Murakami Haruki’s“ Charm ” and the“ Empty Narrative ” Matthew C. Strecher
1. Introduction
Why does it so often seem as though Murakami Haruki is writing his novels about me, about my life? Why is he read so enthusiastically, all over the world?
These are the two most common questions asked of me as a scholar of Murakami Haruki literature. The former question comes, generally, from undergraduate students encountering these works for the first time, while the latter is usually put by bewildered newspaper reporters and NHK producers, especially in early October as the Nobel Prize for literature is about to be announced. On some reflection, it becomes clear that these two questions are related to one another, and also to the concept of miwaku 魅惑, which is sometimes translated into English as “charm,” but may also be rendered as “fascination.” This essay will attempt to explain this fascination from the perspective of what we shall call the “empty narrative,” a narratological structure in which an open space is developed within a novel or story into which the reader is not merely encouraged, but virtually required to insert her or his own personal narrative. It is a mode of reading that bears close relation to the reading strategies of reception theory, one in which a dialogic relationship is established between author and reader. Unlike reception theory, however, we will consider this relationship to develop not between author and implied reader ( cf. Iser 1980 ), but between Murakami and his actual readers, throughout the world. The result, as we shall see, is the development of a new fictional mode capable of crossing all borders—cultural, linguistic, social, generational, religious—to become something like a “universal text.” This, to take but a single step further, will lead us to the beginnings of a theory for a truly “global” literature.