Whatever it is you’re seeking won’t come in the form you’re expecting.
― Haruki Murakami
My first and favourite Murakami was Norwegian Wood where a bath tub features. It’s too late, he can’t go home, she laughs and says that’s where you can sleep.
My second read was Kafka on the Shore with a talking cat. A few books later, I encountered the wonderful Sputnik Sweetheart. You want them there but as an idea. A dream, a hope, you dare not try to find in reality.
This connects with the Romantic idea of the muse, traditionally female, although there’s a woman’s equivalent. Music, and jazz in particular, is muse-like for Murakami. How can you spin an entire novel based on the story in the Beatles tune?
I suspect as a brain function this is similar to exploring literary symbols, nature images, and a foggy morning photograph of a park. In the city, fog is my favourite photographic effect. This is not Norwegian. It is a local wood, with ideas from his books, the writer enveloped in a musical score.
Mono no aware is a Japanese term meaning the pathos of things, and sensitivity to ephemera. It rests on a philosophical recognition of impermanence, from which sadness arises, because this is the reality of life. I could write about the I Ching but should restrain myself. In addition to the beauty of it, the Japanese like cherry blossom because of its impermanence.
I love spring flowers. I love the cherry blossom more. Murakami’s world is floaty, dreamy, surreal. It captures a feeling we have but can’t describe.