Just finished reading 1Q84, after reading two other books of this author. My thoughts are the same: Murakami has no idea about how to write women.
It's a shame, because after all I really liked how he is capable of setting a certain ''mood'' in his works: mystical, dark, inconscious.
I just find disgusting how women are portrayed in these books. The way Aomame thinks about her breasts almost every time she looks herself in the mirror, how she thinks about the breasts of her two dead bestfriends while escaping, how every single woman is presented to us by describing their breasts. Breasts, breasts, breasts. Her bestfriend being completely straight, as Aomame is (Aomame personally clarifies it in various occasions) , but wanting to have sex with her anyway, for no reason at all.
Even though I can understand that women, in Murakami's books, are ''symbols'' to something related to our inconscious (that's what most people answered when I said I don't enjoy this author), then why these women-symbols are always linked to something gross and creepy? Why it has to be so weird? Women, as symbols, can represent a lot of concepts. Mystery, for example. Then, why does he always choose to link a woman with something sexual and absurd?
>!
When Tengo is ''forced'' to have sex with Fukaeri I had no words. I just thought it was too easy for him to have sex with this wonderful minor while having an excuse to do it. And if someone tells me that Fukaeri is a vector and nothing else, why then does she have to be a wonderful little girl? I just find it gross. There's no excuse for that.!<
Yes, Murakami is japanese. I know. Someone can argue about the fact that japanese culture is really particular about women and sexuality. But we can also say that Murakami has spent years in Europe and America. Also, he really likes to remark in his books how much he knows about western literature. I know he was born in 1949, but really, are you really gonna tell me that this author never had the chance, during his time in Europe and America, to read something of Simone de Beauvoir? I'm suggesting Simone de Beauvoir because she was pretty popular when Murakami was young.
Not to mention the fact that in Japan Murakami is considered exotic, because he adds into his works western brands, literature, cars, cigarettes, and so on. I wonder why Murakami choose to not import this part of our society into his works: how women are viewed (even with A LOT OF flaws and problems) and how they succeeded at showing that they're not just dolls.
What a shame.
by ImaginedFlower
46 Comments
If you or anyone wants some light additional reading, [Murakami did an enlightening interview](https://lithub.com/a-feminist-critique-of-murakami-novels-with-murakami-himself/) which really lays bare his absence of comprehension around women and his own characters as well as an indifference to write them better.
I don’t mind a bit of smut n stuff, but his way of writing is sort of just….dull. like the breast talk doesn’t really add much to the story.
It’s pronounced breastfriend.
Agreed. Definitely a reason I fell off with him was exactly that. Felt kinda icky.
In general I just think he’s on the spectrum or something because the way he writes people is just totally off in general. Which is fine, unique perspectives are quintessential to keeping books fresh. It’s just a shame women didn’t get the same care in the strangeness factor and instead it became about their bodies.
A similar author I got kind of turned off of was Kundera.
Like he’s so smart but he can’t have a woman speak and it not be about their bodies or their relation to being valued by a dude whose genuinely detestable and has no redeeming qualities. It’s very strange.
funnily murakami was first suggested to me by a guy who used to hardly read saying I really feel this author like how you feel dostoyevsky. I tried reading some and left me vaguely uncomfortable and disappointed due to this same reason..the way he wrote women.
At some point I got bored with his works. In every single one of them there is
1. an absent woman who is mysterious and the male protagonist pursues, and
2. a woman who is “available” yet the (male) protagonist is not really interested in.
3. Frequently, there is also some sort of powerful gray eminence lady of some sorts pulling the strings in the background with an unclear agenda.
All three of them are more clichés than actual persons I could relate to. At some point I’ve just seen enough of that.
Despite that I really liked many other things in his writings, e.g. the magical realism in there, his interest in weird religious cults, and so on.
My problem is that I dislike his writing intensely.
I don’t disagree with any of your points, but I’ve been on this sub for a while and I’m pretty sure this is the most common type of post I’ve read here.
Edit: So, the comments are getting kind of wild. I’m not shitting on OP per sé. Like I said, they don’t need to have known that to post or anything and I agree with their assessment.
But at some point a certain discussion topic becomes stale, and doesn’t add much. That’s all. Let’s not shame OP for it.
I want to mention that hiding Murakami’s issues behind the idea that ‘its just japanese culture, dont appropriate with your western ideas (we’re not all western anyway) hurdur’ is so, so wrong. I saw some people do that.
If an aspect of any country is sexist/racist/homophobic, that aspect needs to be talked about. Are those people oblivious to the fact that all societes used to be worse for the people living in it? That women and queer people had to fight for rights and talk about problematic issues in the west as well?
It is also not some deeply ingrained cultural points… It’s just sexism. Sometimes people act as if there were no Japanese feminists calling him out too.
The thing is, he does not write men much better. They are completely passive towards what is happening to them, they completely accept all the crazyness/supernatural stuff and they are solely focused on finding the missing woman who has disappeared. This applies to 1q84, sputnik, windup bird and commendatore at least. I do not read Murakami expecting to find compelling characters, I do it for the dream-like atmosphere.
Not just breasts. All the women in his works are either calculating, manipulating, selfish, promiscuous or too plain for the MC to care about. He is just living out his fantasies.
I love his books *What I Talk About When I Talk About Running* and *Underground*
This could be the hundredth time I’ve seen the same criticism in the exact same way. Trust me this is not just your problem. Just type murakami in the search bar
Great, I almost missed the daily “Murakami writing women” post.
I hate to say this but it’s not the job of a writer to accurately present different genders. They are presenting a character who performs actions that the reader interprets. It’s a lot to expect a male or female writer to truly understand what it is to be the other genders. You are looking at his writing from a current political gender perspective and not a creative one.
So sick of this discussion. Either deal or don’t read Murakami, it’s really simple.
This is a common complaint about Murakami. To me though, his books are more about mood and tone than the characters or even the plot itself.
This just says what every second post to this sub says.
This is posted every week.
Daring today aren’t we
Murakami writes the most beautiful prose interspersed with the most misogynistic passages you’ll ever read. It’s like a wild roller-coaster to read as a woman.
I have read many of his books and eventually stopped because of this problem. I think it was the book Men Without Women that did it for me.
Oookay so…. I agree 100% that Murakami’s depictions of women are infantilizing, over-sexualizing, often disgusting and shallow and generally upper case problematic. We’re both not exactly breaking new ground there but god yeah I get what you’re saying. There’s no argument there.
I wouldn’t even grant him the grace to say his women are “symbols” and therefore it’s somehow justifiable or anything like that. 1Q84 has a female protagonist. That’s not some chiffre that you may or may not unlock to get at an additional layer of meaning, that’s the heart of the novel. In Norwegian Wood maybe he could have pulled that but I don’t buy it. His women are badly written women, full stop. And they’re *the same two archetypes*. There’s two women in Murakami stories:
1. The independent no-nonsense woman who is kind of adorable and quirky if you look at her neutrally but would never describe herself that way. She probably has weird ears or weird feet. She’s very sexual but crucially not with any MAN other than the male protagonist. She might have European tastes and be into fashion and food.
2. The damaged Japanese Nadeshiko who can’t get over some trauma in her history. She’s ethereally beautiful, soft-spoken, artless, placid, passive, elusive. Nobody can ever own her or lay claim to her. She belongs to another world and can’t ever be “healed” or restored. She may be underage.
Now look me in the eyes and tell me he’s not simply writing his own horny fantasies. God please. We can all see what is happening.
With all that out of the way, I think your last paragraph is baseless and sort of random. I know plenty of Japanese people who have lived in Europe or the US for years, decades even, and haven’t shed their “core” Japanese sensitivities because we get programmed in so many ways before we ever finish high school. Likewise I know probably dozens of men who are into literature and somewhere between their 40s and 70s and have never read Simone De Beauvoir. This is such a random thing to say. Would you be equally shocked if he hadn’t read Susan Sontag? Isabel Allende? Toni Morrison? Joan Didion? This is *one* writer whose very particular feminist takes I assume you agree with, and you assume every literary person between 40 and 70 must have read her? I’m sorry but I don’t understand that. Has he been exposed to feminist literature overall? Yes, probably, to *some* extent, but I don’t think he writes consciously with the intent to comment on gender and sexuality. Just because you can *read* everything in that light doesn’t mean everything is produced consciously as a position on gender or sexuality. Not everyone is analytic about this. I don’t think Murakami is out to make statements about gender roles, he’s just writing out his kinks. Lastly – but crucially – he’s not considered “exotic” in Japan, he’s *the* main cultural and pop-cultural literary voice of Japan today and all his affectations and mannerisms about Europe and Jazz and western culture were already old hats in the 80s. If anything he’s considered a *fossil*. Nobody thinks Murakami is a weird new trailblazer.
So yeah I agree with your core point but not at all with the speculations you based on it. He’s a relic. The man is 75 years old, obviously pining for a 60s and 70s counterculture in Japan that he lived through, unabashedly (possibly subconsciously? I don’t know) sexual *and sexist* in his writings, and a cultural powerhouse and millionaire. It’s moot to somehow expect him to have acquired, understood and internalized X political idea that was born in the west 20 or 30 years after his formative years and expressed in the writings of author Y or Z. I think he just isn’t for you, and I know for a fact he isn’t for me.
I agree with you about a lot here, and i don’t like Murakami, but western authors are no better in this regard. And “he has been exposed to western culture, how can he still be bad?” would be a very problematic argument even if that was not the case.
I think I also distinctly remember Fukaeri(I think, the young teen)’s breasts being described when she was introduced lmao. It was strange
What about *After Dark*?
You can downvote me to hell folks but the wind up bird chronicle is one of the most imaginative beautiful and unique works of art I’ve ever come across
I like his writing style, but cannot really enjoy his books for the same reason. For me every single novel I read by him veered into a kind of immature male fantasy as soon as a young female character popped up.
Norwegian wood was so fucking weird to read because of this exact issue. The way he described that girls small breasts was pedophilic iirc. Like describing them like a prepubescent childs chest.
I can handle some misogyny in works, it comes with the territory I think, but I was recommended a Murakami book (I think 1Q84) with the words “You like strong female protagonists, you’ll definitely like this book, it’s so good!”
Yeah. Imagine my surprise when I actually started reading.
As a female reader, the way he writes women just renders his writing completely unreadable for me. It’s just plain bad.
Compared to other male, Japanese authors, it stands out as remarkably poor writing of women. Even among older works like No Longer Human or A Personal Matter (which manage to still be readable despite their issues with female characters). I enjoy Japanese literature and I have to say that he really sticks out despite it being common to see these issues in other comparable authors.
OP, you should also try seeking out some smaller female authors. There have been some really amazing feminist fiction works from Japan and Korea recently!
I only read Tokyo blues, and I’m pretty sure that’ll be the last Murakami book i read. It just felt like a try hard, overly edgy description of a boring and generic romance manga, I’ve read a few of those so I’d know. Same tropes, lots of unnecessary darkness and conflict that leads to nothing, and an ending that doesn’t connect to the beginning at all. I appreciate his prose, but that’s literally all. Also, a bit disgusting when talking women and sex.
I do enjoy Murakami writing in general, but his female characters never fail to make me cringe.
1Q84 was the first book by him I tried to read, because I kept seeing people praise his works and that one looked interesting. I made it to Chapter 8 before I put it down and have had no interest in reading any of his other books, specifically for how unbelievably uncomfortable he made me with the way he wrote the woman character.
Killing commandatory really rubbed me the wrong way esp the way he went about describing the younger girl in it…. Felt a little sus
Yeah wtf as a women, my chests are the last thing I think of when I think of myself
Murakami writes about life, the universe and finding you’re place in it. The oddness and contradiction of living. About how one can find wonder and amazement in the mundane… But who cares about that nonsense because his female characters are sexist 🙄
This shit gets posted monthly now kekw
I read that book over a decade ago and don’t remember much of it, except at one point the MC has sex and narrates something like he “ejaculated toward her uterus,” and that has stuck with me this whole time as the most bizarre way possible you could phrase that
Reddit has shown me this post by accident and I was so relieved to see it. The name Murakami was familiar to me since basically always, so recently I decided to listen to 1q84. Had no idea what I got myself into, didn’t have the slightest clue what the book was about but always had a positive association with the author’s name.
The extreme obsession with a 17 year old’s breast had me cringing so hard. That the supposed lack of these is 50% of Aomame’s character at times didn’t help.
I thought maybe there is something that just went by me but it’s really reassuring to know I’m not the only one who has an issue with Murakami’s women and it’s not just in my head.
Unrelated: And if I never hear the word ejaculation again in this life, it’ll be too soon.
Murakami characters are generally eccentric. Same for guys as wellz
I didn’t notice this until I read Killing Commendatore and he did the same thing BUT ABOUT A THIRTEEN-YEAR-OLD’S BREASTS. It was…really disgusting. After that I have to say that I don’t really have the desire to read anymore Murakami.
I disagree with your opinion
Now, let me elaborate: for sure in 1Q84, and even more in Killing Commendatore, there is some weirdness in how he describes women and in particular their sexuality (especially his fixation with breasts, yes). I don’t think I will read any new book he’ll publish, as they feel stale to me now.
Consider this: Murakami is kind of a one-trick pony (I think most of his books revolve around four elements: “a lost man, a mysterious girl, a dark place (sometimes it is literally a cave/hole), a pointless quest”.
In many, many of his tales, women are the undercurrent that drive the action. Aomame, for instance. But the same is true for kafka on the shore, for a wild sheep chase, for hard boiled wonderland, for norwegian wood, south of the border, even for colourless tsukuru tazaki. And the woman often disappears or takes forever something from the man, while the man is (no matter how successful in his quest) lost
Often in his books, women are a mystery, wrapped in a riddle, and the fact that you explicitly mentioned “mystery” as something that women could be but are not in Murakami’s books makes me think you have been unlucky, as in his early works there is plenty of woman-as-a-mistery
I’ll close with a sting, and I’ll say I see no reason why Murakami should have read, for instance, De Beauvoir. As much as she was influential, I see no reason why he (or anyone, for that matter) _should_ have read her. I think I don’t know anyone who ever read her works, and that includes philosophy students. On the other side, no doubt Murakami found different female figures in the books he read – whatever choice he made is more likely to be deliberate rather than born out of ignorance.
Murakami is a great write who can really capture an atmosphere. But as much as it pains me, I simply can’t read any of his work involving any sort of heterosexual romantic or sexual relationship precisely because of the reasons you’ve outlined. I don’t think he’s ever met a woman, I think he’s writing all his female characters as abstract concepts.
THANK YOU! I had to stop reading him a few years ago because of this. It’s unbearable.
So many people recommended 1Q84 – I was excited to read it – dropped after 700 pages. As a male it was the first time I’ve read a female character and thought “oh yeah a dude wrote this”