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March 1993 |
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Haarper's Bazaar |
In "The Elephant Vanishes," Haruki Murakami's stories
of modern-day Japan have an oddball logic all their own.
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An advertising copywriter's marriage unravels after three
miniature people install an imaginary TV set in his living
room; a Tokyo housewife spends so much time reading Russian
novels that Anna Karenina becomes more real to her than her
own family; and in the title story of Haruki Murakami's new
collection, The Elephant Vanishes (Knopf), the pachyderm from
the local zoo does just that, inexplicably, into think air.
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Hauntingly strange, Murakami's stories read like distress
signals from behind the cathode looking glass of contemporary
Japan; they are allegories for a nation sleepwalking through
prosperity, bumping into the shrouded furniture of its history
on the way to the gleaming electronic future. "And everywhere,
infinite options, infinite possibilities," says the narrator
in "A Slow Boat to China." "An infinity and
at the same time, zero. We try to scoop it up in our hands,
and what we get is a handful of zero."
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"We [in Japan] got rich in the last 20 years, but we
don't have pride," says Murakami, whose quirky fantasies
mask an acute social criticism. "We don't know who we
are, and we don't know where we are going or what our purpose
is -- sometimes we feel at a loss." Currently a visiting
fellow at Princeton University, he has found refuge from adoring
fans and carping critics, both of which are legions back home.
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Murakami's round, open face and shy demeanor make him seem
considerably younger than his 43 years; it's hard to believe
that this reflective man in jeans and a sweatshirt is a best-selling
pop idol who can't walk unmolested down a Tokyo street.
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continue reading at |
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http://gbctrans.com/eotw/tokyo.html |
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