Well look, another summer’s almost over and I’ve still not fully recovered from my bad case of blogging fatigue caused by writing too much in other places. But today I come here with something slightly more substantial than nothing, something which doesn’t even require that many words.
Of course I can’t stray too far from the area that has pretty much taken over my real life – literature. Hence this post shall be a TV pop culture meets literature sort of collection:

1. American Writers on Gossip Girl: A Deadly Adventure?

Last September, Gossip Girl came back with its second season in which Dan Humphrey landed himself an internship with a famous writer played by none other than Jay McInerney. How fitting for all parties involved!

But then a few months later, I started to have doubts about what exactly fate might have in store for writers who appear on that show, even just indirectly. Because in “You’ve Got Yale!”, episode 16 of season 2, our budding writer Dan Humphrey could be spooted reading an old paperback of John Updike’s Rabbit Redux in a trendy coffee house.

Now, in any other case I would have said ‘Congratulations, great product placement!’ or rolled my eyes and thought ‘OK, Humphrey’s the quiet, intellectual guy of the show, I get it (only he’s not)!’. But this whole thing seemed completely bizarre because this very episode was aired on January 19, 2009 and only a little more than a week later, on January 27, John Updike died…! When I heard the news of Updike’s death, that image of Humphrey holding Updike’s novel in his hands flashed up in my mind and I couldn’t help but wonder if it’s really safe for a writer to be featured on Gossip Girl… (Insert thoughtful silence here.)

2. Murakami, Murakami everywhere

Look who was scheduled for an operation at Seattle Grace in episode 18 of season 5 of Grey’s Anatomy (airing date March 19, 2009):

Richard Powers? And Murakami Haruki? Seems like the set designers were getting a little too carried away with their love for certain writers… Or maybe there is no such thing? Anyway, I sincerely hope the operation was a success and they sewed up Haruki properly again!

Speaking of my favourite portrayer of the Sheep Man:
I saw the anime movie Kumo no mukou, yakusoku no basho (The Place Promised in our Early Days) the other day and while I was watching it I couldn’t help but notice certain similarities to Murakami Haruki’s works – the atmosphere, the parallel reality issue, the tower, the way the protagonist expressed himself in the monologues etc. Afterwards I saw the interview with the director Shinkai Makoto that was included on the DVD, which was shot in a place that looked like his work office. There were two screens in the background which showed important scenes and background designs for the film and then yes, I noticed in stack of two books drawn for the film one book I actually own:

The blue book at the bottom is the Japanese hardcover edition of the first volume of Murakami Haruki’s Umibe no Kafuka/Kafka on the Shore complete with its obi and everything. I’m not sure if the image of the two books was used directly in the movie itself at some point because I’ve watched it only once so far and saw the interview afterwards, but expressing your love for literature and your favourite authors in every possible way, across all media, is simply admirable and obviously a pleasure for everyone involved ;)

Murakami Haruki’s new book 1Q84, his 12th long novel, went on sale today (technically yesterday, Friday 29th). Shinchosha was being completely secretive about the story before it was published and didn’t even give any hints on the novel’s official site, just that it was more or less connected to Hard-boiled Wonderland and the End of the World, The Wind-up Bird Chronicle and Kafka on the Shore which are all in my personal top 5 of the greatest Haruki books ever written. (A Wild Sheep Chase and Dance Dance Dance would be the remaining two titles on that list.)

Now Shinchosha offers a lot more information on the novel which is published in two hardcover volumes (1,890 yen each). The Japanese reading of the novel’s titel, ichi-kyuu-hachi-yon, probably makes it easier to guess that it stands for the year 1984. Whereas Orwell’s 1984, written in 1949, was science fiction in the sense that it presented a possible future, Murakami’s 1Q84 is supposedly a novel about the past as it could have been, depicting some sort of parallel world to the “real” 1984 as it might have happened but, as fiction, didn’t. (Not that 1984 wasn’t a year that hasn’t been extensively written about in the Murakami universe.)

There’s also a Japanese Wikipedia page for the book now, with a short plot summary and character introductions (which I’m trying hard not to read to avoid spoilers), and amazon.co.jp already has a few customer reviews up whereas last night there were none. (I hope no one was crazy enough to read the whole 1000+ pages in one day o_O) Currently there are 6 reviews for book one, 5 of which gave the book 5 stars. Argh, anticipation~ Can’t wait till my books get here!

During my research on Murakami Ryu I realized that Murakami’s been observing both mass culture & subculture phenomena from an almost outsider’s point of view while at the same time he himself is part of this mass media monster, this huge machinery (with both positive and negative qualities) in which everyone seems to be influenced by everyone in their output and instantly influences others the second they publish their ‘product’/output. As controversial as his thoughts and works might be, Murakami has already influenced a flock of younger writers, some of which have paid homage to his works through tiny details in their own works. As an example for that, here are a few connections between Murakami and anime:

1, The naming of a handful of (minor) characters from Eva was apparently inspired by character names from Murakami’s novel Ai to Gensou no Fashizumu (1987) as Anno Hideaki, the director of the anime, later wrote in an essay.

For example, there’s Suzuhara Touji (鈴原トウジ) whose name was “borrowed” from the protagonist of Fashizumu, Suzuhara Touji (鈴原冬二). His friend Aida Kensuke (相田ケンスケ) also has a doppelganger – by name, at least – in the novel (相田剣介). The surname of their friend Hikari, Horaki (洞木), is used in the novel for a male character called 洞木紘一.
One person appearing in the novel called Yamagishi Ryouji (山岸良治) might have been a source of inspiration in the naming of Kaji Ryouji ( 加持リョウジ) and Yamagishi Mayumi (山岸マユミ), the female main character from the Sega Saturn game Evangelion 2nd Impression, though Anno said the ‘Ryouji’ came from a character in a Narita Minako manga, so who knows… There’s also a bunch of very minor characters whose names can also be found in Murakami’s novel, like Tokita Shirou (時田シロウ; inspired by Tokita Shirou（時田史郎）in the novel), and Manda (万田), Yasugi (八杉) etc.

The Murakami/Anno connection continues. In 1998 Anno Hideaki made his non-anime directorial debut when he had the chance to adapt Love&Pop, Murakami’s short novel about enjo kousai which was published in 1996, for the big screen.

2, And then there’s Eureka seveN (2005), the current generation’s Evangelion, which I admittedly quite enjoyed, though not nearly as much as Eva. It was written by the highly celebrated screenwriter Satou Dai, who also wrote (episodes of) other brilliant anime series such as Cowboy Bebop, Wolf’s Rain, Ergo Proxy and Terra e…, to name just a few. He apparently made a cross-reference to Anemone, the female protagonist in Murakami’s Coin Locker Babies (1980) by naming the pink-haired Anemone, the oh-so-tormented pilot of the Nirvash LFO TheEND, after her. In the book, Anemone has an alligator called Gulliver and in the anime, Anemone’s pet is this weird mixture of a duck, a sheep and something indefinable that is called Gulliver, too.

Oh geekiness!

The English translation of Kanehara Hitomi’s novel Autofiction is going to come out in just a few days through Vintage UK. I’ve already preordered my copy :) To celebrate the occasion I spent this afternoon re-reading her debut, Snakes & Earrings (which I’ve sort-of-reviewed here). This time I found it so much easier to relate to the three main characters and found the writing a lot more reflective than the first time. I think it has a lot to do with gained personal experience, my current mind set etc. And with that, my hopes for enjoying Autofiction just as much are extremely high.

Just by skimming through the reviews on Amazon Japan it becomes pretty clear that lots of readers seem to have difficulties with categorizing Kanehara’s writing. Is it pure literature? Is it entertainment meant to shock and sell? Is it literature at all or just plain trash? I’m not a friend of categorizations at all. Different pieces of art/culture/literature appeal to different people, you can love something and relate to it and feel that it reflects your own way of life and thinking, or you simply don’t. Kanehara’s stories truly aren’t made for a wide range of readers. (Though at least her debut was a huge commercial success after it received the Akutagawa Prize.) Only a small fraction of people probably can fully relate to her characters because not everybody is trying to find alternative ways of living or to take things to extremes. It is a kind of “alternative” literature that’s very controversial but definitely deserves to be called literature. (And that shocking, provocative nuance of her works definitely isn’t new to Japanese literature anyway, think Akutagawa, Tanizaki, Dazai Osamu, Murakami Ryuu etc.)

[Music: Hard-Fi - Cash Machine]

During my last journey through my favourite bookstore I was browsing the new books section, when one particular book caught my attention. I read the author’s name and the title and they certainly rang a bell, I blinked, my brain worked hard, I blinked again and then I almost hugged the person standing next to me out of sheer happiness: Kanehara Hitomi’s Hebi ni piasu has been released in English!!!

It is published by Vintage/Random House in the UK under the title Snakes & Earrings and was translated by David James Karashima. The cover design is absolutely beautiful. I was totally oblivious to the fact it would be published in English *_* Actually, amazon.co.uk says the book won’t be out until June 2 but it’s definitely out already ;) I didn’t even think twice about buying it, just grabbed a copy of it and was the happiest girl this side of the Equator.

Kanehara was awarded the Akutagawa Prize for this book early last year. The media went berserk because she and the other winner, Wataya Risa (for her book Keritai senaka) are both such young girls. There were even people complaining that the jurors chose them to get the attention of the public as the publishing industry has been on a decline and nothing sells better than scandalous books by sexy young ladies. (Both girls are quite different though. Kanehara is really much trendier and different whereas Wataya is more the nice smart girl who’s studying at Waseda.)

So last night, I sat down and devoured Kanehara’s debut. It was a fast read as the book is on the slim side with its mere 118 pages.

Lui is a 19-year-old girl who meets a guy with red hair and piercings in a night club. He’s called Ama and gets Luis attention by showing her his forked tongue. Lui gets interested in body modification and wants to get a forked tongue herself and also becomes Ama’s girlfriend. She gets to meet a friend of Ama’s, Shiba-san, the owner of shop selling earrings, accessories and sex toys. Shiba-san is a tattoo artist. Lui starts to visit him on a more or less regular basis and wants him to design a tattoo for her. They end up having sex together without Ama being aware of it. Ama has a soft core even though he looks pretty scary but one night he beats a guy to a pulp because he’d hit on Lui. A few days later, Lui reads in a newspaper that a gangster was killed and the suspect is a red-haired young man. Lui is shocked but isn’t sure whether this was really the guy Ama beat because she can’t believe he’s a murderer. Nevertheless, she dyes his hair blonde to protect him from any investigations by the police.
While Lui becomes more and more addicted to alcohol, she maintains a sado-masochistic affair with Shiba-san. She’s more or less convinced she’s going to get killed by either Ama or Shiba-san. But what if it’s not Lui losing her life but one of the guys…?

Unfortunately, I thought the novel was a bit of a letdown. Large parts of it read like the livejournal or weblog entries of your average girl who can’t deal with the majority of society and tries to live a life different than most peoples’. The writing isn’t really unique, smart or inventive, there’s not much specialness or even beauty in the language or the style.
There are just one or two reflective paragraphs; the book isn’t exactly full of insightful thoughts and ideas due to the limited language itself but interestingly enough, Kanehara realises this herself and expresses it through Lui:
“I collapsed on to the ground and broke down in tears. Screw you. Go to hell, you fuckers. I wish I had a greater vocabulary to fully express the extent of my pain and hatred. But I don’t. I’m just pathetic. That’s all I am.” (p.105)

The characterizations are also somewhat lacking. You don’t get emotionally very close to either of the three main characters, not even Lui, the heroine. You don’t get much information about their lifes or family backgrounds just like the characters don’t know much about each other. But this proves fatal in the end and just illustrates the faults of Lui’s life.

The relation between Lui and Ama is rather cute though. It’s what touched me the most emotionally because even if their relationship is based on almost no common interests, they care about each other. I also found myself liking her descriptions of the sex scenes. They are explicit but somehow distanced and unemotional and thankfully not as brutal or even downright disgusting as those of some other younger writers.

I think Kanehara is very much aware of the faults in her writing and she uses them to create her very own style. She’s by far not a second Murakami Ryu or Yamada Amy, two writers she likes and looks up to. At least not yet. But you can sense her potential.

Ash Baby, Kanehara’s second novel, is supposed to be just as shocking. (I read it involves rather unusual forms of love, for example one of the characters is attracted to infants – in a sexual way! o_O) One can only hope she doesn’t use such elements just for the sake of shocking people. She needs to develop a way to give her stories a bit more philosophical, sociological or psychological background so her books aren’t just shocking accounts of the life of young outcasts written in a pulp magazine kind of style but have depth and meaning and justify the term ‘literature’.

Well, it’s quite obvious I had to take an involuntary break for more than a week. I caught the flu ~_~ Up until 2 days ago, my fever was really high and I felt more dead than alive. I’m sort of better now, the fever is gone, I’m back online and all’s well :)

Last week’s biggest news:
Coin Locker Babies is going to made into a movie!

There was that quote by Oliver Stone (I think) on the back of the English edition of Murakami’s book and I thought ‘Fuck no, take your filthy hands of that book >_< ‘. I was hoping no one from the USA would ever touch it and turn it into a movie.

I always thought Coin Locker Babies could be to Japan what Trainspotting was to Britain. Both are shocking, dirty, bizarre and obscene, violent and grotesque. But of course, they are also powerful mirrors of their respective generations. Both have that fresh feeling because they don’t fit into mainstream categories as they don’t want to appeal to the masses.

That’s why I really hoped the Japanese would make a movie out of, and not the Americans. I don’t want some half-assed Hollywood crap, not with that book! The Japanese can handle bizarreness quite well in film, I’m not sure what a mainly American team is going to make out of it.

Sean Lennon has co-written the script though. Also, the production’s gonna start later this year so there is no definite cast yet but Asano Tadanobu might be in it which means it won’t be your typical Hollywood production and there will be a few (half-) Japanese people involved. (Other actors who might be in the film are Liv Tyler, Val Kilmer, Vincent Gallo and Asia Argento – all good to great actors who have proved their talent in smaller productions; plus they are all rather charismatic. So there is still some hope!