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I nternational Jour nal of Japanese Sociol ogy2001, Volume 10

I JJS Volum e 10 2001.

In his 1939 essay Some Motifs in Baudelaire

Walter Benjamin elevated the shock

experience to central stage in the theory of

modernity. In this article the focus will be

on the role played by shock in the fiction of

the contemporary Japanese writer Murakami

H aruki (1949). While B enjamin is thetheorist of modernity w ho most explicitly has

based his theory on the experience of shock,

Murakami is the paragon of a writer in whose

fiction contemporary society is precisely not

shocking. By contra sting them w e will see

how crucial the presence or absence of shock

is in shaping the perception of modernity,

how it defines what dilemmas are experi-

enced as central a nd influences the stra tegies

applied to deal with them. This contrast will

help us to re-evaluate Benjamin in a

contemporary context and demonstrate the

usefulness of the concept of shock for

theoretically grasping the experience of

modernity in contemporary fiction. The

juxtaposition is especially apt because of the

many strikingly similar concerns one finds inB enjamin and Murakami. B oth a re centrally

preoccupied by motifs such as language,

memory and mourning, both regard indi-

vidual experience as threatened by the

capitalist system, and both are groping for

means of resistance in the things that this

system excludes, as evinced in Benjamins

wish to mob ilize the rags and refuse (1999:

460) and in Mura kamis sympathy fo r lost

things (Muraka mi and K aw amoto, 1985: 67).

Murakami Haruki and the Naturalizationof Modernity

CARL CASSEGARD

Abstract: Walter Benjamin famously portrayed the shock sensation as the cause of a heightening of consciousness in modernity, a process which in turn causes the disintegration

of the aura and the suffocation of experience under the protective shield of conscious-

ness. W hen applied to the cultural space of M urakami H arukis novels a discrepancy comes

into view that calls for sociological elucidation. H ere modernity is a naturalized space

characterized by tranquillity and stillness, a low consciousness, and a fusion of reifi cationwith re-enchantment. This naturalization is made possible by a process of privatization

whereby libidinal energy becomes transferred from objective human relations to the

interior of the self. M urakami struggles with the dilemma of how to affi rm naturalization

while counteracting privatization. While the prime cultural contradiction according to

Benjamin was the conflict between the aura and the heightening of consciousness, in

the naturalized modernity portrayed by M urakami another contradiction emerges which

revolves around the conflict between painless solitude and the struggle to regain auratic

human relations.

Keywords:shock, M urakami H aruki, W alter Benjamin

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In view of these similarities, the absence of

shock in Murakamithe very sensation

that B enjamin made into the cornerstone for

this theory of modernityis all the more

significant.

Although many parallels can be foundbetween Murakami and o ther contemporary

writers,1 we do not focus on his fiction for

reasons of representativity, but because he

presents us with a clear picture of the phe-

nomenon of naturalization. In other words,

we treat him not as an example, but as a

point of referencethat is useful for develop-

ing the concept of nat uralization.2 In fa ct, it is

in providing sociology with the opportunity

to develop its conceptual apparatus that fi ction

assumes its highest sociological significance.

Although the relevance of literature for

sociology can only be demonstrated through

interpretation and analysis, in general the

specific sociological value of literature resides

in the privileged access it offers to the way

society is experienced. A fi ctional form serves

not only to convey the emotional aspects of

social life but also as a flexible intellectual

medium for exploring possible solutions to

the contradictions underlying them. It offersinsights not only a bout how people feel ab out

dilemmas, but also about how they seek to

overcome them. Literature is therefore not

simply an object for the sociologist to ex-

plain, but also a source of knowledge about

society. As the sociologist Inoue Shun points

out, the insights offered by literature can

only be preserved if we eschew the crude

sociologism which attempts to reduce it to its

social foundations. What is required is a

dialogue , in which sociology learns fromor is enriched by litera ture (Inoue, 1985:

346). An important premise of this study is

that sociological theory has as much to gain

from such a procedure as the understanding

of literature has by being illuminated by

sociology.3

Modernity and shockin Benjamin

First we need to have a look at B enjamins

view of modernity. Since no summary can

do full justice to its richness, I will limit

myself to an idea that is central to it and

which, although it recurs in different forms

in several of his contemporaries, was most

explicitly developed by him, namely the

relation between modernity and shock. This

idea is expressed in his famous formulation

that the price of mod ernity is the disinte-

gration of the aura in the sensation of shock

(B enjamin, 1997: 154). In modernity, people

tend to protect themselves against the rawforce of shock by developing a heightened

degree of consciousness , which serves as

wha t hefollowing Freudcalls a protective

shield aga inst excessive externa l stimuli.

This in turn leads to a shift in the form

of perception from assimilated experience

(Erfahrung) to superficial sensations (Erlebnisse)

of reified and isolated moments. Benjamin

treats this shift as equivalent to the disinte-

gration of the aura defi ned as that which

makes an object or a human relationshipappear unique and embedded in a history o r

tradition of its own. D rained of aura, the

world turns into the world of baudelairean

spleen , which B enjamin describes as a

state where external stimuli have lost their

uniquenessevery sensation seems to be

merely a repetition of previous ones (1997:

111ff). A t this point B enjamins observations

intersect with G eorg Simmels thesis tha t the

intensifica tion of nerve-life in the modern

metropolis brings about a dominance ofthe intellect over the emotions in spiritual

life, something which in turn prod uces a b las

attitude, a state of bored indifference in

which consciousness is fully developed and

nothing is left which might be perceived as

shocking since everything is considered to be

eq ual a nd excha ngeable (Simmel, 1990: 256).

According to B enjamin, then, spleen arises

not through a lack of stimuli but through

an excess of stimuli. Paradoxically, it is

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shockand not its absencethat fuels bore-

dom. Modernity appears as a seamless col-

lusion of incessant shock-sensations and

at tempts by the intellect to ma ster the shock-

ing environment. It is a hell or continuous

catastrophe , chara cterized by a dialectic ofthe new a nd the ever-same , an endless

production of novelty after novelty, yet at

the same time mired down in monotonous

repetition, each new shock collapsing back

into the ever-same (1999: 842f; 1977: 231).

B enjamins theory of the decay of the a ura

can, to a certain point, be read a s a theory of

how reifi cation ma nifests itself on the level of

perception, i.e., as the perception of people

and social products as things in isolation

from their mediation.4 Mediation can only

be grasped through assimilated experience

(Erfahrung), whereas superficial sensations

(Erlebnisse) fragmentizes perception and

makes things appear as if they were inde-

pendent of each o ther. To b e sure, B enjamin

affi rmed the emancipatory potential of shock

and the disintegration of the aura, which he

trea ted a s a libera tion from ritua l (1977: 143ff).

Nevertheless he also endowed the aura with

a uto pian significa nce.5

H is amb ivalent stancereflects what he portrays as a fundamental

dilemma of modernity. The attempt to

escape the modern hell of shock and spleen

by artificially restoring the aura through

heightened consciousnessas in the fascist

attempt to recreate t he aura o f the community

must ultimately fa il since the aura is depend-

ent on t he essentially involuntary w orkings of

memory (1977: 154, 167ff; cf. Caygill, 1998:

93116). Faced w ith this dilemma , B enjamin

himself maintained an attitude of hesitantopenness towards modernity. As opposed

to conscious recreation of aura, which was

bound to be regressive, his strategy w as ra ther

to get used to the dream-world of capitalism

as a fi rst step in order t o dispel it. The ta sks

which confront the human apparatus of

perception a t the turning points of history a re

not to be solved by optical means, that is, by

contemplation, a lone. They a re only ma stered

gradually, by habit, under the guidance of

ta ctile receptio n (1977: 167). This wa s a

strategy, not of subjecting the dream to an

external critique, which was bound to get

caught up in the law tha t effort brings abo ut

its opposite , but of groping ones wa y inside

the dream in search of the dialectics of aw akening at work within it (1999: 13, 388ff).

Just a s for the Jews every second wa s a small

gate through which Messiah might enter

(1977: 261), so for B enjamin every piece of

rags or refuse wa s a potential dialectical

image which might trigger the sudden fla sh

of recognition, the involuntary memory,

which wo uld help dispel the nightma re.

How to interpret Murakami?

Murakamis writings challenge the equation

of modernity with the sensation of shock

which is at the heart of Benjamins frame-

work. Even though the story lines of his

novels do not lack dramatic and unexpected

turns of event, the protagonists are rarely

shocked. I nterestingly, their tra nq uillity does

not depend on what Benjamin calls a highdegree of consciousness. There is no sign of

the nervous attitude of b eing on ones guard.

If anything, they show a low level of aware-

ness of their surroundings. They la ck interest

in much of contemporary rea lity, whose w ork-

ings they la rgely accept without the pretension

of b eing able to loo k through them. The pro-

tagonists embody the intuition, ubiquitous

in late modernity, that the inexplicable has

become commonplace: it is normal that

ab norma l things occur.We will here interpret Murakamis writings

on the basis of his at titude towa rds two social

processes that are conspicuously present in

his work:

(1) Naturalization: in his fi ction the modern

environment has become as self-evident

as na ture once w as. The insecurity and the

predominance of the intellect, needed as

long as one had to adapt oneself to a

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historically new and unfamiliar environ-

ment, recedes as one grow s accustomed

to it.

(2) Privatization. D espite the waning of

shock late modernity is distinguished from

pre-modernity through the process ofprivat izationthe redirection of libidinal

investments from relations between

people. Few things are as striking in

the protagonists of Murakami as their

loneliness, even when they a re w ith other

people. It is self-imposed solitude that

makes it possible for them to avoid the

shocks of social life in modernity. As

I will argue, privatization is one of the

crucial preconditions of nat uralization.

By exploring the interrelation of natural-

ization and privatization we gain a frame-

work for interpreting Murakamis novels.

According to our interpretation, the follow-

ing dilemma is at the heart of his work:

how is one to have naturalization without

privatization? H ow is the fi rst tendency to be

affirmed without the second? In regard to

this question, his novels can be divided into

two groups. Early novelslike Hear theWind Sing (K aze no uta o ki ke, 1979),

Pinball , 1973(1973 nen no pinbru, 1980),

A Wi ld Sheep Chase(H itsuji o meguru bken,

1982) or Hardboiled Wonderland and the End

of the Worl d(Sekai no owari to hdobo irudo

wandrando, 1985)affirm the naturalization

of modernity, and portray protagonists

who accept loneliness as their sad but also

sentimentally sweet fate. Later novels

like Norwegian Wood (Noruei no mori,

1987), D ance dance dance(D ansu dansudansu, 1988), or The Wind-up Bi rd Chronicle

(Nejimakidori kuronik uru, 199495)depict

protagonists who combat the trend towards

privatization by committing themselves to

other huma n beings. B y their struggle, how-

ever, they find themselves having to deny

naturalization as well, at least to a certain

extent. Shock returns to their world, and

even where mutual communication is achieved

it tends to be painful, casting doubt on the

success of their struggle. While the earlier

novels present us with the clearest and most

unblemished picture of a wholly naturalized

and privatized world, the later novels show

us that Murakami is unwilling to affirm this

world wholeheartedly.

Naturalization

It is time to specify the concept of

naturalization, the first of the two processes

that stand in the center of our interpretation.

Naturalization means that one has grown

used to a n environment that w as once shock-

ing. We must be careful not to confuse this

new nature with the notion of second

nature that w as developed in the tradition

of Western Marxism and that was used by

Benjamin.6 It will be instructive to compare

these two notions of nature.

Fundamental to the theory of second

nature is the insight that the domina tion

over nature achieved in modernity not only

liberates man, but also creates new constraints

since economy, technology, and the world ofsocial convention turn against him as the

reifi ed world of second nature .7 Indeed,

great cities resemble nature: no huma n hand

seems to cont rol them, its stream of cars and

tra ins is no less inhuman a nd elemental tha n

wild cataracts and rivers. They usurp the life

that was meant for its inhabitants, who

converselyare reduced to things. These

metaphors, which fuse the images of natural

ecology and of the machine, all suggest the

fragility of the borderline between societyand nature in the city. It has been suggested

that Murakamis novels are rich in this sensi-

bility.8 And to be sure, his characters have

a thing-like quality. In novels such as A

Wil d Sheep Chaseand Hardboiled Wonder-

landthey even lack proper names. Instead

they are usually referred to by objectified

attributes: the wife , the business partner ,

and so on. A world inhabited by such

dehumanized emblems is one in which the



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reification of roles has become natural and

humans submit to system-imperatives as

casually as if the latter were forces of

nature.

Yet the world of Murakamis novels cannot

be dismissed a s a mere reifi ed nightma re. Theproblem with directly a pplying the concept of

second nature here is that it is linked to the

image of modernity as an a rena of shock. As

a corrective we do well to turn to an entirely

different concept of na ture which is free from

all oppressive overtones. We find it in the

writings of Adorno. While Ad orno on the one

hand uses the term nature to designate the

oppressive appearance of contemporary society

as second nature, on the other ha nd he also uses

it to designat e the fi rst nature, which is sub-

jugat ed during the process of moderniza tion:

the external nature ravaged by technology,

and the realm of mute, preconscious inner

impulses repressed by identity thinking. For

Ado rno nature wa s not only the spell of the

inhuman in society, but also the source of

life which might help break this spell. B ut

here the following question arises: what

is the criterion for distinguishing second

nature from its supposed victim, non-reifiednature?

To a rrive at a n answer let us turn to the

notion of natural history (Naturgeschichte),

which Benjamin put forw ard in The Ori gin of

German Tragic D rama(1994: 165ff, 177ff),

and carefully make use of it as far as it takes

us. For B enjamin, the idea of nature meant

the idea of an original state of things, of

whatever appeared to be pregivenas fate.

In this sense, it was opposed to the idea of

history , which was the constantly changingsphere of action, the stream of becoming.

B enjamin points out that the historical

often petrifies into natureinto a frozen

image of timelessness. Whatever appears to

be natural , however, always contains traces

which reveal it to be transient and historical.

This idea profoundly influenced Adorno,

who in his 1932 lecture The Idea of a

Natural H istory framed it as a critique of

the ahistorical appearance of second nature.

Follow ing B enjamin, he undermines the

antithesis of history and nature to the point

where the tw o terms collapse into each other:

history is to be understood as na ture-like and

nat ure as historical. He a rgues that the crude

version of the theory of reification, which

focuses attention on how the historical is

rigidified into second nature merely strenghtens

the spell of reification. Nature too is trans-

itory, and this insight offers the possibility

to see through second natures pretense of

timelessness (Adorno, 1973: 345365).

The idea of natural history offers the

advantage of showing that nature itself is

historical. Nature should not be understood

as a fixed, archaic or primordial state whichhas been lost and replaced by a fake second

nat ure. All nat ure, including fi rst nat ure,

is history which has been made to appear

ahistorical. This idea, however, still presents

second naturesocietys resemblance to

natureas an evil to be done a way with. Bo th

B enjamin a nd A dorno insist on d issolving it

back into history. But there is anotherand

equally possibleway to interpret this idea.

If a ll na ture is also history, then second nature

is not necessarily mo re evil and lifeless thanthe natural environment of archaic societies.

If a rchaic nature was the source both of en-

slavement and of enchantment , there does not

seem to be any rea son why second nature has

to be portray ed merely as a source of the for-

mer. Might it not be possible that second nature

could assume also those gentleand enchant-

ing features which Adorno a ssociated w ith the

victimized inner nature and the vanquished

external nature? If this is true, then the border-

line between t he older, enchanting nature andsecond nature becomes diffuse. Ra ther than

to diagnose modernity simply as the reified

world of second nature, it seems preferable

to speak of a return of nature tout court, albeit

nature returns not in the guise of the spirits

of t he forest or the rivers, but in the guise of

industrial plants and highways. Just as the

conquest of the old nature was an ambivalent

processencompassing both destructive and

emancipato ry aspectsso the return of na ture

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in the city is ambivalentencompassing

not only reification but also the gradual dis-

appearance of shock.

The modernity of Murakamis novels, I

suggest, is one in which the reified structure

of second nature is beginning to take onthe fea tures of non-oppressive archa ic nature.

We will now have a closer look at three

aspects of this phenomenon in his fiction,

each of which in a significant way relativizes

B enjamins framework.

The absence of shock

As the cultural a nthropologist A oki Tamo tsu

remarks, coziness and pleasant sentimental-

ism chara cterize modernity in Murakamis

novels. The mood of a typical Muraka mi hero,

he w rites, suggests an intense indifference;

neither happy nor sad, replete nor empty,

lonely nor loved, he simply exists. This is life

in the 1980s (Aoki, 1996: 271, 274). A s these

words indicate, we are fa r from the hell

depicted by B enjamin. To use theological

metaphors, this world is more akin to Hades ,

the shadow y land o f the dead where there is

neither pa in nor happiness. D espite sinister

external attributesusually the barren citylandscape of Tokyo a nd a wo rld dominated

by huge corporations and foul right-wing

organizationsit very seldom inflicts any

keenly felt pain on the protagonist. That

this environment has a friendly feel to it

and t hus differs from the cold and hostile

modernity in the fiction of, say, Abe Kb

or Kafkadoes not mean that dramatic

and sudden events do no t occur. They do, but

they never seem to produce shock. Two

examples are the sudden disappearance of the girlfriend w ith the beautiful ears in

A Wi ld Sheep Chaseand of the wife in The

Wind-up Bir d. The protagonists equanimity

in both cases is all the more striking, since

love between the sexes is the locus classicus

of shock. In the fiction of older Japanese writers,

like Abe Kb or Kaw aba ta Yasunari, the loss

of a beloved woman never fails to be shock-

ing. In Mura kami, by contra st, the vulnerability

necessary in order to be shocked is replaced

by a masochistically tinged resignation w hich

bord ers on indifference. The absence of shock

even in the fa ce of tota l disaster is well illus-

trated by the nightmarish plot of H ardboiled

Wonderland. D espite the superficial kinship

of this work to the genre of para noid fi ction,it stands out in a revealing aspect. The pro-

tagonists road towards his demise is gentle,

rose-colored, a lmost pa inted in a n idyllic light.

The strange characters which he meets on his

wa y a re likable, keep up his spirits, and try to

comfort him. All overt symptoms of reifica-

tion are gone. This is in stark contrast with

Kafka or A be, where the people encountered

by the protagonist often reveal a cruel,

machine-like quality. The soft, sentimental

atmosphere is further strengthened by t he

protagonists cool resignation to his fate. He

takes all losses with equanimity and grim

humor: Wasnt much of a life anyw ay , as he

remarks.

The lowering of consciousness

In an environment without shock, the

protective shield of the intellect becomes un-

necessary. In fact, Murakamis protagonists

never pretend to understand wha t is going onaround them. In H ardboiled Wonderl andthe

protagonists girlfriend points out that his

favorite expressions seem to be I w ouldnt

know and maybe so . The difference

between this kind of tranq uillity and spleen

is that the former arises from an acceptance

of incomprehensibility, while the latter

designates the state of mind of one who has

intellectually mastered his environment.

While B enjamin depicts modernity a s an a ge

in which the fear of shock spurs the intellecttowards an ever more watertight grip on its

environment, Murakamis protagonists have

already come to feel at home in the new

obscurity (H ab ermas, 1985) tha t is said to

be chara cteristic of late mo dernity.

The clearest idealization o f low consci-

ousness is found in The Wind-up Bi rd, whose

protagonistOkada Trupersonifies the

belief that just as long as you stick with

your gut feeling and do the little things,



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like vacuum cleaning, you contribute to the

harmony of the world and wind up its

springs . That his stance is accompa nied by a

belief in fate is not coincidental. The casual

acceptance of the incomprehensible resembles

fa ta lism. Indeed, the belief in fa te presupposesa chaotic environment. Since the unpredict-

ability of society is indispensable for the

production of the curious coincidences

which are interpreted as fate, the relation

between opaqueness and fatalism is comple-

mentary. The resurgence of the occult is a

telling symptom that modernity has become

just as natural as nature: the unpredictable

event is no longer shocking the moment it

can be interpreted as fate. The popularity of

New Age and what in Japan is known

as the spirit world (seishin sekai) indicate

that the predominance of the intellect is no

inherent feature of modernity.9

The fusion of reification and

enchantment

The third aspect of naturalization is the

fusion of reification with re-enchantment.

As the hard, thing-like world governed by

system-imperatives takes on a gentler appear-ance, the process of disenchantment which

Max Weber saw as an inherent attribute of

modernity loses momentum and shrinks

back. In Mura kamis novels social conditions

no longer enter into friction with the fan-

ta stic. The stories have t he calm of fa iry ta les,

in which fantastic events come forward as

natural. This fusion of reality with the fan-

ta stic in the mode of perception has profound

sociological implications, not least in the

changed chara cter of reification.The changed character of reification is

directly detectable in the way people appear

to the prota gonists in Murakamis fiction. H is

tendency to reduce people to objectified

attributes is notorious. Thus for example the

protagonists girlfriend in A Wi ld Sheep

Chaseis casually reduced to the girlfriend

with the b eautiful ears . The reduction,

however, is drastic enough to be parodical.

Like a small peephole in a wall, the reifying

epithet never pretends to reveal everything.

The reader is never allow ed to forget t he vast

expanse of her subjectivity which is left un-

told behind her epithet, but which never-

theless is felt to be there. Since the reifying

epithet appears as a sign of what is leftuntold, it turns her into a riddle rather than

demy stifying her. When she suddenly d ecides

to leave the protagonist at the end of the

novel, the act keenly brings out how little

either the reader or the protagonist knows

ab out her. U nlike the reifi cato ry labels so

dreaded by Lukcs or Adorno, it cannot be

used as a classificatory device. This is what

makes it a mistake to assert simply, as

Iw amoto does, that the characters ofA Wi ldSheep Chaseare presented as depthless objects

which are deprived of subjectivity (Iwamoto,

1993). Rather, people come forward in a

double-exposure: tra nscending their a ttributes

while being imprisoned in them.

The towering role of the occult in The

Wind-up Bir dshould not surprise us. It is

another example of the fusion of reification

and reenchantment. Occultism has all the

reifying attributes of science and social

engineering. In suggesting that humans areruled by stars or blood types, it shuts out

freedom just as effectively as any reificatory

scheme. On the other hand, the violence

occultism exerts by subsuming people under

pre-established categories and locking them

into causal relationships is tolerated because

of the reenchantment it offers in return.

In contrast to established science, occultism

does not reduce the phenomena of nature to

mute objects without moral or metaphysical

significance. The regular movement of starsor the inescapability of ones blood type

offers a fixity which is not felt to be reifying,

since the natura l phenomena to which one is

subordinated are themselves never objecti-

fi ed as facts . As pointed out by Benjamin

himself, the causality o f fa te is not t he mech-

anistic causality of natural science (1994:

129). The powers which govern the human

world are natural, to be sure, but this nature

is not the dead matter of modern science.

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Rather it is a stream of becoming in which

human history forms part and whichto the

tiniest of its fractalsis shot through by

historical significance.

Privatization

The wa ning of shock does not imply a return

of a uratic human rela tions. We will now t urn

to privatization, the process that makes

naturalization possible. Privatization is the

process whereby individuals become used

to solitude, orto be more precisetheir

instinctual needs and fundamental impulses

become channeled in such a way that their

gratification is made less dependent on

relations to other people. The term d oes not

imply that human interaction decreases, but

stands for the subjective process whereby

such interactions become less important

as sources of gratification for individuals. As

Aoki observes, it is their isolation that

enables Murakamis protagonists to mainta in

their tranquillity even in the midst of the

apparent turbulence of the modern city

(1996: 271f). In other words, their peace ofmind is paid fo r by loneliness.10 This pheno m-

enon was sensed to some extent by Simmel

in its negativeaspectsas what he called

reserve and aversion towards other people.

But he neglected to consider if libidinal

energies were merely suppressed or if they

were displaced to new safe areas where the

risk of shock wa s lower. Instead he took it for

granted that it would be sufficient to focus on

the purely intellectual efforts needed to ada pt

oneself to the metropolitan environment. Asmentioned, however, getting used is q uite

possible without an improved intellectual

grasp of the mechanisms of modernity.

One can feel at home in modernity without

understanding its mechanisms, in just the

same way that is possible to feel accustomed

to nature without grasping its complex

ecology. For us it is exactly these uncon-

scious aspects of getting used which are of

interest. It is these processes that will help

us to understand the solitude of Murakamis

heroes.

In order to gain a clear theoretical picture

of the process of privatization we need to

turn to Freuds theory of the interiorization

of libido. According to Freud, the ego usuallydoes not react to an experience of loss or to a

trauma by extinguishing the libido or affec-

tion felt fo r the lost object. Instead, the libido

is redirected inwardsit is transformed into

narcissistic libido. In this wa y the ego com-

pensates itself by setting up a replacement

for the lost object inside itself (1991: 94,

368f). What we have here is thus a case in

which dependence on an unstable a nd hostile

environment is neutralized. Peace of mind is

restored and made independent of actual

relations to other people o r things. A s Freud

point outs, this development is to some

extent characteristic of the development of

chara cter in any persons life. The end

result of repeated introjections is a state in

which the ego has become independent of its

environment, since all libido is transformed

into narcissistic libido.

This sta te bea rs a rema rkable resemblance

to the dominant mood of Murakamis pro-tagonists.11 The protagonist of A Wi ld Sheep

Chasewas happy with his girlfriend, but

seems just as happy without her. In earlier

writers like Ka wa bata or A be, as mentioned,

one feels the intact presence of painful, vigor-

ous libidinal attachments to women. In both

writers love relationships are mined with

shock and pain. Compared to these writers,

the wea kness of the element of shock as well

as of any libidinal attachment to others in

Muraka mis prota gonists are striking.Freud helps us to conceive of an alter-

native response to shock than tha t which was

predicted by Benjamin or Simmel. Instead of

becoming more conscious a bout the risk of

shock in external relations, the ego may

withdraw libidinal investment from them. In

this way the instances of shock will decrease,

but only at a price of privatization. We will

now turn to ha ve a look at Murakamis deep

amb ivalence towa rds this tendency.



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The resistance toprivatization and the

return of shock

Not only is increasing isolation cha racteristic

of societies today, but also the vigor with

which it is combated, the desperation of the

search for belonging, as evinced in the re-

surgence of nat ionalism and ethnic struggles.

The very same struggles also reveal that the

return of shock is the price for which the

attempt to renew the aura in the realm of

human relations is to be had. As privatiza tion

is denied, a precondition for the waning of

shock is also denied. We thus see that the tw o

processes which we ha ve described so f ar donot mark any irreversible transition away

from the classical modernity of B enjamin.

R ather they open up a corridor awa y from

this modernity, which might be traveled both

ways.

While Murakamis novels consistently

seem to celebrate naturalization, his stance

towards privatization is much more ambiva-

lent. The reversal from the cool subjectivity

in his early works to the determined attempt

to reverse privatization in The Wind-up Bi rdis undeniable. Although Okada Tru is still

a fundamentally solitary hero, his quest to

retrieve his lost wife ma rks a significant shift

in Murakamis output. For the first time a

protagonist appears who resolutely commits

himself to another person. What occupies

Okada Tru in much of the novel is the

restoration of destroyed communication with

his wife. In order to achieve this he has to

remember her name. The volte-face of

Murakamis previous nonchalance towardsproper names is striking. While the reliance

on epithets in the ea rlier novels in a nalbeit

parodicalway made t heir bearers exchange-

able and dispensable, the insistence on

proper names in this work must be seen as an

attempt to combat this exchangeability and

hold fa st her uniqueness, orin other w ords

her aura .12

The Wind-up Bird also brings out the

difficulty of combating privatization. What is

striking with this novel is not only Okada

Trus attempt t o rescue the aura of his wife,

but also the reappearance of shock and pain.

The unpleasant conjugal quarrels and the

violent hatred which he feels towards his

enemy Wataya Noboru are only the reverseside of his new sense of responsibility. As the

attempt to restore community ends up in

the affirmation of violence, this marks the

fa ilure of his att empt to restore t he aura . The

very commitment with which he engages in

the struggle to retrieve his wife ironically

leads him back to the sensation of shock

rather than to the realm of auratic human

rela tions. This much is still true in B enjamin:

that in modernity external relations without

shock are impossible.

Concluding remarks

We have seen that the cat egory of shock is

crucial to understanding the difference between

the perception of mod ernity in Benjamin and

Murakami. The presence of shock is acutely

felt in B enjamin, who portra ys modernity a srevolving aro und the experience of a conflict

between the protective shield of heightened

consciousness and the assimilated experience

that in premodern societies was associated

with the aura . In contrast, Murakamis fiction

gives us access to the experience of a

natura lized modernity in which shock is a

fa r more peripheral phenomenon. This mod-

ernity is characterized by the dilemma of how

to a ffi rm the disappearance of shock without

relinquishing human relations. This is adilemma, since the very attempt to combat

privatizat iondepicted forcefully in The Wind-

up Birdleads to a return of shock, i.e., to

the kind of modernity depicted by B enjamin.

The alternative of stoically submitting to

privatizationas seen in A Wi ld Sheep Chase

and H ardboiled Wonderl andis only to be

had at the price of profo und loneliness.

Murakamis fiction gives us insight not

only into the experience of nat uralization but

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also into the strategies by which it may be

confronted. Just like Benjamin, Murakami

maintains an attitude of hesitant openness

towards the dilemma that is central for his

perception of modernity. His ambivalent

stance towards the pleasant loneliness that isthe precondition for naturalization is akin to

Benjamins ambivalence towards the disinte-

gration of the aura in the sensation of shock.

B oth are equally unwilling to affi rm completely

the modernity o f their day. Just a s Benjamin,

Murakamis protagonists rely on a ta ctile

reception of their environment, in which they

grope for a dialectics of a wa kening that will

solve their dilemma.

Notes

1 Even an author whose writ ings are asseemingly brimming with shock-sensat ions asMurakami Ry testifies to naturalization, butfrom the angle of revolt against boredom a ndthe active pursuit of shock. A comparison ofthese two authors from the point of viewof shock would be extremely interesting. IfMurakami Haruki represents a basic accept-ance of naturalization that still seems to bewaiting for something new, then MurakamiR y represents a ba sic revolt against natura l-ization that acknowledges its own futility.B oth, how ever, share a similar point ofdeparture, the view of society asmore orlessnaturalized.

2 It is far from my intention to suggest that latemodernity as a whole is somehow charac-terized by any absence of shock. Shock exists.Nonet heless, hardly a ny research has yet beenmade a bout the tendency that a n arena of life

loses in shocking quality. This phenomenonneeds to be investigated because it too mani-fests itself in fi ction and o ther cultural artifactsof culture. For the purpose of this theoretiza-tion it is unfortunate t hat previous theoreticalefforts have tended to stress the processwhereby culture supersedes nature, ratherthan the one whereby culture turns into anew nature. Thus Castells claims that the information society replaces nature with culture (1996: 477), while B eck argues tha tthe present reflexive phase of modern-ization has consumed its other and turned

all nature artificial (1992: 19, 80f). Contemp-orary research also contains many helpfulobservat ions (B erger on post-tra uma (1999),Lehan on entropy (1998), Sloterdijk on cynicism (1987), Miyada i on the every-day (1995), Ka wa moto on metropolitansensibility (1999), just to ment ion a few).However, these observations have yet to betheoretically integrated. The tw o concepts thatwill be d iscussed below naturalizationand privatizat ion will, I believe, contributeto such an integration.

3 This approach literature is stressed by Coser,who writes: The creative imagination o f theliterary artist often has achieved insights intosocial processes which have remained unex-plored in social science The sociologistwho ignores literature is bound to be not

merely a much impoverished man, but awo rse social scientist. (1963: 4). One couldadd that such an approach is close to the redemptive criticism (H ab ermas, 1981)practiced by B enjamin himself. For Benjaminthe experience contained in and determiningthe form of a work was never a given, butneeded to be discovered in the course ofcritique (cf. 1977: 108).

4 Lukcs popularized the term reification inhis H istory and Class Consciousness, pub-lished in 1923. In capitalism, he argues, notonly are people treat ed a s things as a result ofcommodification and rationalization. Thoughtitself is reified, meaning that concepts areviewed as rigid and timeless entities inde-pendent of the tota lity of their historicalcontext (1968).

5 B enjamin differs from Simmel in emphasizingthe ritual function of the aura and its affinityto myth. Nevertheless, even in The Work ofA rt i n the Age of M echanical Reproduction,with its tentatively optimistic assessment ofthe disintegration of the aura as the eman-cipation from ritual and a s the precondition

for the emergence of a new kind of senseperception, he acknowledges the possibilityof a regressive or fa scist response to thisdevelopment (1977: 67f, 86f). Later, in SomeM otifs in Baudelaire, its disintegration isequat ed with the destruction of the conditionsof experience itself. Here and in the notes tothe A rcades Project the aura assumes autopian tinge. The decline of the a ura a ndthe waning of the dream of a bet ter nature are one a nd t he same. (1999: 362).

6 This originally Hegelian term was revived byLukcs in his early work The Theory of the



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Novel(1996: 6264) and developed in H istoryand C lass Consciousnesswhere he related itto the concept of reification. The concept iscentral already in Marx, although he neverused the term (e.g., Marx, 1993: 158, 164).

7 This is a central tenet in Horkheimers andAdornos classic D ialectic of Enli ghtenment.It should be noted that the term nat ure isnot just a theoretical metaphor, but is alsooften used as a category of perception. Forexample, Benjamin observes that the surgingocean is the model for the city crowd in VictorHugo (1997: 60ff) and Adorno points to thevisual similarity of industrial mounta insof debris t o alpine moraines and taluses(1997: 68).

8 Kawa moto claims that Murakamis work ispervaded by a metropolitan sensibility , in

which all consciousness of any individual selfor of any countryside apart from the cityis drowned out. As a consequence, the cityassumes many of the aspects previously asso-ciated with nat ure, such as a nimism or alikeness to the forest (Kawamoto, 1999: 40ff;Murakami and Kawamoto, 1985: 78).

9 The role of the supernatural is in Murakamiswork is emphasized by Strecher (1999)and Hatori (1995). For the popularity of the spirit wo rld movement in Japan since thelat e 1960s , see Shima zono (1996).

10 Self-imposed isolation and problems ofcommunication were recurring themes inKawamotos interview with Murakami in1985 (Mura kami and K aw amoto, 1985: 43, 67,70f; also cf. Takeda, 1995: 34). According toNapier the increasing prevalence of thesethemes is a general trait in postWar Japaneseliterature, in whichshe observesthe por-trayal of women has undergone an ominouschange: Women are no longer part of w ish-fulfillment fa ntasies. Instead, they a re part ofthe reality which the male protagonist longsto escape (1996: 54). According to her, the

increasingly felt presence of shock in relationsto women have made male writers turn in-wa rds and search for a refuge inside their ownselves.

11 The post-traumatic mood of Murakamisfiction explains the minimalism of his style:to communicate a trauma is difficult or im-possible. The search for the right wo rd is atheme to which he explicitly refers through-out his writing (Murakami and Kawamoto,1985: 45, 48; also cf. Murakami, 1982: 8).Since, as B erger (1999) points out, post-trauma has become characteristic of much

contemporary literature and film, there is noneed to venture into the particular circum-stances of Murakamis ow n life. To underpinthis interpretation, it is enough to point to thetraumatic experiences depicted in his ownfi ction (e.g., Muraka mi, 1991a) and the impa ctof the defea t of t he radical student movementof the 1960s (cf. K at , 1995: 3641; Mura kamiand K aw amoto, 1985: 37; R ubin, 1999: 184;Strecher, 1998: 371ff; 1999: 264ff, 298ff).

12 See Hioki (1998) for a discussion of TheWind-up Bi rdfrom the point of view of repro-ducibility a nd uniqueness. H ere one ma y a ddthat the turn towa rds an affirmation of com-munity in Murakami is portrayed as anindividual choice tha t d oes not imply a returnto t he groupism which he has explicitlycriticized (for Murakamis comments on indi-

vidualism, history a nd community, cf. Murakamiand Kawamoto, 1985: 43; Murakami, 1997b:710f; 1995: 276, 288).

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CAR L CAS S E GARD

D epartment of Sociology, G raduat e School of Letters, KYOTO U niversity, Yoshida H onmachi,Sakyo-ku, Kyoto 606-8501, Japan, email: [email protected]

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