Murakami on Mental Illness

Having just finished Haruki Murakami's Norwegian Wood, I feel that I have to write about his portrayal of mental illness. There are few books that give an accurate representation of mental illnesses, many authors succumb to stereotypes and stigmas which somewhat blackens the characterisation of the sufferers that they have otherwise built up. Murakami never explicitly references the specific mental illnesses that he inflicts upon his characters and in doing so, he does not adhere to tropes generally applied to mental illness sufferers in literature - hence his ambiguity enhances his writing. Viewed from the perspective of a compassionate outsider rather than an almost anti-septic psychoanalyst, he allows his characters to be understood as people rather than as the walking embodiment of their diseases. The book's prevailing message - regarding the past's involvement in shaping the future, the representation of time as perfectly linear (never accommodating for clean breaks) and the portrayal of love as something that smashes every presentiment you've ever held about it - is underpinned by mental illness, its effects on both the sufferer and the observer.

The book's structure ensures that you never see those suffering as anything other than ordinary, for me I felt that Murakami was making the point that we are all deeply flawed human beings, each with a unique past that has forced us to grow up to be the people that we are; yet some of these flaws are perceived as 'wrong' and some are viewed as acceptable, rather than viewing these flaws objectively as flaws, we feel the need to categorise society into 'them' and 'us' - 'normal' and 'abnormal'. Murakami is definitely not a lazy writer, he has taken it upon himself to portray complex characters with their own individual idiosyncrasies and it is this that ensures that his characters are not defined by their illnesses. They are instead portrayed as people who simply feel the consequences of the burdens they have had to bear, each manifesting itself in a different manner... because no portrayal is flat, they are not stereotypes, they are people who are suffering yet coping as best as they can. Unfortunately, there is a futility that manifests itself in this portrayal, no character appears able to fully recover from their individual sufferings, there is a serious question raised about courage: is courage being able to end your suffering for yourself or is courage being able to carry on through the flames?

This futility is a frightening thought when one comes back to Murakami's philosophy that we are all inherently flawed and individually haunted by the shortcomings of our past. He explores the limits of mortality when faced with individual integrity and for me it's a beautifully accurate representation of the human psyche - both contradictory and conformist, uniform and unique. That may sound cliché but the duality and idiosyncrasy that runs through his narrative means that I can confidently affirm this as truth.

Starry Nights Don't Trigger These Thoughts

I fell asleep with crumbs in my bed because they told me never to bite the hand that feeds you.

That's why it creeps along fire escapes and hard edged corridors, that creek, pressing you against the walls. And I let it get so close that I saw the whites of its eyes flash to yellow, my neck closing around my throat so that your hands didn't have to. The smoke poured through the window and the wallpaper flickered - a fairground full of paper people hiding behind its flocked pattern. I waited for the clock that never struck and the door that never knocked as I heard you breathing outside of my door. I could hear the sound of my eyelashes brushing my cheeks as I tried to decide which kind of darkness felt the safest. I bore holes in my bed sheets as I camped out until morning, waiting for the dawn to chase away your shadow and for you to fade back into my walls.

A War Poem

Falling over hilltop and mound

Like cattle strung up by the neck

Only days ago was this a spot

For plump gentlemen, children

Battling it out with sticks 

If we could only have rearranged

Those faces which line 

The pews of the Commons

For we trudge, empty handed with

War's steamroller chasing our broken footsteps 

The Beat Gen: My Issue

It's pretty much part of the job description that as an English student you must devour books, dissect them and compartmentalise them into your own psyche. I think I can say that this is quite an accurate description of myself, books give me the best kind of shivers. However, as one develops both as a person and as a student, there are certain books that are great to re-visit with a greater understanding of the context and an increased perceptivity. There are also some books that once re-visited, are somewhat desecrated and cannot be held up to the light anymore without seeing the gaping flaws within them.

A year and a half ago, I fell in love with the Beat Generation. I still have a book of Allen Ginsberg poetry with every line analysed in painstaking detail, I would listen to Jack Kerouac's haikus night after night, trying to create my own that matched the style of his cultural appropriation. My DVDs of Howl and Kill Your Darlings are lovingly scratched due to over-use. As a naïve 16 year old, I was nothing like the twisted cynic I am today: I loved the call to revolution, the controversy and the intimacy between them that was felt deeply within their poetry. 

Fast-forward to the present and after months of re-reading and cramming for university interviews, making sure I knew all the books on the English Lit spec back-to-front and generally not having a great deal of time to read for fun - I decided I'd re-visit my old friends and start reading William S Burroughs' Naked Lunch. 

Honestly, so disappointing. After basically unmasking Allen Ginsberg as a phoney for coursework, I knew that I wouldn't hold the Beats in such high esteem ever again, but I was hoping to at least enjoy the book despite this. I must say, it's very clever in some respects. Very clever that a book explicitly about drug abuse can give the impression of taking you on one big trip due to the lack of any coherent structure or sometimes even syntax. Whether deliberate or not, it's the one positive I can take out of the book. 

Unfortunately, its structural brilliance does not make up for the lack of any coherent plot or character development. Though it can be said that this is in-keeping with the mood of the book itself, it feels like laziness to me. Laziness or a simple desire to be renowned for being as outrageously controversial as possible, without any concessions but simple notoriety. Therefore one must question the irony of a sub-culture that so opposes capitalism, consumerism and materialism being so quick to write for capitalist gains. 

The book is supposed to be a sort of terror-filled, dystopian nightmare, recounting the world's vices and repressions and exploring how they would function on a mass scale. Unfortunately, it feels as though Burroughs runs out of ideas a quarter of the way through and therefore resorts to repeating himself and his characterisation  despite having one of the least restrictive writing styles I've ever come across. The book feels like controversy for controversy's sake but has little intrinsic merit, it's sort of tainted my judgement of te Beats as a whole and that makes me really sad.

Sure I can still read On The Road or Pull My Daisy and enjoy the stylistic features and political commentary buried within their works, unfortunately I can't help feeling in the back of my mind that not a single one of them can honestly say they stand by their convictions. 

Thoughts

People always tell you to 'write what you know' and it's incredible how many great works of literature have been influenced by the author's background and experiences. I struggle to write prose and I think it's that Dorian Grey argument, sometimes you can't share things that have too much of yourself in them, sometimes art is the outlet for which one can best represent oneself.

It's then interesting to consider why somebody wouldn't want to share that, why we're not all Walt Whitmans - celebrating ourselves, our lives and our achievements, Writers in general are either egoists or painfully introspective and analytical, which makes perfect sense when you consider the complex nature of some of the thoughts and emotions that they inject into their characters. How would suspension of disbelief prove possible if those thoughts and emotions had not been experienced first-hand?

The nature of the craftsmanship of literature is something that shouldn't be overlooked, it's so easy to become immersed in a story that flows so seamlessly and appears to have been condensed in a single moment of inspiration. Honestly, there's so much painful re-drafting that goes on and nobody no matter how skilled they are, can write flawlessly first time. Hours of time, hundreds of cups of coffee and reams of paper goes in to writing a book worthy of publication. Sometimes the finished product isn't the part that deserves the most appreciation.

2 minute writing exercise - 9:48pm

We weren't prepared for when Adonis would fall

And black ice would encumber every journey

When our apex sighed into itself

And tried to curl around a wisp of smoke

Left to smoulder in the empty fruit bowl

Of our golden kitchen-top heydays

Thoughts for Today

I'm muddling my way through today. It's funny how the best news can bring the greatest worries. I've had a week full of celebration and lucky escapes but now I'm numb with the prominence of it all. It's a different kind of numbness from how I felt when I first found out, it's hollow and is easily provoked.

I've been granted an opportunity of a lifetime but there's an ache inside me that feels it was undeserved. There's an erosion of the self-confidence that finding out initially filled me with. I'm reeling with "what if's" and my heart has sunk to the depths of my stomach, which incidentally refuses to keep still.

There is so much to be thankful for, but unfortunately also so much to worry about. So much, that all I can do is lay in bed with a restless mind and hope that sleep will come softly and quickly.