September 20, 2019
Review of Killing Commendatore by Haruki Murakami
As I might have mentioned before, I am a fan of Japanese literature. I’m really drawn to the minimalist, abstract, sometimes absurd and sometimes mundane style of many Japanese authors. Haruki Murakami is such an author, but when I began reading his Killing Commendatore I would never expect that a review of Killing Commendatore would include the tag “Gothic”.
As a typical Murakami book, it’s not quite simple to put it into a prefabricated shape. It’s many things, and yet it isn’t. It has a beginning and an ending, and yet it doesn’t. It’s one of those novels that you’ll either love or hate. The good news is, fans of Haruki Murakami will most definitely love it.
Review of Killing Commendatore: Genre, Plot, Narrative
As I hinted at above, Haruki Murakami’s novel cannot be called this or that. It’s part literary fiction, part Gothic, part mystery, part detective fiction… Honestly, “a Haruki Murakami novel” is the closest way to describe it, the way “a Paul Auster novel” is the only way to refer to that author’s “genre”.
My choice of words is not accidental. Perhaps from all Murakami’s works, this is the one that reminded me of Auster the most. I think part of the reason is the incredibly vivid ways in which artistic creation is approached at in Killing Commendatore.
Overall, Killing Commendatore is very obviously a work following Murakami’s long tradition in writing enigmatic characters, mysterious plots (reaching the absurd), and introducing more questions than any answers it might offer.
Killing Commendatore also has all the usual Murakami trademarksIncluding, may I add, his usual fixation with describing breasts!: his narrative style is very easily recognizable, the prose being on very high levels, yet still remaining accessible and transparent (at least on the structural, sentence level).
Having said that, there is also a bit of sentence-level repetition every now and then. For example, you might see an expression like “The leaves of the trees, starting to turn fall colors, took on a dull color from…”
I’m unsure whether to blame Murakami or the translators for it. It’s barely noticeable, but noticeable still.
Gothic Elements
It’s not exactly unheard of to see some Gothic tropes in a Murakami novel, but the ones found in Killing Commendatore are such core Gothic tropes that their inclusion seems the product of cognitive, calculated effort, rather than mere style.
The most important such trope is the ambiguity between reality and unreality, with the notions of dream, illusion, or madness explicitly offered as possible explanations. This – as my article on the differences between Gothic and other modes underlines – is the most crucial sign of a Gothic mode at play.
Other interesting tropes include the temporal distortion that accompanies such scenes and phenomena (in lieu of a better word), entombment, claustrophobia, very subtle hints at non-normative sexuality (particularly with Freudian, repressed undertones), the concept of the Gothic double, and even some tangential references to important Gothic works – I won’t mention any details, but feel free to seek the associations. Hint: Consider what line of work the protagonist of Killing Commendatore is in.
Furthermore, Killing Commendatore features the traditional Gothic trope of a “supernaturalOf course, the whole point in Killing Commendatore is that you cannot really separate supernatural from natural, unreal from real.” entity not being able to enter an abode without first being invited. Murakami has definitely studied Gothic conventions for this novel, and it pays off.
Review of Killing Commendatore: Characters
As a typical Murakami novel, Killing Commendatore features a painfully ordinary-looking and -acting protagonist. The reader follows his story (offered in first-person; a highly apt choice) right after his unexpected separation – another recurrent theme in Murakami’s work.
To speak of character realism isn’t entirely applicable in such a book, but we can call the characters realistic in the sense that their fears and expectations are fully consistent with what a real person would have.
About the only complaint I can think of is the protagonist’s repetitive inner-dialogue questions. What did this mean? Was it supposed to be that? What would happen if I did this? I generally dislike such prose, but it inexplicably works in Killing Commendatore. Possibly, it is consistent with the protagonist’s balancing act between different levels of reality.
Review of Killing Commendatore: General Impression
Killing Commendatore must be my favorite Murakami book so far – with Kafka on the Shore my least favorite. It’s a bit difficult to precisely explain why it works so well, but it just does. It’s also equally difficult to properly explain what the books is about.
In some sense, it’s a story about self-awareness; about understanding your own innermost desires and repressed thoughts. It’s also a story about how one is perceived by others, particularly in terms of all the little quirks of our personality we (often unconsciously) struggle to hide.
To continue this thematic name-dropping, issues pertaining to identity, family and relationships, artistic creation, the reality of ideas, and the metaphysics of thought, all proudly march through the almost 700 pages of this novel. Needless to say, this is a book literally brimming with symbolism and subtlety.
Inevitably, those who seek linearity, definite answers, objectivity, and entertainment, will entirely miss the point. Killing Commendatore cannot be approached on a superficial level. Instead, like a complex painting, it must be seen from different angles, in different lights, and with varying states of mind. Only then will its multi-faceted meaning(s) arise.
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It’s a good book. Long