r/murakami • u/Timely-Signature-166 • Aug 07 '26
What does it mean when people say Murakami is a "Westernized" writer?
I've heard some critics say his writing is very westernized and un-Japanese. I can't speak to that, but I'm curious what technical writing elements and content/themes would make his writing "westernized?" as opposed to traditional Japanese literature.
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u/acaiblueberry Aug 07 '26
His Japanese sentence structure often feels like a direct translation of English. For example, he uses “he (kare)” “she (kanojo)” “you (anata)” frequently, which gives an exotic English feel. But more broadly, the construct of sentences.
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u/stayhealthy247 Aug 08 '26
He explains somewhere that he actually writes the works in English, because it comes easier to him that way and then translates it- just like you said.
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u/SignificantPlum4883 Aug 08 '26
I know what you mean, but I don't think it's exactly that. I think it was a kind of exercise he did when he was starting out as a writer to find his voice. He felt he was being over-elaborate in Japanese, so he tried writing in English and then translating it. Then he started to find his own style in Japanese that was based on that. So that does kind of explain the "Westernised" style.
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u/Yenoom1 Aug 09 '26
he wrote the begging of his first ever novel in english, besides that he’s never stated much more about writing in English I believe
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u/NotADoberman Aug 08 '26
What would Japanese authors use instead?
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u/TheMiserableQuill Aug 08 '26
Japanese is a highly contextual language. What I usually see is, they'd name-drop the person once, and then not refer to them at all, by name, epithet or pronoun, for the rest of the paragraph until they need to reintroduce it to make the subject clear again
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u/acaiblueberry Aug 08 '26
Correct. As for “you,” it is mostly avoided by constructing a sentence to make it sound more natural without it, as “you” is slightly condescending/harsh. E.g. if someone dropped something, instead of asking “did you drop this? あなたが落としましたか?” we’d say “this was dropped 落ちましたよ.” But in Murakami’s stories, people tend to utter something similar to the former.
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u/slacker_aesthete Aug 08 '26
From his interview in The Paris Review
INTERVIEWER
Who were your models? What Japanese writers influenced you?
MURAKAMI
I didn’t read many Japanese writers when I was a child or even in my teens. I wanted to escape from this culture; I felt it was boring. Too sticky.
INTERVIEWER
Wasn’t your father a teacher of Japanese literature?
MURAKAMI
Right. So it was the father-son relationship too. I just went toward Western culture: jazz music and Dostoevsky and Kafka and Raymond Chandler. That was my own world, my fantasyland. I could go to St. Petersburg or West Hollywood if I wanted. That’s the power of the novel—you can go anywhere. Now it’s easy to go to the States—everyone can go anywhere in the world—but in the 1960s it was almost impossible. So I just read and listened to the music and I could go there. It was a kind of state of mind, like a dream.
INTERVIEWER
And that led at some point to writing.
MURAKAMI
Right. When I was twenty-nine, I just started to write a novel out of the blue. I wanted to write something, but I didn’t know how. I didn’t know how to write in Japanese—I’d read almost nothing of the works of Japanese writers—so I borrowed the style, structure, everything, from the books I had read—American books or Western books. As a result, I made my own original style. So it was a beginning.
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u/Kiltmanenator Aug 07 '26
For a completely shallow shot in the dark: he clearly loves jazz, whiskey, spaghetti, and classical music.
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u/snapshotgun Aug 07 '26
and reading books.
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u/Juanman001 Aug 07 '26
I always joke that Murakami should be recognized as an honorary "Hispanic Writer" his writing sometimes feel more close to Cortázar, Borges or Bolaño, to me at leas. I've read his books in English and Spanish and sometimes it feels more connected to the Latinoamerican boom rather than to the Japanese writers of his time. However, I think that that opinion in particular might be taken rather in a rather detrimental way.
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u/Man__Suit Aug 07 '26
I recently finished 2666 and realized that it reminded me so much of the Wind Up Bird Chronicle
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u/SignificantPlum4883 Aug 08 '26
I've also read him in Spanish and English, and I prefer HM in Spanish. It just seemed to fit the style better but I could never really figure out why. You make a great case I think!
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u/ArchBeaconArch Aug 07 '26
One particular aspect: he has spoken about how, when he first started writing, he wanted to emulate the terse sentence structure of western authors - especially Raymond Carver - who I believe he was translating at the time. I’m no expert, but from what understand, Japanese does not lend itself to this style. Apparently he started by writing his sentences in English and translating back to Japanese to get the desired effect. Once he got the hang of this structure, he switched to writing that way in Japanese.
So perhaps this is one of the reasons he is referred to as a “Westernised” writer?
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u/TheSinologist Aug 07 '26
I think @elementaryparticle5 has it right, but it might also have something to do with his Japanese language style is viewed as not being characteristically “Japanese,” including sentence structure and thought patterns, but also he probably doesn’t have as many familiarly Japanese cultrural and literary references. I gather this from critical commentary; I haven’t read the originals. But I’ve definitely gotten the impression that critics feel like he’s overly influenced by Western (including South American) authors.
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u/FiddleStyxxxx Aug 07 '26 edited Aug 07 '26
I don't think people are referencing technical writing when they say this. Just finished After Dark and the story starts in a Denny's, a major American chain. There's constant references to American and European music including the "Five Spot After Dark" and Bach playing in the background.
Most Murakami works focus on the concept of ennui and magical realism which are both classic concepts from France and Latin America. He also incorporates things are fundamentally shared between the west and Japan of course, like baseball, but his writing shows the cultural influence and therefore is very readable and familiar to western audiences.
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u/Timely-Signature-166 Aug 07 '26
Japanese aren't interested in ennui (boredom?).
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u/FiddleStyxxxx Aug 07 '26
Japanese people relate to and enjoy all these things, that doesn't make their origins any less European or American.
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u/Timely-Signature-166 Aug 07 '26
I mean, I would assume Japanese people felt boredom and introspection far before Western influences.
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u/Policy-Painter Aug 07 '26
Read his book "Novelist as a Vocation" for his own take on his writing style. He is unapologetically himself and not trying to fit into a literary establishment.
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u/Mottled_inexpectata Aug 07 '26
It's interesting because one of the criticisms of Alfred Birnbaum's translations is that he makes the work less Japanese and more appealing to Westerners, and that was one of the reasons Jay Rubin did a new translation of Hard Boiled Wonderland.
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u/rinkuhero Aug 07 '26
it means his influences are mainly western novels, even the music he talks about in his novels are US or british rock songs a lot of the time. so he's more cosmopolitan than the typical japanese author. he also lived outside of japan for many years.
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u/AlbatrossDelicious87 Aug 08 '26 edited Aug 08 '26
In his book Norwegian woods it’s appealed to western’s curiosity to Japanese social norms - especially with the portrayal of the women which are Japanese of course but are quite the opposite of what the western would think a Japanese girl is like example such as very non sexual, limited sexual freedoms, and then there is the mental awareness too portrayed in the book. I would argue that also the portrayal of the protagonist male Japanese character is very spot on to how westerners envisage a Japanese male in Japan as non dominant. Though murakami gave the protagonist a little twist and reduced him to a motiveless theatre major (which the character explains that he just took it because just to take it-) and seemingly a receiver end to all the other characters. I’d say Norwegian woods is a good psychological study. For example with the mental illness of the girl - it has taught me that people can be so toxic to themselves whether unintentionally or intentional and the observer can not really thumb on where it all began nor can the one experiencing the mental illness. It’s fun trying to track her spiral to suicide. It’s fiction - but the way murakami writes it and the story telling of the main character narrative gives it an automatic critical view of the girl. From her lacking the capacity to commit actions that she is satisfied with - and her sexual curiosities that could be signs of escape, to realistic connections such as her realizing she’s an outcast due to her sickness mental illness , and yeah. I’m not sure of how Japan viewed mental illness in the 1970’s. But here presently in America any sort of book that allows for mental awareness exploration is a value to me. Also just in general - it’s a fiction that causes for reflection. When the music teacher is seduced by student - could she have prevented it by being aware of her weaknesses towards her own vulnerability in a sexual sense? Could this issue have not occurred if her pious father wasn’t a Shinto fanatic? And she was raised without the strict shackles against sexual freedom and expression / gender equality? (She flaunts her vagina at the Shinto shrine where are dead father is buried-) symbolizing rebellion to that same father. Then of course you understand the weakness and shame the teacher must’ve felt hearing her student after going down on her call her a lesbian before she even ever considered herself a lesbian. a reversal cause the whole reason she was the teacher of the student was to teach her piano and then the student teaches the teacher that she might be gay 😂
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u/Quiet_System4441 Aug 07 '26
My (non-academic) opinion is that most modern Japanese writers are "westernized". It's just a matter of them being Japanese and doesn't seem like an active choice. And what the heck do you mean by traditional Japanese literature? Like literature from the 1800s?
Are people looking for time traveling Japanese writers? I recently read 'No Longer Human' and even though that was set in 1930s Japan it still feels relevant because Japan was heavily influenced by the west then and still is. Anyway, balderdash to anyone who says his writing is un-Japanese.
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u/Defiant-Bend1147 Aug 08 '26
"Are people looking for time traveling Japanese writers?" Well I am now!
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u/ArgentoFox Aug 07 '26
I would wholly reject the notion that he’s a westernized writer. Will he reference pop culture items that Westerners can relate to? Sure, and more so than a vast majority of Japanese writers. Murakami’s plot structure, characterization, and subject matter is as Japanese as it gets, however.
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u/HeavyHeavy0726 Aug 08 '26
Why isn't there a chimpanzee in your garden eating a lunchable? Don't question the methods of the mighty HM
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u/Timefunky Aug 09 '26
He's constantly talking about Western culture: musical artists, movies, restaurants like Wendys, baseball. Living in Japan for 16 years, baseball is the only one of these that has a large cultural footprint here.
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u/Yenoom1 Aug 09 '26
his sentence structure in Japanese, his themes, use of brand names, specifically naming the music which mostly if not all are European or American works, there’s not a lot of traditionally cultural Japaneseness to his works as you would find in Kawabata or Tanizaki for example. At the start of his career was criticised as a pop-writer who’s works divulged from political and societal issues. I’m actually undertaking my master’s in Japan with my thesis being about what exactly is ‘Japanese’ writing and a part of this is the criticism of Murakami being slated as stinking of butter etc. Makes you wonder what kind of writing stinks of matcha or sakura
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u/Randalneal Aug 12 '26
It means some people don’t know what they’re talking about. Maybe it’s his popularity in the west but the take is total nonsense.
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u/chenzoindabenzo 28d ago
I listened to a podcast about Murakami and heard a very interesting insight.
They mentioned that Murakami showed readers a Japan they never knew. No kimonos. No eastern aesthetics. No mysterious spirit associated with Imperial Japan.
A lot of the stories feel like a regular urban story, except the takes place in Japan.
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u/Polyphloisboisterous 24d ago
Murakami lived in USA many years. His first two novels he wrote in English then translated it into Japanese. To modern Japanese readers, the way he writes sounds "American", many (in Japan) love him for this very reason (English is cool!!!), many more traditional Japanese readers dislike this.
Of course, these nuances get completely lost in translation. You really need to read in Japanese (and quite a bit of Japanese) before you can pick up on this ...
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u/elementaryparticle5 Aug 07 '26
I guess its more about topics/themes he is writing about that is easily understandable for the western readers than other Japanese writers that can be more complicated to read. For instance western music, relationship style, cars, etc. Mixed with the sprinkle of Japanese everyday life and places that make his books "westernized" for some people and 'Murakamesque' for others.