To be literal and boring, this book takes place in Japan in 1978. However, Murakami takes a great deal of time describing the setting and the significance of Japanese history, so this topic is ripe for discussion.
In this era in Japan, the cities are growing and the country is declining. There is a certain sadness in this which is discovered towards the end of the book as a small town is visited. The character muses as to how and entire town can die, and it's an interesting concept indeed.
However, the book opens up amidst the bustling Tokyo. The reader doesn't feel immersed in the crowd though. Instead, our character remains on the fringes of human contact. In fact, while driving around in The Limo, the total stillness and silence within works as a symbol of the way our character is living. Even among the life of a full city, he is isolated and there is a staleness about his surroundings.
I feel that as the book develops, he spends more and more time describing the setting. More time going into the history of places and discussing the name of cities. It's interesting to me that he is so eager to talk about the names of cities while he refuses to divulge the names of characters. Returning to the line of thought with a town dying; does Murakami believe that places are more unique and important than people?
Lastly, this is definitely a story of Japan. It wouldn't work anywhere else because of the intertwining of the mystery with the history of sheep importation and the military careers of various important characters (the Boss for one).
It's hard to talk about setting though, because it becomes much more important at the end of the book.
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Answering your question, I think that Murakami finds people and places equally important, but I have found that the setting often seems to reflect the personality of the person. For example, the quiet cafe has many similar characterisitics as the nameless main character in this book.
ReplyDeleteThat's interesting. But if the cafe represented someone, wouldn't it be the easy bookworm girl? The main character is more like his apartment - totally devoid of personality...
ReplyDeleteThat is very interesting. Although I don't think the main character is that much like his apartment. See, the main character is just morbid and unmotivated, while his apartment seems...quaint.
ReplyDeleteI believe setting can sometimes be more unique and of importance than the actual characters. They are for sure related in some way at least. Sometimes, the setting can make the characters irrelevant, or even unimportant. For some reason this just leads me to the thought that for example...touchy as it may be... there are genocides going on in Africa right now, but if that happened in the U.S. wouldn't that be of much more significance? Setting matters.
ReplyDeleteI think that Athena is right about the apartment and the bookworm girl. Also I think that Olivia is right that it is quaint but I think that in order to have a Tokyo's population in Tokyo most apartment are quaint.
ReplyDeleteIrini
I agree that certain settings in the book reflect the personality of certain characters. That said, do you think that the restaurant could reflect the ear girl and the office could reflect his business partener in some way, or are these simply places? I also agree with what Hannah said about the setting being more important than the characters sometimes, but I don't think that this theory applies to this story.
ReplyDeleteHello
ReplyDeleteThis is a good post and interesting to read.You have given nice view of book.Thank you very much for sharing this with us.
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