I know the number of GAFits interested in this post appears to be minimal, so I may resort to bumping this a few times to make sure all interested parties take a gander.
Background info: I've read the book 4 times over the past month. I've filled just about an entire notebook with thoughts, connections, and research. My copy of the book is filled with margin notes and color-coded highlights. I only wish I had a fucking class I could present my work to.
I'm not going to transcribe everything I've written unless given good reason. Instead, I'm going to focus on the prime themes, motifs, and riffs I've personally discovered in the book, and back them up with a few examples from the book. The larger part of the notebook is simply more examples from the text. There's also an abortive interpretation that I will get into later.
Some background information -- Semiotics is the school of thought that studies signs, or more specifically, the study of signs and their relationship with their referrants. It was developed, independently and simultaneously (sort of like calculus) , in the 19th century by Charles Peirce (father of pragmatism) and Ferdinand de Saussure. I'll skip over the hundred years of theoretical work done by the likes of Umberto Eco and the post-structuralists and just get to the relevant bits.
There are 3 sorts of signs:
Symbolic: Signs with no link between the sign and the referrent
Iconic: A sign that bears a resemblence in some substantial way to that it signifies. A photograph, for example.
Indexical: A sign with a direct causal relationship between the sign and the referrent. A footprint in cement, for example, or an impression with a distinct shape in the snow.
The early part of HBW unloads a hundred and one symbols upon the reader, all while slapping the reader in the face with the word Semiotecs. Murakami is clearly telling the reader that one of the stories is a sign of the other, but he keeps his cards close to his chest when it comes to which is the sign and which is the referrent. Some signs (the unicorn skull given to the protagonist in HBW -- which being a replica would be an iconic sign of EotW) seem to hint that one world is 'real,' while others (clothes of HBW found in EotW -- again, iconic) seem to say vice versa. In an interesting move (and the thing that reveals which world is which), after the Professors informs the protagonist of everything, in the underworld of HBW, the Gatekeeper (of EotW) becomes a dark and prohibitive complex-indexical-iconic sign of the chips and traps implanted in the main character's (of HBW) brain.
But there are more signs than just the ones that link the two stories. Signs are also used to refer to things in their own 'home' story. In EotW, those unicorn signs are indexical signs of the loss of 'mind' (since in the logic of the world, there is a definite causal relationship between 'mind' loss and the existenve of the 'beasts'). In HBW, the protagonist's brief obsession with unicorns is a symbolic sign of the character nearing the end of his rational rope.
Some signs even break the fourth wall and enter the real world. I spent a good portion of the novel trying to figure out what 'mind' meant in EotW. I thought it might be poor translation of some eastern metaphysical concept, but later readings really just showed that the 'mind' is a complex sign of the Freudian concepts of ego and superego.
The entire plot could be taken as a sign of Baudrillard's famous simulacrum. A false reality created by man-made incidental constructs. (there's a little more on this, but I do believe my thought cycle was stuck in a loop at this point. If I get brave and want the crit on my crit, I'll post more on this. There definitely is a simulacrum connection. . .I just had one too many whiskeys and waters while writing those bits)
This is all I'm writing up for the time being.
If there appears to be interest, I'll continue. Next up, a bit on what I've termed the 'Gradation of Transposition.' It's a descriptor of the quite delicate plot techniques going on in the book. Murakami has told quite the nuanced and textured story. Also, I'll touch on the 'binary cultural' messages I've found in the book. I will also get into the above-mentioned abandoned interpretation (which I may still complete). And maybe I'll get into why deconstruction on this work would be time consuming and difficult, but ultimately very revealing.
Background info: I've read the book 4 times over the past month. I've filled just about an entire notebook with thoughts, connections, and research. My copy of the book is filled with margin notes and color-coded highlights. I only wish I had a fucking class I could present my work to.
I'm not going to transcribe everything I've written unless given good reason. Instead, I'm going to focus on the prime themes, motifs, and riffs I've personally discovered in the book, and back them up with a few examples from the book. The larger part of the notebook is simply more examples from the text. There's also an abortive interpretation that I will get into later.
Some background information -- Semiotics is the school of thought that studies signs, or more specifically, the study of signs and their relationship with their referrants. It was developed, independently and simultaneously (sort of like calculus) , in the 19th century by Charles Peirce (father of pragmatism) and Ferdinand de Saussure. I'll skip over the hundred years of theoretical work done by the likes of Umberto Eco and the post-structuralists and just get to the relevant bits.
There are 3 sorts of signs:
Symbolic: Signs with no link between the sign and the referrent
Iconic: A sign that bears a resemblence in some substantial way to that it signifies. A photograph, for example.
Indexical: A sign with a direct causal relationship between the sign and the referrent. A footprint in cement, for example, or an impression with a distinct shape in the snow.
The early part of HBW unloads a hundred and one symbols upon the reader, all while slapping the reader in the face with the word Semiotecs. Murakami is clearly telling the reader that one of the stories is a sign of the other, but he keeps his cards close to his chest when it comes to which is the sign and which is the referrent. Some signs (the unicorn skull given to the protagonist in HBW -- which being a replica would be an iconic sign of EotW) seem to hint that one world is 'real,' while others (clothes of HBW found in EotW -- again, iconic) seem to say vice versa. In an interesting move (and the thing that reveals which world is which), after the Professors informs the protagonist of everything, in the underworld of HBW, the Gatekeeper (of EotW) becomes a dark and prohibitive complex-indexical-iconic sign of the chips and traps implanted in the main character's (of HBW) brain.
But there are more signs than just the ones that link the two stories. Signs are also used to refer to things in their own 'home' story. In EotW, those unicorn signs are indexical signs of the loss of 'mind' (since in the logic of the world, there is a definite causal relationship between 'mind' loss and the existenve of the 'beasts'). In HBW, the protagonist's brief obsession with unicorns is a symbolic sign of the character nearing the end of his rational rope.
Some signs even break the fourth wall and enter the real world. I spent a good portion of the novel trying to figure out what 'mind' meant in EotW. I thought it might be poor translation of some eastern metaphysical concept, but later readings really just showed that the 'mind' is a complex sign of the Freudian concepts of ego and superego.
The entire plot could be taken as a sign of Baudrillard's famous simulacrum. A false reality created by man-made incidental constructs. (there's a little more on this, but I do believe my thought cycle was stuck in a loop at this point. If I get brave and want the crit on my crit, I'll post more on this. There definitely is a simulacrum connection. . .I just had one too many whiskeys and waters while writing those bits)
This is all I'm writing up for the time being.
If there appears to be interest, I'll continue. Next up, a bit on what I've termed the 'Gradation of Transposition.' It's a descriptor of the quite delicate plot techniques going on in the book. Murakami has told quite the nuanced and textured story. Also, I'll touch on the 'binary cultural' messages I've found in the book. I will also get into the above-mentioned abandoned interpretation (which I may still complete). And maybe I'll get into why deconstruction on this work would be time consuming and difficult, but ultimately very revealing.
