On Paths Unknown discussion

Hi everyone, thread for discussion of Haruki Murakami's "On A Stone Pillow", "Confessions of a Shinagawa Monkey" and "First Person Singular".

Let's start with comments on "On a Stone Pillow".
Apologies for holding back a bit, but I think it was Broken Tune who mentioned that her library is only releasing the book to her tomorrow, so I don't want to rush on too fast without her.
So let's comment on a story per thread now, just to give her a chance to catch up - sorry about that.

EDIT: Brokentune got a message through to me to say not to wait for her, that she's moving house and will be without internet this weekend. But as usual, our threads remain open to comment, so feel free to post still, whoever comes late.

To be quite honest, I'm not sure what to make of this story. (Besides realizing that this must be the one Linda was referring to on the 'Cream' thread. He doesn't remember her name or her face, just the teethmarks on the towel. And the death-infested poetry... )

At the end a terrible sense of desolation and the unflinching certainty of our mortality seemed to envelop me. A feeling that time is fleeting and from dust to dust sort of thing.

...and yes, what's up with the focus on just her erotic bits. That did seem to dehumanize her as well as the narrator. He just remembers her sexy bits and she shouts another man's name.

Who knows, perhaps how he treats her in the story is his revenge for her shouting another man's name...

Just a heads-up, comments re "With the Beatles" here: https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/...

Please let me know if this jumping around between threads doesn't work for you people. I'm experimenting on how best to handle threads for such very short stories.

Traveller wrote: "...and yes, what's up with the focus on just her erotic bits. That did seem to dehumanize her as well as the narrator. He just remembers her sexy bits and she shouts another man's name."

It's tough. On the one hand, so far as I can remember (and I'd very much love to be proven wrong on this), Murakami has *never* written a compellingly human female character. So like, that's a big, big problem. But then every time I try to pin down a *specific* example of his misogyny, it ends up feeling like it makes sense in terms of theme and characterization, and isn't really a problem. His women are never fully realized - but they almost always feel like real people at the same time, just real people whose real character is fundamentally hidden. Still, it bothers me.

I wonder what it would be like to read Murakami if someone swapped out all the names and gender pronouns, so that the men were women and the women were men? How would they read?

BJ wrote: "I wonder what it would be like to read Murakami if someone swapped out all the names and gender pronouns, so that the men were women and the women were men? How would they read? ..."

Now that would be an interesting experiment.

In this story they both seem a bit dehumanized, yet they share a secret thing: her tanka.
I hate how he suspects she might have killed herself and just sort of leaves that in the air, and yet, I know we sometimes do have interactions with people that we still think about years later, yet in the moment, we didn't really know how to handle the situation.

I found "Confessions of a Shinagawa Monkey" quite charming, and obviously a bit philosophical.
He seems to be touching on anthropology and sociology there, as well as musings on identity and the meaning of love, but I think I'll wait for others to comment before I say more.

I found "Confessions" absolutely horrifying! (I'm laughing that we have such different responses to different stories in this collection, Traveller.) But I too will wait until everyone gets there.

Amy (Other Amy) wrote: "I found "Confessions" absolutely horrifying! (I'm laughing that we have such different responses to different stories in this collection, Traveller.) But I too will wait until everyone gets there."

Horrifying? Now I'm curious! Waa.... tell, tell!
...and re the different responses- I think that is excellent! I am learning form every different person on these discussion's viewpoints, and I'm loving it - after all, we're not here to be in an echo-chamber. ;)

Traveller wrote: "Horrifying? Now I'm curious! Waa.... tell, tell!"

(view spoiler)[I read the theft of the women's memories as pseudo rape, of which the author is so approving that when he has the chance to help one of the women, he doesn't. (hide spoiler)] I think of it as the "yes all men" story of the collection.

Interesting.......While I found it odd that he didn't offer to help, beyond reminding her of her name, I didn't take it as such a strong violation as you did, Amy. I suspect my way of seeing it was more along the lines of what Traveler is going to say.

Amy (Other Amy) wrote: "Traveller wrote: "Horrifying? Now I'm curious! Waa.... tell, tell!"

[spoilers removed] I think of it as the "yes all men" story of the collection."

Welll - in the sense that it is without the women's consent, yes I suppose so. But for me, it speaks more to the more romantic side of romantic infatuation, in the sense that one person longs for the essence of another, the essence of who they are, their identity.

For me, the antithesis of having sex as an expression of love is to have sex simply for the sake of sex, with anybody who is the closest and most convenient, simply to satisfy the ever-gnawing biological urge, which is equivalent to what men basically do when they visit a brothel.

Worse, for me, would be to do it as an expression of power over another individual, and as opposed to that, for me the most romantic aspect of it, would be that it is the (consensual of course) merging of two selves.

But you are completely right from the point of view that it must be consensual, of course. But then also note that (view spoiler)[ the monkey does not force any of his own essence onto or into the woman, he simply steals a piece of -her- essence. But you are right, it is a theft.

However, rape is the forcing of one person into another person against the second person's will. The biggest horribleness is being invaded by an unwanted other. At least the monkey was not doing anything like that. Sigh, but trust blooming Murakami not to even see the wrongness of it, because he is clearly looking at it from the monkey's point of view, and not from the women's POV. (hide spoiler)]

Btw, it was first published (Confessions was) as a story in the New Yorker, in 2020. So much for my theory of "stories he had sitting around", unless he needed some things to go into the book with this one
ETA: in a public reading of the story, near the ending, he paused. Said "Extreme love, extreme loneliness". Then continued, and finished the reading.

Interesting to me the different perspectives. (view spoiler)[I am aromantic and asexual, and I suppose I experience unwanted romance as a nuisance most of the time, but forcing someone to participate in romance against her will, especially by stealing a piece of her, strikes me as, well, horrifying, as I have already said. Certainly you can look at rape as an invasion, but also you can look at it as a kind of theft, of taking an intimacy that someone did not want to give, and I find the argument that memory theft is not on the level of rape just because he didn't put something of himself into the woman really strange. (hide spoiler)]

Linda Abhors the New GR Design wrote: "ETA: in a public reading of the story, near the ending, he paused. Said "Extreme love, extreme loneliness". Then continued, and finished the reading."

My take-away was that Murakami was portraying an evil incredibly well and deliberately leaving the narrator oblivious, but that information suggests maybe even he doesn't realize what a violation the story he is portraying contains. It does seem like I maybe gave him too much credit before, Linda!

Here's a link to an article that includes part of a conversation with him. Consider it a spoiler--don't click until you're ready.
I don't know, Haruki, I've thought about it before......:D
https://murakami.club/2021/05/05/fps-5/

Amy (Other Amy) wrote: "Interesting to me the different perspectives. [spoilers removed]

Linda Abhors the New GR Design wrote: "ETA: in a public reading of the story, near the ending, he paused. Said "Extreme love, extre..."

After reading that article, I'd say he recognizes a certain imposition/invasion. But I never saw it as making her participate in a romance. After all, can one? One cannot force another to feel certain feelings.
Stalker tendencies--no doubt about it.

Right? Like it's not so special to wonder about when our species so reflexively personifies anything with a face! (And especially monkeys!)

It strikes me that he is very skilled at deflecting questions about his stories; he always seems to answer without really answering the actual query. I LOVE the excerpt from the earlier novel.

Linda Abhors the New GR Design wrote: "Stalker tendencies--no doubt about it."

Yes, that might be a better way to say it, although I still feel like there is damage done, so it rises above just stalking to me. Definitely stalker tendencies though. (Which is not to undercut Traveller's earlier point about romance; part of what makes romance so compelling sometimes is the boundary crossing nature of it, the longing and the desire for connection. I guess what I am getting at is that romance can also be destructive.)

It certainly can be, though it doesn't have to be.
I guess I would just never have used the word "romance", as it didn't seem to be a consensual, two-way relationship. He stalked, he stole, he never saw her again. A violation, yes, of a sort. I wouldn't have said she participated in anything, as she wasn't even aware of what had happened.

Linda Abhors the New GR Design wrote: "I guess I would just never have used the word "romance", as it didn't seem to be a consensual, two-way relationship. He stalked, he stole, he never saw her again. A violation, yes, of a sort. I wouldn't have said she participated in anything, as she wasn't even aware of what had happened."

Ah, I think I paraphrased badly there; Traveller's actual wording was romantic infatuation:

Traveller wrote: "Welll - in the sense that it is without the women's consent, yes I suppose so. But for me, it speaks more to the more romantic side of romantic infatuation, in the sense that one person longs for the essence of another, the essence of who they are, their identity."

I'm sure she will flesh it out more; she did say she was waiting to comment.

Amy (Other Amy) wrote: "I think of it as the "yes all men" story of the collection."

I thought Shinagawa Monkey was very sinister. I also read the name stealing as a serious act of violence. But what really made the story so dark, for me, was exactly the narrator's "hey, look at this funny monkey, going around stealing women's names, isn't that curious?" sort of attitude.

But it was also my favorite story in the collection. I read it as an acknowledgement of the kind of subtle violence and erasure that the narrators of earlier stories were committing towards women. To connect back to the other thread, on With the Beatles, I do think that the narrator of that story held some responsibility for his girlfriend's death. He *took* something from her without even realizing it. The monkey was doing the same thing, only he knew what he was doing.

I thought the story First Person Singular really reinforced that idea, too. Although by then I really was starting to wonder if Haruki Murakami has literally written a book about how oblivious, misogynistic men hurt the women in their lives, and he doesn't even know it, because he *is* one of those oblivious misogynistic men and he is oblivious?

I read the monkey story from the standpoint of wondering why this particular monkey, brilliant and with extraordinary talents, was marginalized in the first place, simply for not being human. And then disliking him for stealing

Hi guys, back to defend my stance and the monkey. Linda is the first person who shows something that I had felt: compassion for the monkey.

In the initial stages of the story, for me the monkey exemplifies the extremely marginalized who are rejected by society through no fault of their own. The monkey can't help that he's a monkey, and he is rejected by his own as well as by human society. And psychologically speaking, humans and monkeys all need a sense of belonging even more than they need love and affection, which they also need as well, of course.

So as I see it, the poor monkey has managed to adapt as best he can – he has a shitty job where he has to stay out of sight. He has nobody to talk to, nobody to hold – he could almost as well be in an isolation cell in a prison.

So seen from that perspective, his creative workaround at getting a tiny feeling of belonging, of internalizing the names and a piece of the essence of those that he loves (admires, finds attractive) from afar, seems to be the least harmful outcome that he can possibly manage. Note that he himself doesn’t even have a name - so no sense of identity – people usually at least give their pets names, but he hasn’t even been granted that much acceptance and sense of belonging and sense of self that one gets from your name.

Also note that when he steals their names, he's stealing only a tiny bit of it - a whiff of their essence, so to speak. Yes, it's creepy and invasive, and of course I'm not saying it's ok. But it's also inventive and understandable under the circumstances. The monkey's suffering is far worse than the discomfort the women feel because of now and then forgetting their names.

Hence, I think, Murakami’s repeated accent on “extreme loneliness, extreme love”. Humans, no matter how ugly or unattractive, at least have some chance of being accepted, through positive behaviour. This monkey, being socially, culturally and genetically a taboo creature for humans to accept as their own, but also rejected by monkey-kind as unlike themselves, has absolutely no chance, no matter what he does.

Am I in the dogbox now? :P I hope I haven't defended poor monkey too ardently there. I was trying to create a balance between what had already been said about the stalkerishness and the creepiness - which I don't disagree with - and other things that I think the author was also conveying.

In other words, I'm not disagreeing with what y'all were saying, just trying to flesh it out and round it out a bit - add an additional perspective, so to speak.
You all are quite welcome to disagree with anything I've said. :)

Traveller wrote: "Am I in the dogbox now? :P I hope I haven't defended poor monkey too ardently there. I was trying to create a balance between what had already been said about the stalkerishness and the creepiness ..."

Seeing these two different perspectives side by side has been really illuminating, personally.

I do think that the monkey's interactions with the narrator show that he is not doomed to isolation; rather, his difference and the great difficulty it has caused him has led him to give up on looking for connection anywhere it doesn't bang him over the head. Which I think is a sad but not uncommon story among we humans.

I also think the detail that the monkey himself doesn't *have* a name of his own is very interesting and for me is really a complicating detail, I'm really glad you brought that up because I'd sort of glossed over it while reading.

Thanks for the input, BJ, and yes, it is nice to have multiple perspectives on writing, isn't it? :)

BJ wrote: "I do think that the monkey's interactions with the narrator show that he is not doomed to isolation;..."

However, the story seems to make it clear that this was an exception - the narrator was careful to state that the monkey found it a rare treat, and that he was usually reviled by humans, and forced to stay out of sight. I suppose the fact that he was allowed to speak to the narrator is a bit of a plothole. Maybe it's just that people never invite him for drinks...

I can't help feeling that we should see the story as a bit of a myth, in the vein of a fairy tale. Terrible things happen to people in fairy tales, after all...

In any case, on to First Person Singular - let me do that in a new post.

Re First Person Singular
In this story I feel he's playing with the concept of identity - before the woman spoke to him, he did look in the mirror several times and mentioned that he didn't feel like it was himself that he saw.

Then it is also quite ironic that it is when he is dressed up and feeling 'smart' that he is accosted and reviled, not when he is dressed more casually. I'm sure there's a message in there about that, but my brain isn't functioning at optimum today, so whatever the message is, it's sort of hovering at the edge of my consciousness. :\

Just btw, there was a similar instance of a character's dissociative feelings and not recognizing herself in a mirror, in the Shirley Jackson "Lottery" collection. (The story "Tooth".)

No doghouse for you Traveller! But I am doing our end of month reckoning at work, so it might be a couple of days before I can respond properly.

Mostly I think BJ has said what I think. The monkey is a very sad figure, but he was able to connect with the narrator. (And why should it be only women he steals from if he must do this to have a connection?) Circumstances may be dire, but the choices are still there. And ultimately you can have both: the monkey can be someone tragic who needed and deserved better from the world, but also a thief or stalker or (as I see him still) a kind of rapist.

And I agree with what was said earlier, both that the most sinister thing is the narrator's reaction of support, and that this is a really masterful story. (Well there, I guess I do have it in me to respond now! 😂)

Amy (Other Amy) wrote: "No doghouse for you Traveller! ..."

Phew, what a relief... I guess the monkey-house will have to do for now, then! :D

Amy (Other Amy) wrote: "And ultimately you can have both: the monkey can be someone tragic who needed and deserved better from the world, but also a thief or stalker or (as I see him still) a kind of rapist. ..."

Oh, I think monkeys are thieving scoundrels anyway! We were once in a place were monkeys roamed free (it might have been Sri Lanka) and I was strolling along, just having started to eat a nice apple, and down swooped a monkey, grabbed my apple right out of my hand, and there he went, to the top of a tree, where he proceeded to eat my apple with thorough enjoyment while jibing at me with a sort of jittering- yes, I'm 100% sure the little $%^&* was laughing at me!

I was not impressed.
So, you don't need much to convince me of monkey's thieving proclivities, in fact, you'd be preaching to the choir!

Traveller wrote: "Am I in the dogbox now? :P I hope I haven't defended poor monkey too ardently there. I was trying to create a balance between what had already been said about the stalkerishness and the creepiness ..."

Nope, not at all!
I will always have compassion for monkeys! :P
I live on an island on the east coast of the US. We´ve had a storm system/heavy rains since Sunday night, so I´ve had poor internet reception at home, and tech people in my office when I do have access to internet both Friday and Monday, so haven´t been on as much.
I appreciated seeing others´point that his victims were always women. Undeniably, there is indeed a sexual aspect to it. But from the get go, I saw it as a being who´d been ostracized on the basis of his birth, little else, just looking for a way to exist, and trying to get something out of that existence.

Traveller wrote: "Amy (Other Amy) wrote: "No doghouse for you Traveller! ..."

Phew, what a relief... I guess the monkey-house will have to do for now, then! :D

Amy (Other Amy) wrote: "And ultimately you can have b..."

Lol, those were just food squeaks; he was telling you how good that apple tasted! :D

Oh, I almost forgot: here is a rather casual take on what the monkey does: https://murakami.club/2021/05/05/fps-5/
focusing on his desire for human identity. But I know what y'all will respond with: Why then only steal women's names? Ok, I geddit, I guess.

Traveller, that's pretty much what I'm feeling about it