Morrison

Murakami Haruki: TV People (1990)1

*To read the story in the original Japanese, click here.

*To read Alfred Birnbaums English translation, click here.

Murakami Haruki (1949- ): Murakami Haruki is the most widely translated Japanese

novelist of his generation. Murakamis first novel, Kaze no uta o kike (1979; Hear the

Wind Sing), won a prize for best fiction by a new writer. From the start his writing was

characterized by images and events that the author himself found difficult to explain but

which seemed to come from the inner recesses of his memory. Some argued that this

ambiguity, far from being off-putting, was one reason for his popularity with readers,

especially young ones, who were bored with the self-confessions that formed the

mainstream of contemporary Japanese literature. His perceived lack of a political or

intellectual stance irritated serious authors (such as e Kenzabur), who dismissed

his early writings as being no more than entertainment. Murakamis first major

international success came with Hitsuji o meguru bken (1982; A Wild Sheep Chase), a

novel that acquires an eerie quality from the mysterious sheep that comes to possess the

narrators friend, known as the Rat. The narrator and the Rat reappeared in

Murakamis next important novel, Sekai no owari to hdoboirudo

wandrando (1985; Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World), a fantasy that

was successful with the public and was the winner of the prestigious Tanizaki Prize.

One of Murakamis most ambitious novels, Nejimaki-dori kuronikuru (199495; The

Wind-Up Bird Chronicle), represents a departure from his usual themes: it is devoted in

part to depicting Japanese militarism on the Asian continent as a nightmare.

Andguraundo (1997; Underground) is a nonfiction account of the sarin gas attack

carried out by the AUM Shinrikyo religious sect on a Tokyo subway in 1995. The

novel Suptoniku no koibito (1999; Sputnik Sweetheart) probes the nature of love as it

tells the story of the disappearance of Sumire, a young novelist. Subsequent novels

include Umibe no Kafuka (2002; Kafka on the Shore) and Afut dku (2004; After

Dark). Several short-story collections, including Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman (2006),

translate Murakamis stories into English. He also wrote a memoir, Hashiru koto ni

1 First published in Bungei shunju January 1990. It originally appeared under the longer

title TV (TV ppuru no gyakush, literally "The TV People Strike Back"); it received this shorter final title for all further appearances. Birnbaum's English

translation originally appeared in The New Yorker September 10, 1990.

tsuite kataru toki ni boku no kataru koto (2007; What I Talk About When I Talk About

Running), which centers on his love for marathon running. An experienced translator of

American literature, Murakami also published in Japanese editions of works by

Raymond Carver, Paul Theroux, Truman Capote, Ursula K. Le Guin, and J.D.

Salinger. (Encyclopdia Britannica)

Study Questions

1. Describe the first-person narrator. Where is he located (temporally and spatially)?

Who is the you whom he repeatedly addresses? Describe his tastes/interests, job,

marriage, relation with supervisor/colleagues, mental state, eccentricities, etc. Is he a

reliable narrator? Why does he refer to himself as a modern-day Luddite?

2. Describe the TV People. How does the narrator respond to them, and they to him?

Do they actually exist?

3. How do the TV People disrupt the narrators normal sense of reality, eventually

causing his world to crumble? Are the TV People to be read as a symbol/metaphor for

something? If so, what?

4. How do the narrators colleagues respond to the TV People? What happens when the

narrator brings up the subject of the TV People with one of his colleagues? Why this

response? Is everyone in on it, as it were?

5. Describe the wife. Describe her personality, tastes, job, relation with husband, etc.

Why doesnt she say anything regarding the new TV?

6. Discuss the function/significance of the motif of the ticking clock.

7. Describe the sudden shift of mood that begins on page 210.

8. Discuss the possible causes for the wifes absence/disappearance in the final scene.

According to the TV People, what has happened to her? Why do they know? Explain

the TV People representatives comment: Its gone too far. Shes out there.

9. Discuss the narrators dream (described on page 212) and its significance.

I dream about a meeting. Im standing up, delivering a statement I myself dont understand.

I open my mouth and talk. If I dont, Im a dead man. I have to keep talking. Have to keep

coming out with endless blah-blah-blah. Everyone around me is dead. Dead and turned to

stone. A roomful of stone statues. A wind is blowing. The windows are all broken; gusts of

air are coming in. And the TV People are here. Three of them. Like the first time. Theyre

carrying a Sony color TV. And on the screen are the TV People. Im running out of words;

little by little I can feel my fingertips growing stiffen. Gradually turning to stone.

What is the raw material, manifest content, and latent content of this dream? Does

the narrator actually awake from the dream, as he thinks? Or is he still asleep and

dreaming through the final episode? Explain.

10. Is the final episode a dream, a hallucination, or reality? What is the meaning of the

airplane that is being built by the TV People in the TV? Why does the narrators hand

begin to shrink in the final lines of the work?

11. Discuss the final lines. Will the phone ring, as the TV People have predicted? What

is a likely conclusion to this story? Why does Murakami leave us hanging in suspense?

Further Reading

1. Michael Seats. Murakami Haruki: The Simulacrum in Contemporary Japanese

Culture. Lanham, Md.: Lexington Books, 2006.

2. Japan Foundation. A Wild Haruki Chase: Reading Murakami Around the World.

Berkeley, Calif.: Stone Bridge Press, 2008.

3. Matthew Strecher. Magical Realism and the Search for Identity in the Fiction of

Haruki Murakami, Journal of Japanese Studies 25.2 (Summer 1999): 26398.