Description
Book SynopsisThis book offers a new approach to dealing with Murakami's radical narrative project by demonstrating how his first and later trilogies utilize the structure of the simulacrum, a second-order representation, to develop a complex critique of contemporary Japanese culture.
Trade ReviewMurakami Haruki reinvigorates debate regarding Murakami's ultimate purpose and place as a writer, and his role in the larger debates concerning Japanese modernity and subjectivity, and is therefore a useful addition to the body of discourse on this important novelist. * The Journal of Japanese Studies *
Table of ContentsPart 1 Part I: Theoretical Preliminaries Chapter 2 The Murakami Phenomenon: Critical/Fictional Thematics Chapter 3 Simulacral Structures: Modernity, the Global and the Idea of the Japanese Novel Chapter 4 The Theory of the Simulacrum:Trajectories and Limits Part 5 Part II: The Critique of Orthodoxy 6 Parody, Pastiche, Metafiction: Hear the Wind Sing 7 Allegory as Modality:Pinball, 1973 8 Alleory as Landscape: A Wild Sheep Chase 9 Part III: The Return of the Referent 10 The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle: Contexts 11 The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle: Subject and Text 12 The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle: Stories 13 Conclusion: From Simulacrum to Differend
