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Matthew C. Strecher (essay date May 1998)

SOURCE: “Beyond ‘Pure’ Literature: Mimesis, Formula, and the Postmodern in the Fiction of Murakami Haruki,” in Journal of Asian Studies, Vol. 57, No. 2, May, 1998, pp. 354–78.

[Strecher is an assistant professor of Japanese Language, Literature, and Culture at the University of Montana. In the following essay, he discusses Murakami's narrative strategies and styles in A Wild Sheep Chase, Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World, and Norwegian Wood, speculating on the novelist's achievement in relation to both the traditions of jun-bungaku and postmodernism.]

With the publication of Kaze no uta o kike (Hear the Wind Sing; 1979), Murakami Haruki (b. 1949) found himself more or less at odds with well-known members of the Japanese literary establishment. If one takes Murakami at his word, this was not the result of conscious effort on his...

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1. Introduction
2. Criticism
   1. Naomi Matsuoka (essay date 1993)
   2. Yoshio Iwamoto (essay date Spring 1993)
   3. David L. Ulin (review date 4 April 1993)
   4. Brooke Horvath (review date Fall 1993)
   5. Jim McCue (review date 19 November 1993)
   6. Constance Markey (review date 2 January 1994)
   7. Elizabeth Ward (review date 16 January 1994)
   8. Alan Wearne (review date February 1994)
   9. Alexander Harrison (review date 18 March 1994)
   10. Celeste Loughman (review date Spring 1994)
   11. Celeste Loughman (essay date Winter 1997)
   12. Elizabeth Ward (review date 9 November 1997)
   13. Lindsley Cameron (review date 1998)
   14. Edward Hower (review date May 1998)
   15. Matthew C. Strecher (essay date May 1998)
   16. Julian Ferraro (review date 1 May 1998)
   17. Michael Wood (review date 11 May 1998)
   18. Tom Hiney (review date 20 June 1998)
   19. Yoshiko Yokochi Samuel (review date Spring 1999)
   20. Phil Baker (review date 23 July 1999)
   21. Lorna Sage (review date 30 September 1999)
   22. Scott Reyburn (review date 15 November 1999)
3. Further Reading
4. Copyright