Entry 5, Hmmm

The more I think about A Wild Sheep Chase, the more I'm in awe of Murakami's achievement. I needed to look back to Lynch once again to question why he is the only director whose movies I can come back to time and time again. The answer is simple: a mystery isn't always solved; the milk carton doesn't always nourish (the child isn't always found). Some mysteries aren't solved. Some mysteries stay lodged in our minds forever. For me, I've always wondered about the recurring dream I had as a child: four doctors worked on a patient in a rectangular glass room in the middle of a factory lunchroom filled with plastic picnic tables. The only boundary in this dream is as far as the light from above the patient stretches. One doctor is a mummy, another is a wolfman; and outside the glass room, where the picnics tables are, intermittently roams a wild creature (a lion, a wolf, a hybrid: i'm unsure). It is only when this creature appears that I awake in a panic. On a basic level, this dream always had a profound effect on me which was both exhilarating and frightening: a mystery. On the other hand, not being able to figure out its meaning was a letdown. I'm starting to realize, as I get older, that meaning, while it has its purpose, doesn't always exist in full. Sometimes meaning is derived from the context itself, it can bring one closer to an understanding of self. For me, very simply, I was always affected by horror movies and ghost stories, and this recurring dream proved that to me: I was always excited to experience it. And if there was intention in this dream to tell me something more than that, I do not know, but I do know that it will always have me enticed. This spiel is not to say that Murakami's novel had political intentions and that it had a goal, or a purpose, but it is to say the effect that dreamlike sequences and imaginative thinking can impose are great. In short, whether or not Murakami intends to make a socio-political commentary, which he almost surely does, his story still pleases on other levels that alone can be satisfactory.

4 - Murakami

With all the motifs/themes running through A Wild Sheep Chase, Murakami seems to pull them together with an allusion to Conrad. Not only does the narrator of Heart of Darkness, Marlowe, constantly refer to time as "standing still" and "stagnant" in the jungles of Africa, you also get the feeling that he feels that the "Heart of Darkness" is the beginning of time itself; when man was alone, solitary; when no rules applied whatsoever. Boku goes through this same struggle. Time is wiped away. The only idea of time he has is the grandfather clock in the living room, but it is him who has to restart that clock. It is as if he is being reborn, time is starting anew. Much like Marlowe's character has to adapt to his floating consciousness in the dark jungle, Boku has to reorient himself with some mode of tracking his actions, his memories. He comes to find that his lucidity doesn't necessarily exist when there is no one there to confirm it, and Marlowe went through much the same problem. It wasn't until he saw how withdrawn Kurts had become that he controlled his disorientation. In the end, Boku seems to come to terms with his as well.

Madden's Entry 3 - Murakami

A Wild Sheep Chase's surrealist aspects lend the book an eerie undertow. It is not an easy thing to achieve to have your reader unnerved and confused, yet interested. They way that both Murakami and Lynch are able to do this is with juxtaposition. By supplanting normal life situations with scenes with strange dream life, the material is much more effectively haunting and tantalizing in relation to the real world. In many other mystery stories, the whole emphasis of the story is directed towards solving it, its characters simply pawns on their way to the solution; the reader/viewer never strays from that straight line and isn't afforded any disassociation from the goal of the author/director. Therefore, the viewer isn't jarred but only waiting to find out the identity of the killer like in a Scooby Doo cartoon. Both Murakami and Lynch offer alternate routes on their path to solving the mystery, and even if they are all leading to the same point, it's much more fun to choose our own routes than have them dictated to us.

(2)Madden: Rushdie's "Haroun and the Sea of Stories"

On pp. 120-121, Haroun questions why Bolo's ambition to war is so steadfast. Mali answers him by saying, "It is love...It is all for love. Which is wonderful and dashing matter. But which can also be a very foolish thing." While this statement is true just in general, this novel is full of little bits of wisdom warning against extremism: it is largely a theme in this book and in the handouts from class. Religious extremism especially comes to mind in this dialogue, as Bolo is willing to sacrifice himself and his people in war for a matter of the heart; reminiscent of a Muslim's duty to Allah, as carried out through suicide bombings. Bolo does not ponder any other path and is more than a little surprised when the other Gups mention the Ocean's importance in the war as well. Rushdie seems to suggest that all else can fall to the wayside when one is in love or enamored with unextinguishable desire; which is only to be quenched when reciprocated or when one extinguishes oneself. Like the Scarecrow says, love can be a great and joyous thing; but it is also a two headed shark, each with razor-teeth.