Murakami and The Importance of Sex... or not? - Kyla

 In high school, I was introduced to a book (How to Read Literature Like a Professor by Thomas Foster)  that outlined how different symbols and themes function within novels. Two chapters involved sex, or rather the allusion to sex, and what purpose it serves in literature. Because Murakami writes so frequently about sex, these two chapters seem particularly important in analyzing the purpose of why Murakami writes explicitly. The book

How to Read Literature Like a Professor offers a few reasons for what the reason behind sex scenes in literature could be: “pleasure, sacrifice, submission, rebellion, resignation, supplication, domination, enlightenment,” or just plain “pornography”. Is Murakami’s writing just pornography or does the incorporation of sex have a wider purpose? 

The answer is kind of both, based on the interview we talked about in class, Murakami doesn’t see many of his scenes as explicitly sexual. In fact, talking about sex often reveals a new perspective for characters’ desires or motives. For instance, in 1Q84, Tengo talks about Fuka-eri’s breasts in an attempt to convince her to wear a revealing shirt to an interview. Tengo’s motive, while inherently sexual, was not based on his own sexual desires but rather his desire for her novel to sell well. This interaction, among others, foreshadows the success of Fuka-eri’s novel and insinuates the captivation that she holds on her audience. It ultimately, like Foster mentions, expresses enlightenment of the people (the response of the book selling is people learning about aspects of the “other” world in this novel). 

However, unlike this scene, Murakami also writes sex simply for the purpose of writing sex. It is extremely hard to prescribe a meaning to the “whale penis” in Murakami’s, A Wild Sheep Chase. It is possible to serve as a symbol for loss and detachment, although I find this rather hard to believe as the penis is so random in the novel. It also does not seem to make further appearances towards the end of the book. Additionally, the relationship between Boku and his first girlfriend mentions sex and how meaningless it was to him in contrast to sex with his new girlfriend. But this also does not seem to have as striking of a meaning as sex in his other novels. 

All in all, I think it is rather interesting to analyze these scenes as more than what they are. Many of them are written very strangely and awkwardly, but this should be a red flag that they could mean more!