The fourth story in Nocturnes is entitled Nocturne and is the longest of the five contained therein. Does this have meaning? I don’t know, my friend. I don't know. Some things don’t. Nocturne concerns a first-person narrator, Steve, who is a professional saxophone player, which satisfies at least two of the requirements for stories in this book—that they present first-person narrators who are musicians. Steve tells a story to his narratee that begins: “Until two days ago, Lindy Gardner was my next-door neighbor.” This is very interesting because it’s the only time characters “migrate” across the stories, Lindy being a character from the first section, Crooner. We know a bit about Lindy from that story, and this knowledge informs our reading of Nocturne, which takes place some months after the events in Crooner. This is a good example of there being more than one audience for a story. In this case, we have the narratee, the person whom Steve is addressing in his narration, and we have the authorial audience who knows things Steve does not, and who is addressed by the implied author. Steve is not as successful in his career and marriage as he’d like to be. Somewhat like the narrator of Malvern Hills, he is resentful about this and bemoans “fake” success—success that is not based on real talent but connection. His manager suggests he get a facelift because it’s felt that Steve’s physical unattractiveness is holding back his real talent. Of course, he resists the idea as fakery and also has no money, but his wife supports the scheme, and then leaves Steve for another fellow who, perhaps improbably, agrees to pay for Steve’s cosmetic surgery. Yes, the story has a slapstick feel. Steve decides to get the surgery, hoping that his wife will return to him if he’s more attractive and successful. The procedure is done, and Steve goes to recover in a posh Beverly Hills hotel where his next-door neighbor is—you guessed it—Lindy Gardner, also recovering from cosmetic surgery. Both characters have bandages covering their faces except for eye slits. Lindy invites Steve over; Steve is reluctant because he feels Lindy is a poster child for fakery, a no talent person who has become a celebrity due to connection but agrees to visit anyway. Well. We can see right off that there is a lot of irony in this tale. Steve, who rails against fakery and nurtures his authenticity as an artist, agrees to undergo a “fake” procedure not to make his career a success but to win back his wife. And, although he dislikes Lindy Gardner (her commercial image) he’s willing to engage with her when he realizes she’s a neighbor. Steve and Lindy hang out, play chess (there’s no romance at all, never comes up). At Lindy’s request, Steve plays her one of his CDs but this provokes a curious reaction—Lindy turns cold and dismissive. Steve is hurt, but Lindy apologizes, saying that she always has a negative reaction to real talent. Steve’s playing moved her, but also made her angry because it was so genuinely good. (we know from Crooners that this is an issue for Lindy; Steve does not know because he hasn’t read Crooners). Steve learns that a colleague, Jake Marvel, is going to receive an award for Jazz Musician of the Year during a ceremony at the hotel. He is resentful, believing that Jake, unlike him, lacks talent. He complains to Lindy about this. Lindy reveals that late at night (nocturne-ally) she likes to prowl around the huge hotel. She steals the award Jake is supposed to receive, and gives it to Steve, saying that he is the rightful honoree. Steve is upset and convinces her they must return the award. This leads to a long slapstick scene wherein Steve and Lindy, their heads bandaged and wearing dressing gowns, search the darkened hotel for the place Lindy took the award. Along the way, they get into a huge argument over—you guessed it—fake vs, authentic success. When Steve vacillates over whether or not they should return the award, Lindy questions Steve’s belief that Jake is unworthy. “The trouble with people like you, just because God’s given you this special gift, you think that entitles you to everything. That you’re better than the rest of us…you don’t see that there’s a whole lot of other people weren’t as lucky as you who work really hard for their place in the world…” Steve responds: “I sweat and heave and break my balls to come up with something worthwhile, something beautiful, then who gets the recognition? Jake Marvell! People like you!” More comedy: Lindy stuffs the award inside a turkey carcass about to be served at the buffet. Steve has difficulty getting it out because it’s stuck way inside. He finally does; he and Lindy hurry upstairs. They leave the award on someone’s room service tray and go to Lindy’s room. Steve confesses to Lindy that he’s been hoping the facelift will bring his wife back to him. Lindy says life is bigger than just loving one person, that he should pursue success. Steve says goodnight. And when they see each other again, just before Lindy goes home, everything feels different. Lindy seems unfriendly and dismissive. Steve concludes “So that’s the story of my time as Lindy Gardner’s neighbor.” He talks to his wife Helen again, and tries to determine whether she might be interested in reconciliation but receives no clear signal. “Maybe Lindy’s right. Maybe, like she says, I need some perspective, and life really is bigger than loving a person. Maybe this really is a turning point for me, and the big league’s waiting. Maybe she’s right.” Huh. An intriguing tale, especially as it’s arrayed with the others we’ve discussed. Is Steve unreliable as a narrator? Prrapps so, the maestro says. I wonder about that ending—it seems like a huge change of heart for Steve to say maybe Lindy’s right, and that the whole story is a turning point for him. The big league’s waiting. It’s waiting, but I don’t see Steve joining it—despite the face lift and the way he claims he’s transformed after the encounter with Lindy Gardner. Maybe Lindy’s distance at the end means something—she knows that Steve’s unable to take her advice. Hold up! you say. It could be that Steve really has reached a turning point and will now embrace “fake” success. Maybe, I say. But maybe not. Such a transformation would go against the way his character is shown in the whole story. I imagine Steve sitting alone in his hotel room, head still covered in bandages, telling this story about how Lindy Gardner was his neighbor. Telling it to himself because there’s no one else there. ‘Kay. Next week, we’ll look at the last story in the book, Cellists. Till then. #Nocturnes #KazuoIshiguro #AlanBray

In the third story of Nocturnes, Malvern Hills, we immediately come on a first-person narrator who is never named. “I’d spent the spring in London, and all in all, even if I hadn’t achieved everything I’d set out to, it had been an exciting interlude.” We learn that this fellow feels the weeks are “slipping by” and that he’s “vaguely paranoid about running into his former university friends, asking “how I was getting on since leaving the course to seek “fame and fortune”…with a very few exceptions—none of them was capable of grasping what was or wasn’t, for me at this particular point, a “successful” few months.” We learn that the narrator is a musician—like all the narrators in the book—and that he has unsuccessfully been trying to find work. He’s gone on many auditions and had not been hired. Instead of doing covers (which is what is wanted), he performs his own songs and feels resentful at the lack of recognition he’s getting. When he angrily asks at one audition why the band isn’t hiring him, he receives the answer, “No offence, mate, It’s just that there are so many wankers going around writing songs.” The narrator apparently doesn’t believe he’s a wanker and dismisses this attitude as “stupidity.” He decides to spend the summer at his sister and brother-in-law’s B&B in the Malvern Hills, a scenic parkland in the country. There’s a sense that he is going there to get away from his problems; he has fond memories of the place. “That summer, though, I felt this was the most beautiful place in the world; that in many ways I’d come from and belonged to the hills.” We learn that, in the way of background, his parents divorced when he was a child, and the family house was sold. In short, he is adrift although has difficulty admitting it. Here we have this story’s iteration of one of the themes of the book: the yearnings that exiles feel toward home. Mention is also made that his sister and brother-in-law expect him to work in exchange for room and board. This arrangement, “suited me just fine because it meant I couldn’t be expected to work too hard…The work was easy enough—I was especially good at making sandwiches—and I sometimes had to keep reminding myself of my main objective in coming out to the country in the first place: that’s to say, I was going to write a brand-new batch of songs ready for my return to London.” It should be noted that this element is a steady one for Ishiguro—a story of someone working for someone else, a servant or assistant, in this case in a resentful and passive-aggressive way. The main part of the story concerns the narrator’s encounter with a Swiss couple, Tilo and Sonja, who come into the restaurant. They are on vacation and staying nearby so that the narrator runs into them as they hike in the hills. They overhear the narrator playing one of his songs and praise it, wanting to hear more. They reveal they are musicians who have gradually given up some of their original musical dreams to make money by playing pop songs in restaurants. (including ABBA). However, the couple seem to be polarized, in that Tilo, the husband, is completely positive about everything: the lunch they have at the B&B, their lodgings, the vacation they’re on, the state of their career, and even the apparent neglect from their adult son who doesn’t return their phone calls. Sonja, the wife, is equally negative about all these things, complaining angrily about the vacation, their lifestyle, and their son. Eventually, the narrator (who seems oblivious to the couple’s discord) runs into Sonja who has just had an argument with her husband. Tilo has gone alone for a hike, saying the couple should probably break-up because they are so different. Sonja, who doesn’t want this, is upset and tries to escape her usual pessimism to encourage the narrator to pursue his musical dreams. They story ends with the narrator seeing Tilo at a distance and thinking he seems to be “re-appraising” the hills. The narrator concludes he needs to work more on the bridge of the song he’s writing. Hmmm. What we have here is not only the usual theme of an exiled narrator musician who is unreliable in his judgements, but also the consistent scenario of the narrator faced with a married couple—in this case, Tilo and Sonja—who are transforming. The narrator doesn’t seem to transform and appears rather clueless about the depths (or shallowness) of his talent. In a self-centered way, he angrily rejects any criticism and misreads the expectations of his sister and brother-in-law. If we think about the first two stories, Crooner and Come Rain or Come Shine, we may recall that each narrator’s chief concern is the story he’s telling his audience—not necessarily the story we the readers are getting. These narrators are concerned with how they come off, their appearances. Jan, in Crooner, wants to tell the story of how he helped the famous musician Tony Gardner, and how Tony complimented his talent. Ray, in Come Rain or Come Shine, shows himself just needing comfort as he visits his somewhat dense and troublesome friends, and how he will go to extreme lengths to get it. The narrators are talking to their imagined narratees, not to us. They want to convince their narratees and see them as sympathetic to their problems. The narrator of Malvern Hills also wants a respite from the stupidity and rejection he faces. He tells the story of Sonja and Tilo but is not really concerned with their pain, only that they seem to appreciate his talent. (much like Jan). What we the readers receive from the implied author, just as in the other stories, is a tale of tragedy about long term lovers failing (to various degrees) to work out their differences, a story told by an oblivious narrator. So is he under-reading or under-reporting? Under-reading, I think. He is oblivious to his own narcissism and to the complexities of others. Perhaps the ending does represent some change though. After thinking that Tilo must be re-appraising things, the narrator decides maybe the bridge of his song needs a little more work. Till next time. #Noctures #KazuoIshiguro #AlanBray

The title of the next story in Nocturnes contains another musical reference, Come Rain or Come Shine, the title of a famous American song standard. It is narrated by Ray, who, like Jan in Crooner, is someone living abroad, away from England, his country of birth. The story continues to incorporate motifs of music, evening, immigration, and portals. It begins with Ray describing how he’d become close with a couple, Emily and Charlie, in university days, apparently twenty-five years before the present of the story. At that time, Charlie was his best friend as was Emily—although there’s no mention of any sexual attraction on Ray’s part. He describes how he and Emily bonded over their appreciation of American standard songs performed by artists like Sarah Vaughn and Billie Holiday. Ray then relates how, after university, he took up teaching English in Spain and is still there. “…I’ve been stuck in the same humid buildings year after year, setting spelling tests or conducting the same conversations in slowed-down English…When I first took up English teaching after university it seemed a good enough life…if the teaching was tedious and the hours exploitative, at that age you don’t care much…In the late 80s, there was still talk of making a lot of money teaching in Japan, and I made serious plans to go, but it never worked out…then before you know it, you’re forty-seven years old and the people you started out with long ago have been replaced by a generation who gossip about different things, take different drugs, and listen to different music.” After “a few months that hadn’t exactly been the best in my life,” he goes to visit Emily and Charlie (who have married) in London. He goes with a sense of desiring connection with the past, with England, and his old friends. But he’s immediately disappointed—“his” room at the couple’s house is untidy, Charlie is distracted and critical of his life. In fact, both Charlie and Emily are concerned and critical over Ray’s existence. “…he (Charlie) fired questions at me about my life in Spain, and each time I told him anything, good or bad, he’d do this sour little smile and shake his head, like I was confirming his worst fears.” Charlie says: “Listen to me…your situation’s hopeless. You’ve got to hand in your notice…I can tell you won’t do any of this…You’ll go back and carry on just the same…in a year’s time, you’ll be moaning about exactly the same things.” Emily says: “Oh, honestly, Raymond. You let yourself be exploited left, right, and centre by that ghastly language school, you let your landlord rip you off silly, and what do you do? Get in tow with some airhead girl with a drink problem and not even a job to support it. It’s like you’re deliberately trying to annoy anyone who still gives a shit about you!…Raymond, don’t you ever stop and ask yourself who you are?” Emily asked. “When you think of all your potential, aren’t you ashamed? Look at how you lead your life! It’s…it’s simply infuriating! One gets so exasperated!” Not only are his old friends disapproving of the way he’s living his life, but they are also having marital problems. In fact, in a comedic twist, Charlie—who has to go away on a business trip—wants Ray to stay with Emily, believing that Ray’s presence will show Emily that he (Charlie) is not so bad by comparison. There follows a slapstick scene that comprises the bulk of the story. Ray accidentally damages Emily’s diary after discovering it expresses dismay over his visit. “Raymond coming! Groan, groan!” Then he tries to hide the evidence. With Charlie’s help (by phone) he attempts to create the impression that the neighbor’s unruly dog burst into the house and tore up the diary. This ruse involves breaking vases and cooking an old shoe in order to get the proper dog smell. (Dogs smell like popcorn). Please pay attention. Emily returns from work and, appalled by the chaos, takes it as confirmation that Ray is deranged. However, she decides to cook dinner, and the pair listens to old vocal jazz records the way they used to. However, in a change, Ray does not wish to argue with Emily about which interpretation is better—the way they used to do. Ray tells Emily that Charlie loves her and doesn’t want to divorce. The two of them wind up dancing together out on the terrace. “You’re right, Raymond,” she said, quietly in my ear. “Charlie’s all right. We should sort ourselves out.” “Yes, you should.” “You’re a good friend, Raymond. What would we do without you?” Ray remembers the song they’re dancing to is eight minutes long. He thinks after it’s over, they’ll go inside, and Emily may become angry again because of his destruction of her diary and the cooking of the smelly shoe. “What did I know? But for another few minutes at least, we were safe, and we kept dancing under the starlit sky.” It appears that Charlie’s scheme may indeed have worked. Compared to Ray, Charlie seems better to Emily. Ray represents another unreliable narrator who underreports—at least to his friends. He acknowledges to his narratee—the entity he’s telling the story to—that he’s been stuck in an unsatisfying job and that the recent few weeks have been particularly bad. He wants to visit his old friends as a kind of re-charging. He thinks of them as happily married, solid and respectable. Grown-up—perhaps the way he’s imagined himself becoming. However, when they point out the deficiencies in his life, he denies them, saying rather that he’s doing just fine—and the reader knows this is not the case. There is a strong theme here of someone living a sort of exile and longing for home—at least the illusion of a home that once was. But Ray is confronted with change; Charlie and Emily are not the same people he knew in university. And they are not accepting of his perhaps younger lifestyle. Yet, at the end, there’s a sense that Ray has transformed in that he’s no longer interested in entering into arguments with Emily over old standard jazz songs. But he is consistent in just wanting things to be “nice” for the eight-minute length of the song they’re dancing to. He remains nostalgic for the way they all used to be. The title Come Rain or Come Shine is probably meaning-laden, my friends. There are no coincidences, as Don Juan used to say. The implication is that Emily and Charlie love each other no matter what. And Emily can accept Ray with all his problems, and still see that he is a good friend. However, I think in Ray’s case, the song title has a twist. Emily and Charlie may be mistaken in thinking that Ray cares for them. We the readers know that Ray is self-centered; he goes along with the couple’s schemes and endures their criticism because he desires the comfort of the past, not because he’s such a good friend. At the end, he wants the romantic song to continue. Ray remains the same, come rain or come shine. Like Crooner, Come Rain or Come Shine uses romantic music in an ironic way. (To quote Jordan Catalano). Till next time. #Nocturnes #KazuoIshiguro #AlanBray

Last week, we began to look at Kazuo Ishiguro’s Nocturnes, specifically the first tale, Crooner. I cut the diamond in stating that I thought the narrator, Jan, was underreading vs. underreporting. Let’s look at this more closely. (whiny voice: Why is this even important?) For a deeper understanding of the story. Please settle down. James Phelan talks about this distinction in depth. To review, underreporting is when a character narrator does not admit to his narratee what both he and the authorial audience know about his personal interest. What does this mean? A simple example would be where the reader of a story knows that the narrator hates broccoli, let’s say because the narrator has reported in several scenes that reliable characters have said this to the narrator. You hate broccoli. But the narrator then says in his narration, “You know, I love broccoli.” The reader immediately wonders why the narrator is saying this, since it isn’t “true.” Underreading, on the other hand, is when a narrator does not consciously know—or is not able to admit to himself—what we infer about his personal interest. In the above example, let’s say the narrator has showed himself as being nauseous every time he eats broccoli. However, he keeps eating it and doesn’t seem to make the connection. Again, the authorial audience might wonder why is he doing this? Why can’t he admit he hates broccoli? (That’s ridiculous). A careful reader might say of the above examples that they seem pretty similar. On the face of it, it is difficult to distinguish between underreporting and underreporting. An effective way to determine whether a character narrator is underreading or underreporting is to link the unreliability to inferences about the narrator as character. In Crooner, what do we infer about Jan as a character? We know that he plays guitar in café bands in Venice, Italy, that he has a young and informal way of narrating. He’s different from other musicians he works with in that he plays guitar, a non-traditional instrument, (for the café bands) and he’s not Italian. He’s from an eastern European country and grew up under a communist government, raised by a single mother who has since died. He says, “Years later, when I was working in Warsaw…” and relates a story of buying his mother Tony Gardner records to replace those he accidently scratched as a child. “It took me over three years, but I kept getting them, one by one, and each time I went back to see her I’d bring her another.” When he spots Tony Gardner, “…I couldn’t quite believe it…Tony Gardner! What would my dear mother have said if she’d known! For her sake, for the sake of her memory, I had to go and say something to him…” Jan’s mother is his connection to Tony Gardner. “So I sat down and told him some more. About my mother, our apartment, the…records.” He can’t recall the titles of the records but describes the pictures on the sleeves, and Tony remembers the titles. There are some similarities between the two men. Tony is in a close relationship with Lindy, Jan with his deceased mother. Tony reveals he’s discarding Lindy for the sake of his career, Jan (we can infer) left his mother for the sake of his career and to become an adult. Eventually, Jan expresses disbelief at Tony’s coldness. When you love someone the way you’ve sung about, you stay together, he says. Jan is discovering that Tony doesn’t live the life he’s conveyed in his songs, he is much less romantic and more mercenary. (If Tony were an author, we could say that the “real” author is very different from the implied author. Heh, heh, heh). It’s disillusioning for Jan, who grew up admiring Tony, experiencing his mother’s love for the healing romance of the music. Tony isn’t like the “narrator” of his songs. This gives the story’s climax new meaning. Jan’s mother “never got out.” Tony wants Lindy to “get out.” Does this mean that Jan’s mother never got out of the romantic illusion? Persisting in tragic love affairs and listening to sad romantic music? Tony is apart from this and wants Lindy to escape it too. Yet, he serenades her with sad, romantic songs and she cries. Sobs—is this evidence that she hasn’t gotten out? Yet? Mebbe. Maybe that’s why Tony seems disappointed after the serenade. Hmmm. Tony is cold and calculating about his career. He tells Jan a story about tricking the maid when he and Lindy made love—tricking the help. He is tricking Jan too although Jan sees through it and is mad. Tony tries to project a romantic persona congruent with his singing, but he is not really like this and finally reveals it. The sardonic laugh. So Jan goes through a process of disillusionment that is more than just about Tony and his music; it’s about Jan’s whole life, the illusions he shared with his mother. But is he underreading or underreporting? Both I think, or it’s pretty hard to tell. Jan may not be admitting how he feels about his mother, perhaps out of guilt that he left her, perhaps still out of grief. Or he may not be aware of it—we just don’t know. He’s telling a story and wants his narratee to believe him, to accept what he’s saying, kind of on the level of: one time I met this celebrity, Tony Gardner, and he was “basically a good guy.” Is this denial? Or is it that he’s telling the story to the narratee and doesn’t want to spoil it by telling the truth—that Tony was a jerk. That’s what the story shows, what—best beloved—the implied author shows. I suppose that is underreporting. I think Jan is angry at Tony Gardner but will not admit this to his narratee because he wants to share in some of the celebrity glow. Let me tell you about the time I met Tony Gardner, the time I played with him, and he said I was pretty good. He was a good guy—that’s Jan’s story. Till next time. #Nocturnes #KazuoIshiguro #AlanBray

This week a new book, Kazuo Ishiguro’s 2009 Nocturnes, originally published in Britain and then by American publisher Knopf in the same year. It is dedicated to Deborah Rogers, Ishiguro’s long time literary agent. Nocturnes is a collection of five stories that Ishiguro himself has said were conceived of as a whole, like a piece of music with five movements. It is not a short story collection, as, to Ishiguro, a short story is complete unto itself, and these tales are not. Indeed, each story in Nocturnes has to do both with music and the close of the day but they each have different emotional registers. There is considerable humor. Two of the stories share a character, all five are told by a first-person narrator, who, as we shall see, is in each case, charmingly unreliable. On the surface, perhaps during a cursory read, the book may seem simple, almost banal, but I believe a closer examination reveals exceptional insight into we humans. The first section is entitled Crooner and is narrated by a young man named Jan who plays guitar in various café bands around Venice’s St. Mark’s Square. His narrative voice is casual, folksy; it’s difficult to give a sense of it without quoting long sections of the text, but I’ll try to give a briefer taste. “We’d completed our first full week outside in the piazza—a relief, let me tell you…” “I guess it showed in our music.” “But here I am talking like I’m a regular band member.” “Anyway there we were…” What I’m trying to convey is that Jan has a particular voice which is not the implied author’s voice. He’s a character narrator; he’s young and naïve. The story is told entirely through his perspective, but in a sense, it is given to him by the implied author who reserves a position of omniscience so that we the readers experience more than what Jan tells us. It wants the reader to read the story through the consciousness of a somewhat naïve young man. The story is more than this narration. What we learn is that Jan grew up in an Eastern European country, probably Poland. He was raised by a single mother whose favorite singer was American Tony Gardner. We learn that Jan’s mother is dead, but Jan is matter of fact about his life, expressing minimal regret or sadness. It’s difficult to tell from his narration how he feels about his life and his past. He randomly meets Tony Gardner who’s visiting Venice with his wife Lindy. This random coincidence—Tony Gardner sitting at a table where Jan can see him—provides the inciting incident for the story. It would be a different story if Jan had sought Tony Gardner out. As it is, the man who was Jan’s mother’s favorite singer “happens” to appear in Venice where Jan is working as a musician. Jan approaches Tony in the matter of a fan, and he and Tony talk in a friendly way. Tony’s wife, Lindy, joins them briefly. Jan observes some tension between the couple, Tony seems angry, but he and Lindy make up. After Lindy leaves, Tony has a proposition. He’d like to serenade her from one of the gondolas, with Jan accompanying him on guitar. At this point, the reader is being told a story by the narrator about something that happened to him. The reader may begin to form questions and theories about what may be going on beyond the level of narration. Specifically, is the implied author conspiring with the reader against Jan? Using him somehow, setting him up in a way that the reader may be able to grasp. What are Tony Gardner’s motives for this serenade business? It does not seem like he is being transparent with Jan. He says that he and Lindy are visiting Venice for a special trip, and that he wants to do something romantic to please her. Is this the truth or is there more? Jan is also curious. “It’s your anniversary, Mr. Gardner?” “Anniversary?” He looked startled. …then he laughed, a big booming laugh, and suddenly I remembered this particular song my mother used to play all the time where he does a talking passage in the middle of the song, something about not caring that this woman left him, and he does this sardonic laugh. Now the same laugh was booming across the square.” This is an interesting foreshadowing of what occurs, although Jan merely reports his association without making meaning of it. Jan is delighted at being asked to accompany Tony Gardner. “You can probably imagine, this was like a dream come true. And besides, it seemed such a sweet idea, this couple—he in his sixties, she in her fifties—behaving like teenagers in love. In fact, it was so sweet an idea it almost, but not quite, made me forget the scene I’d witnessed between them. What I mean is, even at that stage, I knew deep down that things wouldn’t be as straightforward as he was making out.” An interesting comment. Jan is referring to the moment of tension he witnessed between Tony and Lindy. He says the idea of the serenade almost but not quite made him forget it (as this story is past tense—Jan is remembering what happened) and that deep down, he knew that things wouldn’t be so straightforward. This passage accomplishes more than one thing. It cues the reader that the tension between the couple is significant and that, in the narrator’s opinion as well, things are not what they appear to be—although we don’t know if he is “reading” things accurately. Jan reminds me strongly of another Ishiguro character, Mr. Stevens, in The Remains of the Day—a story we have looked at in the past. Mr. Stevens tends to underread his motives, that is, he does not consciously know or is unable to admit to himself what his feelings are. This is in contrast to underreporting where a narrator doesn’t admit what both he and the reader know about his emotions. For Mr. Stevens, the result of this is that he denies his feelings and misinterprets other characters’ actions. Does Jan underread or underreport? Is he truly naïve or holding back on what he thinks? Jan and Tony Gardner set out in a gondola that night. They agree on the songs they will perform and then Jan wonders what he’s getting himself into. “To be honest, I was now beginning to wonder…what this whole serenade thing was about. And these were Americans, after all. For all I knew, when Mr. Gardner started singing, Mrs. Gardner would come to the window with a gun and fire down at us.” Tony tells Jan about his wife, how they met, the way that Lindy prepared herself carefully to meet and marry a famous man. He expresses some sadness and Jan says, “Mr. Gardner, it’s none of my business, I know. But I can see maybe things haven’t been so good between you and Mrs. Gardner lately.” He goes on to tell Tony about how his mother would get sad over a failed romance and then cheer herself up by listening to his recordings. “And Mrs. Gardner will hear us and who knows? Maybe things will start going fine between you again. Every couple goes through difficult times.” This is a bit of a leap for Jan, in that Tony Gardner hasn’t said directly that the marriage is troubled. Perhaps this, along with the association to his mother, is evidence of Jan’s sensitivity. The duo arrives at Mrs. Gardner’s window and Tony sings. Eventually they hear sobbing from Lindy’s open window. (Windows and doors recur in all five stories). “We did it, Mr. Gardner!” I whispered. “We did it. We got her by the heart.” But Tony doesn’t seem pleased and tells the gondolier to move them away. Jan feels mad at being left out of what’s going on—he’s being treated like the hired musician, the hired help, which is a major theme throughout all of Ishiguro’s work—the loyal servant toiling for an employer who treats her/him as less than human. Eventually they dock but remain sitting in the boat. Jan politely asks why Lindy was crying—was she moved by the songs or upset about something more? Tony tells him that she was crying because the couple will separate after this trip. Jan expresses dismay, and Tony explains that while they still love each other, Tony is trying to get his career going again and simply needs a younger wife. And he wants them to split up now while Lindy is still young enough to re-marry. I think Jan is underreading. Tony Gardner makes him remember his mother, how she would have sad love affairs and console herself by listening to Tony’s records. “She needs to get out before it’s too late,” Tony says of Lindy. Jan responds: I don’t know what I would have said to that, but then he caught me by surprise, saying: “Your mother. I guess she never got out…I don’t want that to happen to my Lindy…I want Lindy to get out.” Tony says he’ll try to come by to see Jan play again, but never does. Hmmm. I think we have to stop today. We’ll pick up next week on Jan and Tony’s story. Till then. #Noctures #KazuoIshiguro #AlanBray

Last time, we looked at the end of Kino and the way Kino the character transforms, driven to an extreme point by the experience of having his desolated heart trying to physically confront him. It is a painful transformation the story describes; it’s not as if, in the end, Kino becomes supremely happy running his little bar and listening to American jazz records, all conflicts settled. No, he winds up cowering in a bed in a seedy hotel. He’s in pain but it’s genuine pain, unlike many of his vicarious feelings earlier on. Some readers might read Kino—contained within the larger book, Men Without Women—and think, “Huh, this guy Murakami is Japanese but I’m not sure the story is tied much to Japan. It’s kind of a universal tale.” This take has some merit in that the theme of the destructiveness of ignoring your feelings—no, of actively denying them—occurs across many cultures, as does the theme of men living to their peril without women, something we will consider a bit more later. I’m no expert on Japan, but I’ve read a bit about Murakami, and I believe whatever the universal appeal of the story, he was writing about a specifically Japanese issue—the loss of identity. Murakami has been concerned about the loss of meaning and identity in Japan since WW11, a loss he associates with the modern Japanese obsession with work and material success. He is opposed to a lifestyle of materialism and acquisitiveness. Seen through this lens, Kino is sharp and clear, best beloved. The main character, Kino, is someone who does not conform with his peers’ attitudes. His first interest is professional sports, both as an athlete and then once he’s injured, as a sales rep for a running shoe company. But in both roles, it’s not so much the money-making orientation he seeks, but the beauty of running. Then after the breakup of his marriage, he opens a small bar in Tokyo, where he is uninterested in making a lot of profit, just in breaking even—not at all a common modern Japanese goal. It’s interesting to note that Murakami himself ran a small bar in Tokyo when he was younger. In any case, the fictional Kino is a maverick. Through a painful process of dealing with numerous allegorical figures and guardian spirits, he claws down to his identity, if you will. It’s a painful core but it’s him. Apparently, Murakami really wants his writings to help people see the need to have more in their lives than material success. ‘Kay. Yes, another lens here is that Kino is part of a story collection called Men Without Women, and this too is no accident. By my count, there are at least three women in the story—Kino’s wife, his aunt, and the scary lady with the cigarette burns—but they are distanced from Kino. His wife divorces him, his aunt lives elsewhere, and the scary lady? Well, have you read the story? She’s no helpmate. No sir, Kino is a man living alone without wife or children. Now, is this significant? Could it be that both men and women might live happily alone? Sure, I guess, but that’s not what Mr. Murakami (or more accurately, the implied author) thinks. I believe in this story and in the others in the collection, he shows that men living without women are diminished. Would he say the same for gay people? Polyamorous? Don’t know, this book is all about men without women. Apparently, Murakami really wants people to live as couples and families. But you might disagree with him. You might think the happiest, most authentic individuals are those who live alone. You might say, I don’t like the premise or theme of Men Without Women. That is probably a good argument for the value of a critical reading of fiction. It’s good to be aware of entities like the implied author, about themes. It’s important not to just assume that the author knows more than you do. It’s good to learn how tolerant you yourself are about opinions you disagree with. It’s good to be able to hold conflicting points of view in your head. Oh, stop. Too preachy. Because of the allegorical figures and the magical realism, Kino forces its readers to consider themes in the story. Kino himself is a finely drawn and sympathetic character; we relate to him in his struggles with athletics and the failure of his marriage as if he were real. He may have played a significant role in the dissolution of his marriage, but we are not shown that and are left with sympathy for a lonely guy. Other characters, like Mr. Kamita and the lady with the burns, are too one-dimensional to seem real. So we are limited if we want to read the story on the level of character and the emotions evoked. We have a hefty dose of theme, which is a reminder that this is fiction, that the implied author created this story and has an agenda about it. ‘Kay. Next week, a new one. Kazuo Ishiguro’s Nocturnes. Till then, you happy few. #Kino #Murakami #AlanBray

Kino sets off, leaving a note that the bar will be closed till further notice. He stays at a hotel, goes to the movies, hires a prostitute, all the while pondering Mr. Kamita’s message. As per Mr. Kamita’s instructions, he sends his aunt a postcard with no identifying information. What had he not done that had caused such a serious problem? Hmmm. He feels increasingly alienated, watching office workers all day from his hotel window, mystified by their seemingly meaningful lives. He sends his aunt another postcard, but this time, writes a short note on it—in defiance of Mr. Kamita’s warning. “I have to somehow get connected to reality again…(he thinks in justification)…or else I won’t be me anymore. I’ll become a man who doesn’t exist.” So, he recklessly seeks contact with his aunt because alone, he is nothing. He’s becoming transparent. He’s not developing; he’s wasting away. Then, apparently in consequence of writing the note on the postcard, he wakes during the night and hears a booming knock on his door. “Kino knew who was knocking…The door had to be opened by Kino’s own hand, from inside…It struck him that this visit was exactly what he’d been hoping for, yet, at the same time, what he’d been fearing above all. The ambiguous ambiguity was precisely this, holding on to an empty space between two extremes.” This passage refers to several previous things in the text. First, Kino’s aunt had told him about how snakes—ambiguous creatures—hide their hearts outside their bodies for safekeeping. Then, Kino feels powerfully ambivalent about knowing who or what is knocking. An empty space is referred to, echoing Mr. Kamita’s warning about how things can slip inside spaces left by people who don’t do the right thing. “I wasn’t hurt enough when I should have been, Kino admitted to himself. (thinking of his divorce). When I should have felt real pain, I stifled it…I avoided facing up to it.” Good insight. Kino tries to hide, burrowing into the sheets and blankets. The knocking stops, then resumes right outside his hotel window, eight stories up. ”Like the sound of a heart beating with emotion.” Kino is terrified of confronting his own heart, to see how wasted it is. He thinks of Mr. Kamita and of the gray cat, clutching at those memories to save himself. But the knocking persists. “In a small dark room, somewhere inside Kino, s warm hand was reaching out to him. Eyes shut, he felt that hand on his soft and substantial. He’d forgotten this, had been apart from it for far too long. Yes, I am hurt. Very, very deeply…And he wept. In that dark, still room.” Ultimately, then, Kino must confront the deep sadness he feels. There is something in him that saves him, it’s manifested in the story in several forms—the cat, Mr. Kamita, his aunt, and finally an internal vision of a warm hand reaching for him. Our friends the Freudians would salivate over this, I’m sure. In any case, I think what we have in Kino is the story of an extremely reluctant transformation. Kino begins with a backlog of hurt that he denies. He dallies with evil and pain as ways to soothe his despair but maintains an ambivalent stance, unwilling to commit himself till the point at which he reveals his location and is tracked down by his wounded, ambivalent heart. But then in the final paragraph, he saves himself by admitting how he really feels. (whiny voice; ‘Scuse me, ‘scuse me, Mr. Pretentious Bully. Last time you said you were gonna talk about magical realism, so when are you gonna do it?) ‘Kay. I’m happy you reminded me, dear whiny voice. The least intelligent among us will grasp that some things in the story seem a bit…magical. Let’s remember our definition from last time. Magical realism is a narrative strategy that is characterized by the matter-of-fact inclusion of fantastic or mythical elements into seemingly realistic fiction. I think it’s fair to describe Mr. Kamita and the cat this way. In any case, Kino knows little about them except for the ways they affect him, they are one-dimensional characters who try to protect him from danger. We’ve talked about how Mr. Kamita appears to be an allegorical character, a character who refers to a larger theme or to the idea of being a guardian. Indeed, there is plenty of verisimilitude in Kino, plenty to seduce us into the illusion of it being a “real” story. But this device of allegory reminds us that this is fiction and makes us aware of the implied author at work, shaping our experience of the tale. On the dark side of allegory and magical realism, we have the snakes and then Kino’s heart, which tries to get to him, apparently to confront him with how it’s devoid of any depth or weight—due, I think, to his maltreatment of it. Both the snakes and the heart seem to be unrealistic, magical things put into a realistic setting. A heart that could knock at a hotel door in the middle of the night and then climb to an eighth-floor window outside? Magical. Snakes, I don’t know so much about snakes. But the story’s description of a series of multi-colored reptiles appearing outside of Kino’s bar seems mostly fantastic. And we have the story Kino’s aunt has provided of how snakes are ambiguous creatures who leave their hearts elsewhere for safety. That’s magic, best beloved. Real living creatures can’t remove their hearts. I also said, in Kino, magical realism is used as a tool to find an identity, not to confirm it, meaning that all the elements—the cat, the woman with the burns, Mr. Kamita, the snakes, the heart—work to push Kino toward the climactic final moment in the story when he acknowledges he is deeply hurt. His transformation is to go from being ambivalent and uninvolved to feeling intense and genuine pain. The thing Mr. Kamita warned him about, the thing Kino did not do, was to care for his heart. He mostly did not do the wrong thing. He did not assault his ex-wife or her lover, he did not water the drinks in his bar, but he did not do the right thing in acknowledging his pain. He tried to deny and hide it. ‘Kay. Till next time. #Kino #Haruki Murakami #AlanBray

When we last left Kino, he’d just had the encounter with the woman burned by cigarettes and was shown feeling ambivalently about her. Ambivalent—please note that word as it will reoccur. The next scene after a paragraph break concerns Kino’s now ex-wife coming to the bar at her initiative after the divorce has been finalized. The couple has a glass of wine, and then, “The cat padded over and, surprisingly, leaped into Kino’s lap.” This is an unusual occurrence as the cat is generally aloof. Kino’s ex-wife says, “I need to apologize to you.” There is a sense here of the cat as another guardian to Kino, protecting him from pain and danger as Mr. Kamita does. His wife wants to talk about their break-up, but Kino is reluctant. “…he was starting to forget all that had happened back then. He couldn’t recall events in the order they’d occurred. It was like a mixed-up jigsaw in his mind.” As she talks about what went wrong between them, Kino imagines his ex-wife’s back covered in burn marks. What’s going on here? His ex-wife seems to be trying to have an ordinary conversation with him, to apologize for her part in their break-up. But the reader is cued that there is more going on. The cat acts in a protective way, Kino imagines his ex-wife as similar to the woman he slept with, a woman he thought was vicious. When we last heard about that woman, Kino was imagining that she’d return when she wanted to, have sex with him again and show off her new burns. It’s not a very sexy or positive image, and now he seems to be mixing up the woman he slept with and his ex-wife. Kino is in trouble, I would say. After a paragraph break, “Fall came, and the cat disappeared. Then the snakes started to show up.” Well, an ominous beginning to this section of the story. “The cat…was like a good-luck charm for the bar. Kino had the distinct impression that as long as it was asleep in a corner nothing bad would happen.” It leaves, and then the snakes start appearing. Snakes, we are told, are rare in Tokyo. After seeing three different snakes outside the bar in a week, Kino phones his aunt who tells him that “Snakes are essentially ambiguous creatures…the biggest smartest snake hides its heart somewhere outside its body, so that it doesn’t get killed.” She tells him how snakes are ambiguous, having both good and evil qualities. Kino is disturbed; we are shown another section of imperfect time that collapses several nights. He closes the bar, goes upstairs, wonders if the woman with the burns will return. He hopes she won’t; he hopes she will. “Another case of ambiguity.” ‘Kay. Some important connections are being made. Snakes, according to Kino’s aunt, are partly good and partly evil. Ambiguous creatures—Kino feels a lot of ambiguity; is he like a snake? After a paragraph break, Mr. Kamita returns and lingers till he is the last customer. He addresses Kino. “Mr. Kino…I find it very regrettable, that it’s come to this…you’ll have to close the bar. Even if only temporarily.” Kino is startled, to say the least. Mr. Kamita continues: “I really liked this bar a lot…Unfortunately though, there are some things missing…That cat won’t be coming back…For the time being, at least.” Kino looks around the bar, seeing nothing out of the ordinary. “He did, though, get a sense that the place felt emptier than ever, lacking vitality and color.” Mr. Kamita continues: “Mr. Kino, you’re not the type who would willingly do something wrong…But there are times in this world when it’s not enough just not to do the wrong thing. Some people use that blank space as a kind of loophole.” Kino responds: “You’re saying that some serious trouble has occurred, not because I did something wrong but because I didn’t do the right thing?” Mr. Kamita nods. He tells Kino again that he must close the bar for a while and go far away. Maybe hang religious talismans around the house. “Don’t stay in one place very long. And every Monday and Thursday make sure to send a postcard…you can mail it to your aunt…do not write your own name or any message whatsoever. Just put the address you’re sending it to. This is very important, so don’t forget.” Kino, surprised, asks if Kamita knows his aunt. “Yes, I know her quite well. Actually, she asked me to keep an eye on you, to make sure nothing bad happened. Seems like I fell down on the job, though.” Kamita says when it’s all right for Kino to return, he’ll be in touch. Until then, stay away. Whoa! I believe this is another instance of the implied author cueing the reader that this is not a story written in a realist style about a lonely guy in Tokyo who owns a bar. Mr. Kamita makes his guardian role explicit here and links himself to Kino’s aunt, who may be the ultimate guardian. What is going on here? Mr. Kamita seems to be saying that instead of doing the right thing, Kino did nothing, and that this created a space in which bad people could get through. The woman with the burns, perhaps? The gangsters? It could be that Kino’s aunt, worried about her ambivalent nephew who has a poorly formed identity, had stashed him in the bar for safety with Mr. Kamita and the cat as guardians. However, Kino can’t stay out of trouble. He gets entangled with the lady with the burns, confuses her with his ex-wife, and those darned snakes start showing up. The guardians decide the only solution is for Kino to escape into anonymity for a time. Kino lives a life without meaning and is tempted by violence and pain as a way to feel authentic. If one views human life as an opportunity to develop and become more fully alive, he’s not doing so well. In order to show this, the implied author uses allegorical characters and supernatural elements. The story remains essentially realistic—the snakes don’t talk, although the bad gangsters are one-dimensional, they appear human. The woman with the burns seduces Kino in a stylized, film noirish way but she doesn’t fly through the air or turn into a cheetah. What? My point is that Kino makes use of magical realism. In “real” life, we don’t have guardians with superpowers. (Sorry, we just don’t). Let’s talk about magical realism. ‘Kay. A narrative strategy that is characterized by the matter-of-fact inclusion of fantastic or mythical elements into seemingly realistic fiction. In Kino, magical realism is used as a tool to find an identity, not to confirm it. Ooh! My friends, the clock on the clubhouse wall says it’s time to go. Wait, wait! We want to hear about magical realism. We’ll talk about it next time. Till then. #Kino #Murakami #AlanBray

Kino’s bar is a modest success. We learn more about “the man.” “My name is Kamita,” he said. It’s written with the characters for “god” —kami—and “field” —“god’s field,” as you might expect. It’s pronounced “Kamita.” The first two paragraphs of this next section are in imperfect time that collapses four months. Then we have a specific scene. While Mr. Kamita is at the bar, two guys come in to drink expensive wine. Kino thinks they may be yakuza, gangsters. They cause a disturbance and Kino asks them to quiet down. They become belligerent and threaten Kino, but Mr. Kamita suddenly appears and calmly challenges them to “step outside.” Kino is quite anxious that Mr. Kamita will be hurt or even murdered but he comes back into the bar after a period of time and asks for a towel to clean his hands, refusing to say what happened. After he leaves, Kino remembers a situation where he witnessed a yakuza beating the tar out of two guys and imagines that Mr. Kamita’s encounter with the two gangsters was similar. This is an interesting device—Kino doesn’t see Mr. Kamita’s confrontation with the gangsters; instead, the implied author has him remember a possible parallel, a sort of mise en abyme, if you will. We will. There is a theme of creatures coming into Kino’s bar, the cat, Mr. Kamita, the two gangsters—who are evil and threatening and are disposed of “outside” the bar. There will be other visitors to the bar, both good and bad. Mostly bad. Is it too soon to speculate that Mr. Kamita is a sort of guardian spirit sent by someone to protect Kino? No. Mr. Kamita’s name is ambiguous, its pronunciation is ambiguous, which is why he specifies that it should be pronounced a certain way. But the meaning “god’s field,” seems to fit the context above. To expand on this, I think his name refers to a plot of land where a god’s shrine is situated. He is the field that holds the god, “he” is a holy place. Huh. Another layer is Kino himself. As the character narrator, he shows himself experiencing the situation with Mr. Kamita and the gangsters and his subsequent association with the fight he witnessed. But Kino doesn’t show much internal reaction. The two gangsters smoke, and Kino doesn’t like that. When the men argue, Kino decides Mr. Kamita is disgusted by their behavior and that, as the bar owner, he has to do something. “I have to get this situation under control, Kino realized, I need to step forward and take care of this.” Then as the argument escalates, he understands he may be assaulted. “Kino steeled himself for something bad to happen. Sweat began to pour from his armpits.” Then Mr. Kamita intervenes. Kino’s only shown reaction is to remember the incident from the past. What’s missing? If Kino had a normal personality, we could speculate that he would feel anger and fear at the gangsters, and then anxiety and possibly intense relief at Mr. Kamita’s intervention. And maybe shame at not doing more. But what we are shown is that after Mr. Kamita leaves, no more customers come to the bar that night and neither does the cat. Kino has the memory that helps him understand more about “a mystery.” So we don’t see a lot of internal reaction but plenty of external action. In fact, arguably it’s all internal. Kino experiences a threat and is protected against danger by a mysterious, perhaps non-human entity. Emotions are represented and/or allegorized by other characters. The next “visitor” to the bar is a woman. “About a week after the incident, Kino slept with a female customer…He wasn’t sure if she would be classified as beautiful.” This is a significant comment that reveals something about Kino. He isn’t sure if the woman would be classified as beautiful—the implication is that he doesn’t know or trust his own judgement. He relies on what he thinks others would think. Kino lacks an identity. The woman “had been to the bar several times before, always in the company of a man of about the same age who wore tortoise-shell framed glasses and a beatnik-like goatee.” The woman talks to Kino about their mutual enjoyment of jazz. One night, she comes in alone and winds up showing Kino numerous cigarette burns on her body—apparently inflicted by the goateed man. A paragraph break, and then “Kino couldn’t remember now what had led him to sleep with the woman that night. Kino had felt, from the first, that there was something out of the ordinary about her. Something that triggered an instinctual response, warning him not to get involved.” But he does get involved, taking the woman upstairs to his apartment after closing time (again outside of the bar) and having sex most of the night in what’s described as an intense, almost animalistic fashion. Hmmm. Another “creature” coming into Kino’s bar. Apparently, she and the goateed chap have been having S and M sex, but she then takes a liking to Kino and wants to display these signs of pain to him. Well, I suppose we’ve all had some wild days (and nights), but what’s going on here? The woman and her companion are shown as being “out of the ordinary” and repellant. Kino doesn’t know why he sleeps with the woman; he’s aware of an instinctual response not to get involved but does get involved. Our psychologist friends would probably say letting someone burn you with cigarettes during sex has a lot to do with wanting to feel pain intensely, as in wanting to feel authentic because you usually don’t. We don’t know much about the woman, but we do know that Kino himself has a lot of difficulty feeling emotions. His wife was unfaithful to him, and they divorced, but he doesn’t really feel anger or sadness. He doesn’t know what he feels. So he hooks up with a woman who (maybe) doesn’t know what she feels and acts it out instead. The woman returns to the bar several times, accompanied by the goateed man and makes no reference to the sexual encounter with Kino. “Kino sensed something vicious entwining itself about the couple, as if there were a deep secret only the two of them shared.” Kino thinks that sooner or later, the woman would return alone to have sex with him again and show off her new burns. “Kino didn’t know when it would happen but felt sure it would someday. The woman would decide that. The thought made his throat dry, the kind of dryness no amount of water could quench.” So he apparently is both repelled by sex with the woman and also obsessed by it. It’s notable that Mr. Kamita, Mr. Guardian Spirit Kamita, doesn’t interfere in this whole situation with the woman. You’d almost expect him to, expect him to give Kino some advice, or assault the goateed fellow. But there’s no mention of him in this section. Maybe he wants Kino to learn something. Ooh. ‘Kay Till next time, my friends. #Kino #Murakami #AlanBray

This week, a new story, Kino, a long short story written by Haruki Murakami. An English version of Kino first appeared in The New Yorker in February, 2015 and was subsequently included in his collection Men Without Women, published by Knopf in 2017. Kino was first published in Japanese in 2014. Readers may remember a similar process occurred with Jhumpa Lahiri’s story, Casting Shadows—a story written originally in a different language and translated to English, then published in the New Yorker, then published in English as part of a story collection. Nothing wrong with that, just sayin.’ The title has meaning, oh yeah. Dena speaks Japanese; what I’ve learned is that in that language, words in isolation don’t have much meaning. Everything is context but a translation of Kino that makes some sense in the context of the story is “wandering soul.” The story begins in imperfect time: “The man always sat in the same seat, the stool the farthest down the counter.” In other words, this sentence is describing an event which re-occurred over time. On more than one occasion, a particular man always sat in the same seat, a particular stool farthest down the counter. Please compare this with “The man sat at the stool farthest down the counter.” The fact that the man always sat at the same seat adds meaning—over time, the man deliberately picked the same seat on multiple occasions. He must have wanted to sit there, and the sentence—from the narrator’s perspective—indicates the narrator noted this repetition and made meaning of it. (whiny voice—Well, duh. Why are you making such a big deal about this?) We’re looking at technique here, best beloved. Why does Murakami start in imperfect time? I think because he wants to establish “the man” as a presence whom Kino must recognize. Many of Murakami’s stories seem to involve a more or less passive narrator/storyteller who describes someone he (usually a man) encounters and goes on to show the other person’s impact on him. Kino certainly begins like this, and the reader might think, “Huh, I’m reading a story about this guy who always sits in the same place at Kino’s bar.” But Kino takes this structure down different paths, as we shall see. (Are you going to go over every line? What a snooze fest). The narration is first person and generally past tense, which implies that the events shown have already occurred. And this, dear friends, reveals the presence of the implied author who tells the story. Heh, heh, heh. In the second paragraph, Kino switches to past tense and a particular event. “Kino remembered the first time the man had come to his bar…It was seven-thirty on a chilly mid-April evening, and the bar was empty.” For several paragraphs, the story describes this first meeting between “the man” and Kino. We already know the name or word Kino, as it’s the title. Now we learn that Kino is a human, that he owns the bar where “the man” identified in the first paragraph sat on a stool. And we learn that the story is largely told from Kino’s perspective. After “the man” leaves that first time, Kino “…glanced up occasionally at the seat the man had occupied. It felt like someone was still there…” Again, this is a statement about presence. “The man” remains present when he’s not there. In the next paragraph, the narration returns to imperfect time. “The man”—still unnamed—is observed by Kino becoming a regular at the bar, a regular who always orders the same thing, who says little, sits in the same spot and reads. After a paragraph break, we have a new section that is about Kino—not “the man.” It explains who Kino is and how he came to own the bar. It is not written from Kino’s perspective, more from the impersonal perspective of the storyteller. We learn that Kino wanted to be a runner but had to give up his dreams after an injury. He worked as a product rep for a running shoe company, excelled at it, but came home unexpectedly from a trip and found his wife in bed with one of Kino’s colleagues. After a divorce, Kino no longer wanted to work at the company. So in this section, we get a sympathetic portrait of Kino, a good fellow who has had some misfortune. After another paragraph break, the story explains that Kino has an aunt who wanted to retire from running a coffee shop. Kino offered to lease it, and his aunt agreed, she “…named a figure for the monthly rent, far lower than what Kino had expected.” Another thing we are being shown is that, whoever “the man” is, the story seems to be about Kino. He sets up a bar in what used to be the coffee shop and lives upstairs. He claims he doesn’t feel angry or bitter toward his ex-wife. “The most he could do was create a place where his heart—devoid now of any depth or weight—could be tethered, to keep it from wandering aimlessly. Kino (the name of the bar)…became that place.” A stray cat begins visiting; Kino feeds it and installs a pet door so the animal can go in and out. But the cat prefers to use the front door, just like the customers. We readers get a good deal of information here from the implied author explaining the background in summary fashion. Other writers might present Kino’s “backstory” as part of dialogue in a dramatic scene. A clumsy example might be that a customer at the bar asks Kino, “Hey pal, how long you had this place anyway?” and Kino tells the story. However, I think Murakami’s technique works very well. Much of Kino is dramatic scene, so the contrast provided by these background sections is welcome. As we begin the story, we have questions: Who is Kino? How did he come to run the bar? These are quickly answered. And amidst the background, we learn about his aunt and get the powerful image of his heart needing tethering—the first reference to Kino being someone who is suffering. As we will see, these elements become central. The question as yet unanswered, that the story must address, is: why is “the man” coming to Kino’s bar? ‘Kay. Till next time, my friends. I think I’ll take the whiny voice for a walk. #Kino #Murakami #AlanBray

A friend recently wrote that he would be interested in my thinking about Steppenwolf in light of recent mass and/or school shootings, as exemplified by the horrific Michigan high school killings. I had to do some brooding about this; it really “put me through the changes,” as another old friend used to say. I hadn’t been thinking of Steppenwolf in this way. Regarding violence, Steppenwolf is problematic. It depicts strong suicidal ideation, and then very realistically describes murder, although these are eventually recast as fantasy. There is a sense in which Harry treats real humans as chess pieces or toys, in the same way I believe some mass murderers have thought about their victims, de-humanizing them the same way the Nazis tried to de-humanize Jewish people, or certain Americans de-humanized African Americans to enslave them. If you regard someone as a toy, it’s much easier to abuse them. But does Steppenwolf promote this attitude? I don’t want to say this, but my answer is I’m not sure. Hermann Hesse was a pacifist; the book can be read as a protest against the mass killings of WW1. I think he would strongly condemn efforts to criticize Steppenwolf based on its encouragement of violence. However, I don’t think the book is appropriate for young people to read, frankly. I think it’s only okay to read it as long as you have a good sense of who’s human and that murder (and suicide) is wrong. Many adults don’t have these senses. I believe its (ironic) point is that if it’s okay to kill millions in a war, it’s okay to kill people in peacetime. I don’t think Hesse believed murder was ever a good thing, but without a good sense of irony, the reader may miss his point. In the Magic Theater, Harry enters the door marked: Jolly Hunting Great Hunt in Automobiles “I was swept at once into a world of noise and excitement…I saw at once that it was the long prepared, long-awaited and long-feared war between men and machines…On all sides lay dead and decomposing bodies and on all sides too, smashed and distorted and half-burned cars. Airplanes circled above the frightful confusion and were being fired upon from many roofs…In every eye I saw the unconcealed spark of destruction and murder and in mine too these wild red roses bloomed as rank and high, and sparkled as brightly. I joined the battle joyfully.” ‘Kay. Harry observes a scene of wild destruction and death—so far, he’s not a participant. But then he encounters his old friend Gustav and the two of them embark on a murderous adventure of ambushing and shooting the drivers of cars. “Aim at the chauffeur,” commanded Gustav…I aimed and fired at the chauffeur in his blue cap. The man fell in a heap. The car careened on, charged the cliff face, rebounded, attacked the lower wall furiously with all its unwieldy weight…and…crashed…into the depths below. “Got him!” Gustav laughed. “My turn next.” So far, I’d say this reads a bit like a description of playing a violent video game. It’s cold and the victims are de-humanized. Gustav remarks after the next murder. “…it is all one what our victims are called. They’re poor devils just as we are. Their names don’t matter…we do not kill from duty, but pleasure, or much more, rather, from displeasure and despair of the world. For this reason we find a certain amusement from killing people.” Indeed. And there’s no remorse, no consequences. Murder is shown as being an amusing game. The victims are not real. In what is arguably the climax of the story, Harry enters the last door of the Magic Theater. Inside, he sees a naked Pablo and Hermine, “side by side in a sleep of deep exhaustion after love’s play. Beautiful, beautiful figures, lovely picture, wonderful bodies. Beneath Hermine’s left breast was a fresh, round mark, darkly bruised—a love bite of Pablo’s beautiful, gleaming teeth. There, where the mark was, I plunged in my knife to the hilt. The blood welled out over her white and delicate skin.” Pablo and Mozart chide Harry for this murder, and Harry tries to justify it by saying that Hermine wanted him to kill her. Pablo ultimately transforms the dead Hermine into a small toy figurine and puts it away in his pocket. Nevertheless, Harry must face punishment for his crime; he anticipates execution, but the sentence is to be laughed out of court. It seems clear that the implied author’s intention is to show that all the scenes in the Magic Theater are from within Harry. He does not commit murder; he only fantasizes it. But is this so different from the way real mass murderers operate? A troubling question. Even more troubling is the way Steppenwolf is written, with beauty and lyricism. A pretty package containing poison that the reader must have an antidote for. Yet, I can imagine many fans of the book and critics saying, “You are reading the text in a naïve way. Steppenwolf certainly doesn’t promote murder. You are missing the point. It’s supposed to be all fantasy. Irony, my dear.” ‘Kay. I’m troubled. I can think of other novels that show violent acts. Madame Bovary, as an example, shows a graphic suicide. Does it make the reader fantasize about the romance of suicide? No, it’s horrible. The suicide is presented in a horrible way, and there’s a harrowing lead-up to it of despair. Does reading Steppenwolf make the reader want to shoot the drivers of cars or stab naked women to death? Keep in mind, each act is presented with an absence of consequence—but we all know there are consequences for murder, right? Did the young man who killed four of his fellow students in Michigan know this? Read Steppenwolf, please. It’s a magnificent novel. But be prepared to become uneasy about the questions it raises. Maybe that’s one of the purposes of literature. On a seasonal note, may all your end-of-year celebrations be joyful, best beloved. Till next time. #Steppenwolf #HermannHesse #AlanBray

Last week, I said, “Although it masquerades as one, this (Steppenwolf) is not a realist novel that attempts to show “life as it really is.” Steppenwolf is a story of supernatural events.” There was a lot of uproar about this, many audience members wanted to know more about my thinking in making such a dramatic statement. Well. A realist novel is “A type of novel that places a strong emphasis on the truthful representation of the actual in fiction. Generally, the realist is a believer in pragmatism, and the truth he seeks to find and express is a relativistic truth, associated with discernible consequences and verifiable by experience.” It’s a stretch and a disservice to try to jam Steppenwolf into this category. Why? Last week we talked about coincidence, albeit plotted by the implied author, and found a lot of it in Steppenwolf. Harry sees a sign about the Magic Theater, is given a little book that seems to be about him. He goes to a bar and the only empty seat is next to a woman named Hermine who quickly (ahem) warms up to him and says she’s his sister and/or double. After a later night of brooding, he goes into his bedroom and finds another beautiful woman in his bed. Okay, maybe some of these things have happened to me (I had to write the book myself) but in general these are not realistic occurrences, “associated with discernible consequences.” Anybody want to disagree? Huh? Huh? Let’s step outside then. (sorry, please disregard. Wrong blog). So, if Steppenwolf isn’t a realist novel, what is it? With brilliance, Hermann Hesse “played” with several other forms and genres in writing this book. It may be seen as allegory (more on this later), as a mystical/magical tale of an inner journey, and as a bildungsroman, a novel about a character’s development. And indeed, the structure of presenting the content of the book as a journal which is discovered after the departure of its author refers to Werther by Goethe, who as we know, figures prominently in Steppenwolf. This reference gives a legitimacy and a realist cast to an un-realistic tale which would come across quite differently if Harry’s story were written as a first-person novel. Steppenwolf can be seen as allegory. “An allegory…is not just another word for a metaphor. In essence, it’s a form of fiction that represents immaterial things as images.” Harry interacts with three characters, Hermine, Maria, and Pablo, and each one of this triumvirate can be taken as a symbol. Hermine is the younger self, a sister, a twin, Maria, adult female sexuality, and Pablo, the Dionysian artist. The three of them elicit and reflect different aspects of Harry as he undergoes a process of education. Harry himself can be seen as being symbolic of one who is seeking enlightenment, a student. Perhaps it can also be said, best beloved, that Harry symbolizes the generation of men and women who survived WW1 and were profoundly affected by its trauma. He is a broken man who requires healing. And that brings me to the Bildungsroman—a class of novel that depicts and explores the manner in which the protagonist develops morally and psychologically. The German word Bildungsroman means “novel of education” or “novel of formation.” (whiny voice. Why not just call it that then, Mr. Pretentious Bully. Leave out the German). ‘Kay. I think this last type makes the most sense to describe Steppenwolf. The novel has quite a bit to do with Harry Haller’s transformation due to the education he receives from Hermine, Maria, and Pablo. There is a long tradition of the bildungsroman in literature which connects the form and story of Steppenwolf to such works as Flaubert’s A Sentimental Education and Charlotte Bronte’s Jane Eyre. But Hermann Hesse gives the genre a twist. Steppenwolf is not the story of a young person maturing and changing but rather about an older person who is unhappy and who undergoes considerable personality change as a result of particular and unusual experiences. In his 1961 Author’s Notes in the Bantam edition, Hesse says, “Of course, I neither can nor intend to tell my readers how they ought to understand my tale.” Then he goes on to say how he would like them to understand Steppenwolf—as a story of healing. I think Hesse is being disingenuous when he disavows any intention that his readers understand the book in a certain way. I think it’s clear he intentionally structured the story to “preach” and “teach” a message. Consider this: Steppenwolf is told by two reliable first-person character narrators, the unnamed landlady’s son, and Harry Haller, whose notebooks form the meat of the tale. The landlady’s son, in the preface, tells the reader how to read the notebooks, that they were written by a strange but good man who disappeared, leaving no opportunity to question him. Harry is shown meeting Hermine, Maria, and Pablo, who all teach him certain “truths” which are not questioned. Pablo, in particular, is a kind of magus-type entity, a magician if you will, who spends his time in the book arranging for Harry’s enlightenment. He and the two women are shown as one-dimensional characters who do not question themselves or their motivations. The whole story is structured as a lesson for Harry. (Yes, they are all allegorical figures). He (and the reader) is not asked to decide whether he wishes to continue, not given a choice. On the contrary, Harry is drugged and seduced into “school.” And the lesson that is taught? That bourgeois life is stifling, that technology is dehumanizing, that every person contains a multitude of possibilities that should be embraced. That a meaning of life is available to those who are open to it. Amen. #Steppenwolf #HermannHesse #AlanBray