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Ontic Writing and Questions of Authenticity in Haruki View metadata, citation and similar papers at core.ac.uk brought to you by CORE provided by The University of Utah: J. Willard Marriott Digital Library WRITING AND REPETITION: ONTIC WRITING AND QUESTIONS OF AUTHENTICITY IN HARUKI MURAKAMI’S 1Q84 by Robert Alan Reiser A thesis submitted to the faculty of The University of Utah in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts Department of Languages and Literature The University of Utah May 2014 Copyright © Robert Alan Reiser 2014 All Rights Reserved The University of Utah Graduate School STATEMENT OF THESIS APPROVAL The thesis of Robert Alan Reiser has been approved by the following supervisory committee members: Erin O'Connell , Chair March 4, 2014 Date Approved Mamiko Suzuki , Member March 4, 2014 Date Approved Christine Jones , Member March 4, 2014 Date Approved and by Katharina Gerstenberger , Chair of the Department of Languages and Literature and by David B. Kieda, Dean of The Graduate School. ABSTRACT I will examine the “Q” of 1Q84 as an invitation for questions about authenticity that result in an acknowledgement of the necessity to interpret one’s own heritage and construct meaning in one’s own present context. I will use examples of 1Q84’s narrative structure, especially the parallel narratives of the protagonist dyad and various examples of appropriations of Orwellian themes within, especially the example of a central organizing force in the character Leader, to show the inaccessibility of history as “archaeological authenticity.” Rather, following Heidegger’s Being and Time, I will argue that authenticity is achieved as one accepts the inescapable recognition that heritage is already interpreted, and one accepts the necessity of interpreting one’s own context in order to situate one’s being within—making authentic being a hermeneutic process, rather than an archaeological process. The realization that one’s relationship with the world is necessarily a hermeneutic process of appropriating one’s cultural fragments and adapting them to a new narrative of being is a process that I will call ontic writing. Ontic writing emerges from the tension of one’s own struggle to situate one’s being between fate (perceived as heritage or historical truth as inevitable) and free-will (as one’s ability to interpret and thus inflect their lived experience) as one deliberately weaves one’s own narrative out of the fragments of one’s received heritage. My analysis relies heavily upon Martin Heidegger’s Being and Time, with Jacques Derrida’s “Structure, Sign and Play” as the primary analytic framework. for David Emerson Reiser October 21, 1925–August 12, 2013 だ 自 れ 分 が が 自 自 分 分 に に な な ⼤ 相 正 る ら 十 田 三 な 年 み — い 平 つ 成 で 三 を 年 I do not become myself who becomes me —Aida Mistuo (1924-1991) TABLE OF CONTENTS ABSTRACT ....................................................................................................................... iii OVERTURE ........................................................................................................................ 1 PRELUDE ........................................................................................................................... 5 “Q is for ‘question mark’” ............................................................................................. 9 “Don’t Let Appearances Fool You” ............................................................................ 10 The gestalt and the butterfly ........................................................................................ 12 INTERLUDE I .................................................................................................................. 16 Orwell’s dialectic vs. Murakami’s dialogic ................................................................. 16 CONTEXT ........................................................................................................................ 21 An Orwellian heritage ................................................................................................. 21 Orwell’s play-giarisms ................................................................................................ 26 Literary circles, writing, and rewriting ........................................................................ 30 Writing and repetition: transposing vs. questioning .................................................... 32 Authenticity and ontological vertigo ........................................................................... 35 INTERLUDE II ................................................................................................................. 42 Coming to terms with Heidegger ................................................................................ 42 STRUCTURE .................................................................................................................... 47 The gravity of structurality .......................................................................................... 48 Composite authors ....................................................................................................... 51 Parallel narratives ........................................................................................................ 54 Embedded narratives ................................................................................................... 56 Myth, bricolage, and gestalt ........................................................................................ 61 INTERLUDE III ................................................................................................................ 67 Epistemic vs mythomorphic discourse ........................................................................ 67 Mitsein in language ...................................................................................................... 68 Ontic writing as ereignis ............................................................................................. 71 SIGN .................................................................................................................................. 74 Heisenberg mythomorphic ambiguity ......................................................................... 74 Signs of dasein ............................................................................................................ 77 Out of time ................................................................................................................... 80 When myth became fact .............................................................................................. 84 Ambiguity in myth: neither good nor evil, true nor false ............................................ 88 Power and passivity at the center ................................................................................ 91 The repression and representation of physical and cultural incest .............................. 97 Forgiveness and freedom ........................................................................................... 104 INTERLUDE IV ............................................................................................................. 108 Dasein’s Ownness and being “free for death” .......................................................... 108 PLAY ............................................................................................................................... 112 Question unbound ...................................................................................................... 115 Free to play ................................................................................................................ 116 Ordinary questions, extraordinary possibilities ......................................................... 120 Whither Chekov’s gun? ............................................................................................. 123 The Song the Owl God Sang to Himself ................................................................... 124 Sanshō the Bailiff ...................................................................................................... 126 INCONCLUSIVE ............................................................................................................ 129 Ontic writing: to transpose the question of being ...................................................... 132 “The Floating Bridge of Dreams” ............................................................................. 135 CODA .............................................................................................................................. 137 WORKS CITED .............................................................................................................. 138 vii OVERTURE Léos Janáček’s Symphonietta sets the thematic stage for Haruki Murakami’s 1Q84, and establishes an important chronological reference, the year 1926, by appearing in the opening sentence of 1Q84. Many critical analyses of Murakami’s writing style have acknowledged his use of major symphonic or operatic works as a thematic frame for his novels. For his part, Jaňácek was deeply inspired by folklore, to which he frequently turned for authentic inspiration for his musical compositions. His Symphonietta was commissioned as a military fanfare, but was ultimately delivered to celebrate the “Freedom of the Individual in Society” at the Czech Republic’s 1926 anniversary of independence from the Habsburg Dynasty.1 As a folklorist and musical theorist, Janáček explored the possible connections
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