Haruki Murakami – Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World

Translated from the Japanese by Alfred Birnbaum

In my notes on “The Shadow of the Wind” I was harsh, some might say brutally so, towards the translator. So I wanted to open this review by tipping my hat to Alfred Birnbaum. This must have been a fantastically difficult novel to translate. I’ll come to why later but I wanted to start by saying this was one of the strangest books I have read in a very long time. It is set in Japan, and that is one of the very few definite things I can say about it. It is constructed of two parallel storylines, and while it is reasonably clear they are connected early on – otherwise they wouldn’t be in the same book would they? – it takes a long time for the connection to become apparent. Murakami slowly reveals the links – thinking about a novel he has just read about a prisoner, the narrator in one storyline meditates on “the image of a world within walls. I could picture it, with no effort at all. A very high wall, a very large gate. Dead quiet. Me inside. “ (164) Which is a description of the setting of the parallel narrative. The conclusion suggested here is that the second story is a dream of the narrator of the first story. I resisted the temptation of this interpretation for a long time, (although it turned out to be right), because while fantastical, dreamlike things happen in story B, story A is almost as bizarre.

Story A follows a data analyst with special powers. The author spends a lot of time trying to explain the nature of these powers and the circumstances in which they were acquired, but the effort was wasted on me. Gibberish is gibberish whether written at length or not. Here’s an example

“Whatever we do t’your cognitive circuits, we must never sever that channel. The reason bein’ that your surface consciousness – your first circuit – developed on nurture from your subconscious – that is, from your second circuit. That channel’s the roots of your tree. Without it your brain wouldn’t function. But the question here is that with the electrical discharge from the meltdown of Junction B, the channel’s been dealt an abnormal shock. And your brain’s so surprised, it’s started up emergency adjustment procedures. “ (283)

(As an aside, why the scientist speaking here has this strange accent is one of the many things that went over my head). The narrator has a magnetic attraction to women, who cast aside their clothes and implore him to sleep with them at every opportunity, which is irritating. The nearest style this all approximates to is magical realism. Supernatural things such as unicorns, and subterranean, murloc-like beasts called INKlings appear, and sound can be turned on and off. This is not a naturalistic world, although it is recognisable.

On the other hand, Story B is more dream-like, and follows a similar character (yes, the same person, as we find out sooner or later) who goes to a walled city, has his shadow surgically removed (although it survives the procedure) and spends his time “dream-reading” – trying to interpret mystically readings generated by skulls in a library. As you do.

Eventually the narrative settles down, and a storyline emerges. Despite myself, towards the end of the novel I found myself caring for the romance between the narrator and his librarian girlfriend, a love so compelling that it can cross the boundary between the narratives.

There are so many unusual things about this novel that it is hard to select one, but if forced I would point to the chapters where the author suddenly begins a crude pastiche of American noir detective novels (Chandler, Hammett, etc) – at one point a character stores an object at a baggage check counter, then posts the claim ticket to himself – precisely what Marlowe does in “Farewell my Lovely” (I think).The characters (at this point) all crack wise, even when being smacked around, facing death with smart alec comments, and talking about “spilling the beans”, “rubbing people out”, and “getting sweet”.

This was such a mash-up of genres that I was left utterly bewildered. Which is probably a first. Murakami is hugely popular, and his new novels (this dates back to1985, and includes references to the Police and Duran Duran) are something of an event. If this is representative of his work, I might wait a while before trying another.

I mentioned earlier the credit due to the translator. The different styles of Idiom used are handled well, as is the challenge to make the nonsensical technical explanations, have a veneer of sense. Murakami’s prose can be dense – here’s an example of the translation challenge:

 “This is very important...because to believe something, whatever it might be, is the doing of the mind. Do you follow me? When you say you believe, you allow the possibility of disappointment. And from disappointment or betrayal, there may come despair. Such is the way of the mind”. (351).

Indeed, and as is well know, fear can turn to hate, etc.

“I did a quick once-over with the shaver, splashed water on my face, combed my hair. My puss was puffy like cheap cheesecake.” (128/9). A good simile, although the last time anyone used the term “puss” to mean face was around 1945.

Authors often anticipate critical reactions to their work, and include them as a way of fending them off. Murakami does just this towards the end of this novel, when he has a character say “The Wizard of Oz had to be more plausible” (341) If plausibility is what you want this is probably the wrong place to start.

 

The Shadow of the Wind (2) – a note about some translation issues.

Occasionally when reading this novel I came across a few phrases that jarred, and sounded unnatural. I appreciate that translating is a very difficult process, capturing not just the sense of the original but the poetry, the complexity, and the idiomatic phrasing. I also recognise that any awkwardness of phrasing could be deliberate, to emphasis an aspect of a character’s nature for example. Having said all that, there were a few usages that felt just wrong.

Some examples:

“he had augured that in her lifetime she would behold the death of everything she loved.” (268)

To use “augur” as an active verb meaning to forecast, rather than to simply signify a future event, may not technically be incorrect, but it feels archaic.

“Look here, Merceditas, because I know you’re a good person (though a bit narrow minded and as ignorant as a brick)” (Fermin) page 159,

Translating idiom is fantastically difficult, I appreciate, but “ignorant as a brick” is not an expression I recognise, and the internet hasn’t been able to provide me with any examples. OK, this is Fermin speaking, and his language is colourful, but not deliberately awkward surely?

“The downpour slithered like melted wax” (314).

Slithered is another very active verb – snakes and worms slither. It implies sideways movement, at pace - but melted wax may move sideways, but always slowly.

“What blessed innocence, Daniel, You’d even believe in the tooth fairy. All right, just to give you an example: the tall tale about Miguel Moliner that Nuria Monfort landed on you. I think the wench told you more whoppers than the editorial page of L’Osseratore Romano.” (231)

Just how wooden is this? “Landed on you”? You don’t land a tall tale on someone. And “more whoppers than the editorial page of L’Osseratore Romana” is never going to catch on!

“if he could lie better, he wouldn’t be teaching algebra and Latin; he’d be in the bishopric by now, growing fat in an office like a cardinal’s and plunging soft sponge cakes in his coffee.” (Fermin) (231).

I’ve two issues with this sentence. Firstly, wouldn’t “growing fat in a cardinal’s office” be better? I appreciate “in a cardinal’s office” is different to “an office like a cardinal’s”, but the distinction is slight, and the sentence as written is ugly and confusing – on a first read I thought there was a missing word after “cardinal’s” (hat?). The other issue is with the verb choice. Plunging is not something one does with soft sponge cakes. It is a violent, vigourous movement; surely the right choice would be “dunking”. Now obviously I haven’t read the original Spanish, and there could possibly be a reason why the author wanted us to imagine this priest aggressively shoving his soft sponge cakes into his coffee, but I doubt it.

What does all this add up to? Is this just a massive exercise in pedantry? If these were the only examples, perhaps, but there was a woodenness through the novel that was hard to escape. I sometimes rather fancifully pictured the characters talking as if in a badly dubbed movie. It made the disappointing experience of reading the novel just that little bit worse.

The Shadow of the Wind – Carlos Ruix Zafon, translated from the Spanish by Lucia Graves

This is one of the novels included in the Eton headmaster’s list I wrote about earlier this month.

Let’s start with the nonsensical title, which sets the tone for the rest of the novel. The wind does not have a shadow. Perhaps I am being overly literal, or perhaps that is the point – the title being a euphemism for something that doesn’t exist. The title is also the name of the novel that is the subject matter of the story, a novel that is elusive and hard to pin down, like its author. So the title is, if I am being kind, an ironic, tongue in cheek, self-referential joke.

The same summary could be applied to the rest of the novel. It is written in high gothic style, reminiscent of the early 19^th century gothic, grand guiginol novel. When one of the characters tells one of the many tales within a tale that make up this novel, another character responses that “It had all the makings of a lurid melodrama. “(239). When I read that I felt like responding as another character did when yet another diversionary tale is being spun ““The abridged version…for goodness sake!” (253). There are scenes set in crypts, with mysterious, ghostly apparitions, sinister, spectral figures lurking in the gloom, and so on. (See chapter 34 for the height of this style). The principal plot follows a young man who comes across a novel (the eponymous Shadow of the Wind) by a mysterious writer, Julian Carax. The young man tries to track Carax down, following various clues, and passes through a maze of clues until finally, at the novel’s climax, Carax’s true identify is revealed.

It’s hard to take this melodrama seriously. It seems more in European taste (for example, The Name of the Rose” which is an obvious influence) but is very old-fashioned. The tendency for characters to monologue about their exotic past reminded me at points of the un-improvable scene in Austin Powers, where Dr Evil reminisces about his childhood.

“The details of my life are quite inconsequential... very well, where do I begin? My father was a relentlessly self-improving boulangerie owner from Belgium with low grade narcolepsy and a penchant for buggery. My mother was a fifteen year old French prostitute named Chloe with webbed feet. My father would womanize, he would drink. He would make outrageous claims like he invented the question mark. Sometimes he would accuse chestnuts of being lazy. The sort of general malaise that only the genius possess and the insane lament. My childhood was typical. Summers in Rangoon, luge lessons. In the spring we'd make meat helmets. When I was insolent I was placed in a burlap bag and beaten with reeds- pretty standard really. At the age of twelve I received my first scribe. At the age of fourteen a Zoroastrian named Vilma ritualistically shaved my testicles. There really is nothing like a shorn scrotum... it's breath-taking- I highly suggest you try it.”

Compare this with:

“This dream was the first of many and they began with that mysterious fever, which some blamed on the sting of a huge red scorpion that appeared in the house one day and was never seen again, and others on the evil designs of a mad nun who crept into houses at night to poison children, and who, years later, was to be garrotted reciting the Lord’s Prayer backwards with her eyes popping out of their sockets, while a red cloud spread over the town, discharging a storm of dead cockroaches” (268)

If you like this sort of thing, then obviously this is the sort of thing you will like. But is it well done? Are the characters convincing? Is the narrative compelling? Is this suitable reading for a well-read 16 year-old Etonian?

Well not really, no. The text is repetitive and over-written. There is little to admire in the writing by way of style, although I appreciate that could be in part a question of translation. The plot is ridiculous and predictable, and characters behave as they do without apparent motivation or sense. Women are reduced to cyphers – there isn’t a well developed female character in the book, and those that do appear are all generic and passive. Why this appeared on the Etonian reading list is more of a mystery than that unwound in this novel.

Redeeming features? Well the background was interesting. Post-Civil War Spain, where the fascists remain in control and the Secret Police can still make people disappear, where everyone has lost a family member or friend, was realistically drawn. But that’s largely it. This novel has huge numbers of five star reviews on Amazon, so I am obviously missing something.

This edition, published for the 10^th anniversary of the book’s original publication, contains at the end some “Book Club reading notes”. I doubt if the book was originally written for this market, but there is a childishness, a paradoxical lack of complexity in the characterisation and plot (which for all its detail and length is actually fairly straightforward; all is revealed in a very linear way with the minimum amount of effort from the investigators, and carefully laid out in well preserved diaries and notes when required) which makes this suitable book club material, as well as justifying its inclusion in the Eton "What every 16 year old boy should have read" list.