Killing Commendatore, Haruki Murakami’s latest book, is about a portrait painter whose wife leaves him. So he goes off into the mountains to paint for himself, out of something to do. Only to return to his old portrait painting job. This is after Alice and Wonderlanding himself for a few months. And, after the dream-rape-baby they have, he reunites with his wife. Everyone’s okay with this. This is reality.
In a surrealistic slice of life, Murakami writes and writes Killing Commendatore…where not a whole lot happens. Both the protagonist and heroine hallucinate. Even when the story tells us they are not. All about some magical world of Ideas. And it is this killing of an idea the main character must undertake in order for the protagonist to save the heroine. The supernatural “Cheshire Cat Death” does not connect with the real-world plight. Existence of the supernatual is never explained. There’s no magical doorway, no dreamscape, no drug, no special material that connects both worlds: just poof. The world simply has magical creatures in it, and that’s just how it is. This doesn’t bother the protagonist whatsoever, and apparently, not the author.
Contents
Killing Commendatore’s Breasts
Our 13 year old heroine obsesses over breasts; hers, her aunts, and other peoples. She’s a precocious, perceptive, strange girl, and quite curious. I’d say the highlight of the story. However, her frank conversations with a 30 year old man about marriage and breasts had me cracking up. As such, I had a hard time believing rural single parent families in Japan are this open about sexual organs and sex. Maybe she has no one to talk to. Maybe she’s bored out of her mind. But all of this becuase two people, one who happens to be her painting teacher, happen to share a love of portrait painting?
Now most people love the female appendages. They’re magical things uniquely tied to sexuality, sex, parenting, and expensive clothing purchases. But when you define a character by their shorcoming — that is, no breasts and desire thereof — and she puts herself into various sorts of trouble, and her great concern is still about when she’s going to grow any, I have to wonder: are adolescents really this obsessed, and daft? What is this girl thinking? And how did all this mess get resolved because of another character running through Wonderland? Why did we need to kill the Commendatore? All the while clinging to magical female clothing that prevented others from noticing her hiding place (hidden dress undergarnment supernatural mommy powers?)
Also, there’s about 5, maybe 6 kinds of sexual relations going on here. Which is fine, it’s just a bit odd. Maybe the Japanese are just blasé about adult content and see it as no big deal. The strange thing is the foreshadowing of the protagonist getting back with his cheating wife. Does he even want this? Why did she break up with him in the first place? Why does he accept? What is going on?
Murakami Bingo is Killing Commendatore’ing it
Apparently, Killing Commendatore is the most Murakami book of them all. The fans of the man have made this thing called Murakami Bingo, which you can see below:
Except for a train station — though trains are involved — every element exists. Most definitely, Cooking and Supernatural Powers. (Sex-rape-baby-making? I’d count that as a Supernatural Power.)
To the average reader, or to someone wanting to get into Murakami, this is a horrible idea. The book is unnecessarily long. Over 80% of the prose is filler. Taking away all that fluff, the story can be four chapters long. This is common in slice of life stories, so it’s not entirely harsh. But there are so many moments — several entire chapters — though colorful, that simply do not add to the story at all. No character development, no great change, no anything aside from description for the sake of it.
Killing the slice of long winded boringness (I wish.)
Slice of life is not for everyone. Murakami likes combining the surreal and loneliness of existence with…descriptions of cooking, and talking to other quiet or normal people about preparing food, peoples perceptions, and their pursuits. All from the vantage of a painter who has a mild case of painters-block. That’s not to say it’s not interesting, as Murakami does have a very descriptive style. But each description in Killing Commendatore becomes unnecessary to the point of being absurd; traveling from point to point has to be described, every meal, and especially the supernatual characters, which make little to no sense.
Then there are these supernatural characters that have rules, like being able to enter places on when invited, similar to a vampire. But then those rules are broken, only for them to tell us they can break such rules. Why waste our time with supernatural rules that don’t have value? It’s a large bunch fo boring fluff that doesn’t need to exist. And ultimately, doesn’t seem to bother the two main characters.
Murakami needed an editor, and someone ot put him in his place. A lot needed to be cut out.
Killing the Supernatural how?
And when the protagonist goes through the looking glass, you can throw out reason and comprehension entirely. Where did this world come from? Why are they experiencing it? What is a double metaphor and why is it bad? Apparently this is all because of a bell sound that drove him to unearth an Idea from the ground, and that Idea hung around to…be…killed? Hence Killing Commendatore. The circle must be closed! (Why?) The protagonist has to kill this Idea to help the heronie from her plight of deciding to hide from everyone in the story. Yet she was in no danger. There was no real reason or connection between plight A and plight B. Yet we’re made to believe this was essential and the only way to solve plight B.
Can someone tell me how? Why? What is going on in this story?
Chekhov’s Gun — but don’t Kill
There’s a secret one character has, that motives their entire existence in the story. But after a certain time, he realizes it doesn’t matter. He leaves it and several other things in his life up in the air. It’s such a big thing, and yet doesn’t seem to bother him after that. He doesn’t tell anyone save the protagonist, and neither share the secret. Then it’s discarded because he’s having sex with the aunt. Again, breasts reign supreme. Slice of life rules. This is so realistic.
Killing only for the Murakami’d
That’s right. If you love Murakami, you’ll love this book.
If you love books, you’ll love not reading about the Idea of Killing Commendatore. Maybe just look at 18 year old breasts and listening to jazz.
But hey, what do I know about Killing Commendatore?
Check it out yourself on Amazon.
For other stories Worth Reading, check out this.
Check out Jordan and Stefan’s podcast of other Murakami book, Men Without Women
As well, check out Jordan and Stefan’s BookTalk Facebook group
