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Postmodern, Feminist and Postcolonial Currents in Contemporary Japanese Culture : a reading of Murakami Haruki, Yoshimoto Banana, Yoshimoto Takaaki and Karatani Kojin ReviewOne of the most difficult issues when pursuing the study of a country which is based on systems of ethics, philosophy, religion, and culture from one's own, is the application of theories, thought, and logic that are alien to the country coming under analysis. In his book Postmodern, Feminist and Postcolonial Currents in Contemporary Japanese Culture: A Reading of Murakami Haruki, Yoshimoto Banana, Yoshimoto Takaaki and Karatani Kojin University of Hong Kong professor of Japanese Studies Fuminobu Murakami attempts not only to analyze the works of the authors Haruki Murakami and Banana Yoshimoto through the lenses of European/American theories of Postmodernism, Feminism, and Postcolonialism, and a touch of Queer Theory, but to show how such theories after being imported into Japan have influenced the works of these authors and thinkers while at the same showing how such theories are a bit ill-fitting within a Japanese context.Beginning with Haruki Murakami, an author whose fictional works straddle the line between literary and popular fiction, Professor Murakami engages in a careful critique of Murakami's early works, especially Hard-boiled Wonderland and the End of the World and Norwegian Wood to display how Murakami's characters reject the "modernist" world of advancement, evolution, emotional love, and brutal violence for a "postmodern" world where ambition, and with it love and violence, has ceased to be and where everyone lives in harmony because there is no desire. Professor Murakami, however, states that this autistic, postmodern world leaves Haruki Murakami a bit on edge because of its lack of emotion and love, so in his later books, such as The Wind-up Bird Chronicle violence blossoms because love, and along with it, hate, is present. Haruki Murakami, according to Professor Murakami is trying to come to terms with the modernist concept of love and the violence attached to it.
Professor Murakami's section concerning Banana Yoshimoto, one of Japan's most read authors of popular literature, mainly focuses on Yoshimoto's debut novel Kitchen as well as her novel N.P. Within this section, Professor Murakami takes on Yoshimoto's passive feminist critique of modernist sexual relations. Although sexual activity is a major theme within the works of prominent female novelists such as Hitomi Kanehara Ami Sakurai, and Ami Yamada, sex in Yoshimoto's novels lack the intensity found in these novels and more often that not resemble the lackadaisical sex found in Murakami's early novels. This is significant because instead of desire for sex, Yoshimoto's characters instead desire such things as food and incestuous, if not actually sexual, relations with family members or pseudo-family members instead of others outside of their homogeneous group. This aspect of Yoshimoto's characters displays their postmodern natures and unwillingness to live in a modernist society of "traditional" love and violence.
Sections three and four of the book look at the careers of Takaaki Yoshimoto, Banana's father, and Kojin Karatani, two of Japan's most prominent philosophers. Professor Murakami does a fine job of developing an overview of these two men's careers and mapping out the development of their though and their impact on the Japanese literary world. Heavily influenced by the works of Karl Marx and well aware of the European-American imperialism in the worlds of philosophy, political thought, and literary criticism, Murakami maps out how Yoshimoto and Karatani fight this imperialism. Unlike Haruki Murakami and Banana Yoshimoto, the works of Yoshimoto and Karatani, especially Yoshimoto, are not widely available in other languages other than Japanese, so Professor Murakami analysis is quite welcome.
Unlike a good number of books that tackle complex subjects such as modernism, postmodernism, and postcolonialism, Professor Murakami's book, although it gets bogged down in philosophical, linguistic jargon from time to time, is a relatively easy read and he aids the reader in supplying histories of modernism and postmodernism in Europe/America and in Japan so the newcomer to such issues will not be left out in a sea of pedantic, incomprehensible language. While maybe not for the common reader of Haruki Murakami, Banana Yoshimoto, etc., Professor Murakami's book is quite welcome in the field of Japanese literary studies for its insights into the works of Murakami and Yoshimoto, and the critical introductions to the works of Takaaki Yoshimoto and Kojin Kartatani.Postmodern, Feminist and Postcolonial Currents in Contemporary Japanese Culture : a reading of Murakami Haruki, Yoshimoto Banana, Yoshimoto Takaaki and Karatani Kojin OverviewUsing the Euro-American theoretical framework of postmodernism, feminism and post-colonialism, this book analyses the fictional and critical work of four contemporary Japanese writers; Murakami Haruki, Yoshimoto Banana, Yoshimoto Takaaki and Karatani Kojin. In addition the author reconsiders this Euro-American theory by looking back on it from the perspective of Japanese literary work. Presenting outstanding analysis of Japanese intellectuals and writers who have received little attention in the West, the book also includes an extensive and comprehensive bibliography making it essential reading for those studying Japanese literature, Japanese studies and Japanese thinkers.
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