding of how Murakami’s literary world develops and what constitutes the underlying current of his oeuvre. This book will attract the attention of scholars not only in modern and contemporary Japanese literature but also in literary studies in general. It highlights the question concerning the intertwining relationship between literature and society not simply on the surface level but on a deeper philosophical level and presents a strong argument on the potential power of literature. Needless to say, this will be a must-read for anyone wanting to further their understanding of Murakami’s literary world." —Toshiko Ellis, University of Tokyo

"This is a book which discusses Haruki Murakami’s works as contemporary Japanese adaptations of French existentialist world views and ethics. Through an analysis of a large variety of Murakami texts, Michael Ackland proves how fundamentally and consistently existentialist Murakami is in his works. Articulate and convincing, this thought-provoking study will make a good contribution to Murakami studies as well as to studies of contemporary Japanese literature and comparative literature, especially for English-speaking audiences. This is a good critical guidebook not only for researchers of Murakami's fiction but also for English-speaking general readers in helping us understand one of the basic ethical foundations of Murakami’s literature." —Eiji Sekine, Purdue University