December 2021
Haruki Murakami (b. 1949) is a Japanese author, well known for his novels IQ84, the Wind-Up Bird Chronicle, and Norwegian Wood, among others. Murakami spent much of the late 1980s and early 1990s abroad, beginning in Europe and later visiting as a student in the United States[1]. Perhaps as a result of living internationally, Murakami’s novels often carefully balance both American and Japanese culture. His novel Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World (1985) explores Japan’s violent past, including atrocities in Manchuria[2]. On the opposite end of the spectrum is Killing Commendatore (2017), a novel that many consider an ode to the Great Gatsby by American author, F. Scott Fitzgerald. The influence in this novel is substantial; Killing Commendatore’s Menshiki, is a mysterious wealthy man who lives in a mansion across the water, much like Jay Gatsby[3]. Thus, while Murakami sticks to his Japanese roots, upholding Japanese culture, names, and landscapes, he also uses his novels as a platform for American literary history. This is not a welcome trait;[AH1] many Japanese critics have accused Murakami of a “self-imposed exile” from the country[4].
Murakami’s Killing Commendatore, though inspired by the Great Gatsby, may be his latest venture into Japanese culture (perhaps pushing against this notion of “self-exile”), but with a more controversial take: censorship. Laced with sexually explicit descriptions and dialogue, Killing Commendatore has already been banned as “Class II – Indecent Materials” in China by review of Hong Kong’s Obscene Articles Tribunal[5]. Killing Commendatore is not banned in Japan, nor will it likely ever be, but it does touch upon contemporary censorship battles in the country. This paper will examine Haruki Murakami’s decision to include sexually graphic scenes throughout the novel as a manifestation of his pursuit into Japanese society and culture.
Historically, Japan has not afraid of sexually graphic, controversial images. In fact, in a 1997 article on Japanese manga by the Chicago Tribune, they claim that “Japan [is] unique for condoning public displays of raw sexual imagery and for blurring the lines between adult and child pornography”[6]. According to 7 News Australia, manga comics that depict hardcore pornography (with or without children), are seen being read everywhere, from train cars to cafes[7]. Although it is prevalent in society, this type of pornography, particularly manga, does not come without contestation. Manga has been under heat for depicting “purely fictional or imaginary characters who could be ‘recognized’ as looking like or sounding like they were under the age of 18 and who were ‘recklessly’ depicted in ‘anti-social’ sexual scenarios”[8]. In February 2010, the Tokyo Metropolitan Government’s Office for Youth Affairs and Public Safety proposed amendments that would censor the production of these types of materials. Known as Bill 156, the amendment also suggested a filtering of youth’s devices[9]. The bill was originally rejected, demonstrating a societal hesitancy to such change. It was not until the bill removed the term “non-existent youth” (among others), that it was resubmitted and accepted in November 2010. New laws in Bill 156 included the prohibition of depiction of “sexual or pseudo sexual acts that would be illegal in real life […] in a manner that ‘glorifies or exaggerates’ [for example], [relations] between close relatives”[10]. This bill received plenty of attention in both Western and Japanese press outlets[11]. As an author, it is likely Murakami is familiar with these censorship laws. And, although Murakami has not explicitly stated knowledge of these censorship laws, manga and other sexually explicit mediums in Japan are engrained in the culture, shaping the authors whether with intention or not.
Thus, Murakami’s decision to include sexually graphic images is relevant in Japanese culture. Consider Bill 156; it specifies that any “pseudo sexual act that would be illegal [including] between close relatives”[12]. With this mind, Killing Commendatore appears to approach this censorship line carefully. The protagonist, a recently divorced portrait painter, often describes his sexual encounters (mostly affairs) with unnamed women. He pays particular attention to their breasts, which he admits is connected to a memory of his now dead sister. In a memory of his sister, he recalls: “Her breasts were beginning to noticeably develop. Her heart might have had problems, but her flesh continued growing nonetheless. It felt strange to see my little sister’s breasts grow by day”[13]. This does not cross Bill 156’s censorship criteria, yet five pages later, Murakami continues to write: “I’ve always been attracted to women with more modest breasts, and every time I see them, every time I touch them, I remember my sister…Don’t get me wrong, I wasn’t sexually interested in my sister. I think I was just looking for a certain type of scene. A finite scene, lost and never to return”[14]. The internal dialogue is fascinating; Murakami poses the potential issue of an incestual relationship with a child, but immediately revokes any misunderstanding of his language. To say “every time I see [a breast] […] I remember my sister” and to follow it with “don’t get me wrong” appears purposeful, almost as though he’s teasing his Japanese audience. Notably, more than one million copies of Killing Commendatore were sold in Japan[15]. This audience, like Murakami, has grown up with manga, with graphic sexual imagery. Murakami’s decision to touch this new line of censorship does not go unnoticed.
Murakami appreciates context and culture when it comes to storytelling. One of his inspirations is novelist, Kazuo Ishiguro. Ishiguro is known for balancing his Japanese identity with his British home. Murakami admits in an interview: “When he writes about British things, like a butler or an aristocrat, it’s like he’s looking at British society through the eyes of Japanese people. The British characters he writes about look like Japanese people. […] That is what I'm interested in, those contradictions”[16]. Societal shifts and cultural differences are important to Murakami. Commenting on them is inherent to this belief, reflecting a greater interconnectedness of authorship and content. Michel Foucault, a French philosopher, has published a great deal on how authorship intertwines with culture and context. According to Foucault, “authorship and the different values and meanings associated with it are cultural products that vary widely from time to time and place to place”[17]. How does this fit into Murakami’s decision to include sexually graphic (and almost illegal) images in his texts? Perhaps, the discourse surrounding censorship and the cultural shifts that ignite this controversial dialogue are just as responsible for Killing Commendatore as the man who held the pen.
Murakami’s Killing Commendatore is more than a test of sexuality’s censorship in the Eastern World. It is an intriguing story about art, history, and a magical underworld. But, nonetheless, it is impossible to appreciate the novel without confronting its sexual nature. This critique has argued that the inclusion of these graphic acts is more than a literary technique on behalf of Murakami. It is a purposeful navigation of Japan’s censorship laws, a prominent political conversation in Japan over the last decade. Although unbanned in Japan, Killing Commendatore was censored in China, reflecting a larger controversy over what is too sexual and too graphic to include in a novel. One could argue that authors include controversial material (whether political or interpersonal) with the knowledge that it may be banned. When Madeline L’Engle’s novel A Wrinkle in Time was banned; she remarked: “First I felt horror, then anger, and finally I said, ‘Ah the hell with it.’ It’s great publicity really”[18]. Thus, to what extent do authors knowingly engage in dangerous material? Is there a part of them drawn by the publicity? Or, is there a political statement waiting to be made on why the novel should not be banned? More so, the culture of censoring provides authors with an opportunity to tease the rule makers and the fearful. It seems Murakami was doing just that.
Bibliography
Chozick, Matthew Richard. "DE-EXOTICIZING HARUKI MURAKAMI'S RECEPTION." Comparative Literature Studies 45, no. 1 (2008): 62-73. http://www.jstor.org/stable/25659633.
Ellis, Jonathan, Mitoko Hirabayashi, and Haruki Murakami. "'In Dreams Begins Responsibility': An Interview with Haruki Murakami." The Georgia Review 59, no. 3 (2005): 548-67. http://www.jstor.org/stable/41402632.
Flood, Alison. "Haruki Murakami's New Novel Declared 'Indecent' by Hong Kong Censors." The Guardian. Last modified July 25, 2018. Accessed November 1, 2021. https://www.theguardian.com/books/2018/jul/25/haruki-murakami-novel-indecent-hong-kong-censors-killing-commendatore.
"1.4 Foucault's Author Function." OpenLearn. Accessed November 1, 2021. https://www.open.edu/openlearn/history-the-arts/artists-and-authorship-the-case-raphael/content-section-1.4.
Jones, Jonathan. "Review." The F. Scott Fitzgerald Review 17, no. 1 (2019): 278-80. https://doi.org/10.5325/fscotfitzrevi.17.1.0278.
Lai, Ming Chu. "Translating Cunshang Chunshu: Murakami Haruki in Chinese." Japanese Language and Literature 49, no. 1 (2015): 143-61. http://www.jstor.org/stable/24615097.
Mankeshwar, Ranjit. "Haruki Murakami's New Novel Lies between Alternate Worlds, with no Clear Answers, as Usual." Scroll.in. Last modified October 6, 2018. Accessed November 1, 2021. https://scroll.in/article/897149/haruki-murakamis-new-novel-lies-between-alternate-worlds-with-no-clear-answers-as-usual.
McLelland, Mark J., Thought policing or the protection of youth? Debate in Japan over the "Non-existent youth bill", International Journal of Comic Art, 13(1) 2011, 348-367. https://ro.uow.edu.au/artspapers/260
McLelland, Mark, "Sex, censorship and media regulation in Japan: a historical overview" (2015). Faculty of Law, Humanities and the Arts - Papers. 1714. https://ro.uow.edu.au/lhapapers/1714
Murakami, Haruki, Philip Gabriel, and Ted Goossen. Killing Commendatore. London: Vintage Digital, 2018.
Shea. "15 Author Responses to Their Books Being Banned." Cracked. Last modified March 24, 2021. Accessed November 1, 2021. https://www.cracked.com/image-pictofact-6358-15-author-responses-to-their-books-being-banned.
[1] Jonathan Ellis, Mitoko Hirabayashi, and Haruki Murakami, "'In Dreams Begins Responsibility': An Interview with Haruki Murakami," The Georgia Review 59, no. 3 (2005): 554, http://www.jstor.org/stable/41402632.
[2] Patricia Welch, "Haruki Murakami's Storytelling World," World Literature Today 79, no. 1 (2005): 58, https://doi.org/10.2307/40158783.
[3] World Literature Today 92, no. 6 (2018): 68, https://doi.org/10.7588/worllitetoda.92.6.0068.
[4] Matthew Richard Chozick, "DE-EXOTICIZING HARUKI MURAKAMI'S RECEPTION," Comparative Literature Studies 45, no. 1 (2008): 62, http://www.jstor.org/stable/25659633.
[5] Alison Flood, "Haruki Murakami's New Novel Declared 'Indecent' by Hong Kong Censors," The Guardian, last modified July 25, 2018, accessed November 1, 2021, https://www.theguardian.com/books/2018/jul/25/haruki-murakami-novel-indecent-hong-kong-censors-killing-commendatore.
[6] McLellend, Mark. J., “Thought policing or the protection of youth? Debate in Japan over the ‘Non-existent youth bill’, International Journal of Comic Art, 13(1) (2011): 1, https://ro.uow.edu.au/artspapers/260
[7] McLellend, “Thought policing,” 1.
[8] McLellend, “Thought policing,” 6.
[9] McLellend, “Thought policing,” 6.
[10] McLellend, Mark. J., “Sex, censorship and media regulation in Japan: a historical overview”, Faculty of Law, Humanities and the Arts (2015): 14, https://ro.uow.edu.au/lhapapers/1714
[11] McLellend, “Thought policing,” 6
[12] McLellend, “Sex, censorship”, 14.
[13] Haruki Murakami, Philip Gabriel, and Ted Goossen, Killing Commendatore (London: Vintage Digital, 2018), 112.
[14] Murakami, Gabriel, and Goossen, Killing Commendatore, 117.
[15] Ranjit Mankeshwar, "Haruki Murakami's New Novel Lies between Alternate Worlds, with no Clear Answers, as Usual," Scroll.in, last modified October 6, 2018, accessed November 1, 2021, https://scroll.in/article/897149/haruki-murakamis-new-novel-lies-between-alternate-worlds-with-no-clear-answers-as-usual.
[16] Ellis, Hirabayashi, and Murakami, "'In Dreams," 553.
[17] "1.4 Foucault's Author Function," OpenLearn, accessed November 1, 2021, https://www.open.edu/openlearn/history-the-arts/artists-and-authorship-the-case-raphael/content-section-1.4.
[18] Shea, "15 Author Responses to Their Books Being Banned," Cracked, last modified March 24, 2021, accessed November 1, 2021, https://www.cracked.com/image-pictofact-6358-15-author-responses-to-their-books-being-banned.