Haruki Murakami

Ok, just to preface this post. My paper is a comparison of a Japanese author named Haruki Murakami and an Austrian painter named Gustav Klimt. I'm not sure why it occurred to me to compare the two, other than the fact that I really like both and that it's easier to write about topics you care about, but the more I thought about the idea the more I realized how perfectly the two fit together. In a weird way that doesn't make sense until you really start to deconstruct exactly what makes their respective work beautiful. So I'll give a quick profile of each of them and let you connect the dots between the two, because that was half the fun of this paper.

Haruki Murakami is the most popular Japanese author right now. He writes novels and short stories which are generally very strange, but in the way that a dream is strange and we still don't question it. In fact, often when his characters dream what happens in the dream is just as important as what happens in their reality. His protagonists are almost always men, but it is usually the women in his books that hold the real power. These women are mysterious, often with unexplained mental powers, and usually end up having sex with the protagonist.

It would be nearly useless to give plot summaries of his works because what the books are "about" is rarely what they're actually ABOUT. What the entirety of his work is actually ABOUT is the empty souls of modern Japan, people who have fallen into a state of apathetic subsistence that requires such strange catalysts as psychic prostitutes, wives leaving husbands right and left, earthquakes, being trapped in a well, etc. in order to break free from the monotony into a state of feeling.

Also, the context of his books is undeniably Japanese; there are tons of little cultural aspects that make it into the novels because Murakami pays very close attention to the tiniest details of physical appearance and daily habits. My guess is that this is to keep the book grounded, keep it real enough to make the weird stuff believable. Another strategy he uses is to set his books around the same time as real events in Japanese history, even if they only tangentially affect the story line. So as a result of this inherent Japanese-ness people in the books are totally cool with having Shinto priests tell their fortunes or being told that their troubles are the result of a bad flow of energy in their houses, which is really interesting.

Ok so recap:

Writes surreal books full of mysterious women and sex with great attention to detail and the purpose of provoking society into feeling.

Do you think the dream world is a useful and interesting device for exploring the boundaries and limitations of reality? Or did the stuff about psychic prostitutes and being trapped in a well scare you off?