Time-space Box

Haruki Murakami is one of the most representative writers in modern Japanese literary world. Researches on Haruki Murakami's novels have been in ascendant since 1980s. Although discussions of the time-space art in Haruki Murakami's novels have already been available widely in current research findings, some space for research still exists. In this paper, from the angle of time and space, based on the time-space theories adopted from Narratology, Psychology, Culturology and Philosophy, the author explores time-space art in Haruki Murakami's novels and his thoughts on existence and time and space. This paper consists of introduction, body text and conclusion. The body text is divided into two parts, focusing on time and space respectively.In the introduction, the author briefly states Haruki Murakami's personal background and creative works, reviews the studies of Haruki Murakami's novels available in Japan and China mainland, therefore, presents the possibilities of studying the time-space art in Haruki Murakami's novels as well as the research methods applied in this paper.The first part includes three chapters, from chapter one to three. In chapter one, the narrative theory of time in Narratology is applied to analyse individually Haruki Murakami's retrospective novels, such as Norwegian Wood, Sputnik Sweetheart, and South of the Border, West of the Sun, and his After Dark, with a narrative framework, so as to illustrate Haruki Murakami's narrative strategies in the sequence of time used in above-mentioned novels: a pattern of"predictable flash-forward"and a pattern of"circular time"appear in his retrospective novel with the first person; a pattern of"inverted time"shows in After Dark; narrative methods combined with"past"and"flashback"reveal writer's reflection on existence and time,"back mirror"alike.Chapter two mainly focuses on the attitude towards psychological time reflected in Haruki Murakami's novels. Firstly, Haruki Murakami has set up such a type of image in his novels, those who believe that valuable time for them stopped in the past. This mirrors inconsistency between human existence and time, and emphasizes the intensional"innocent time of oneself"in psychological time, however, this hysterical identity has dissevered the link between present and value. Secondly, in"Four Series of Mouse", Haruki Murakami mainly adopts narrative strategies of inter-text and defamiliarization to state Mouse's and"my"mental awareness of time. The Mouse has noticed human"nihility"surrounded by time in terms of ultimate meaning of life, and finally committed suicide to refuse modernization. Whereas,"I"have relied on clock time to remain awareness, and eventually realized present existence of ego. Both endings reflect the confrontation between psychological time and clock time.Chapter three focuses on"functional time"in Haruki Murakami's novels. Firstly, by reviewing Norihiro Katou's comments on discordant issues on story time in Hear the Wind Sing and the second imaginary time in Norwegian Wood, it is found that the issues of"pseudo-time"in these two novels show the feature of"the other's time". Secondly, by analysing the connections between intervening method of historical texts and story time, narrative time, and readers in A Wild Sheep Chase, The Wild-Up Bird Chronicle and Kafka on the Shore, it is found that the story time linking to historical events experienced by certain character in novels or time spent reading historical materials by readers could be regarded as the"fabular"time, the purpose of which lies in relating history to present in novels and revealing modern morality given by history which in novels also shows the feature of"the other's time".The second part includes four chapters, marked from four to seven. Chapter four mainly focuses on physical space—urban space, homes and hotels, in Haruki Murakami's novels. Firstly, Haruki Murakami in his novels describes the scenery, existing in leading character's memories, which gradually fades out in the process of urbanization, and describes the new-born modernized urban scenery as a group, so as to show the crack between human being and scenery and survival state of leading characters in novels, being in the scenery and the soul flying beyond (lingering at the edge of the society). Meanwhile, Haruki Murakami portrays cultural atmosphere of consumerism and proves leading characters'life paradox—"enjoyment and taunt". Secondly, home image in Haruki Murakami's novels is that parents are omission, characters fail to set up new home, therefore they enjoy themselves and seek for mental substitution of home in hotels—a similar space to home—and even desire to solve family problems in the"imaginary hotels". The relation between home and hotel mirrors the individual's normal surviving state in a highly developed capitalist society: lingering in the crack adjacent to"home"and"other space". Urban space, home and hotel together reflect characters'state of lingering in physical space in novels.Chapter five focuses on the virtual space in novels, including otherworldly and musical space. Otherworldly space mirrors characters'psychological views, being a symbolic, metaphorical and allegorical space, which presents both destructiveness and redemptiveness in novels to reveal the chaos of ego. Otherworldly space, after all, is a place for self talk rather than a spiritual home. The intervention of musical text is an obvious feature in Haruki Murakami's novels. The forms of the intervention of musical text include interwoven song titles and lyrics to assist with narration, repetitive use of the same song to mark similar spots, the appearance of the same song to construct text. The intervention of musical text creates the uniquely musical narrative space, including characters'spiritual space, communicative space and"memorial"space. In the meantime, the intervention of musical text also promotes interaction between texts and readers, therefore, to extend potential comprehension of texts.Chapter six analyses the space in Haruki Murakami's novels, bridging the reality and the unreal,"the third space", including body, well, woods and mirror, etc. In his novels, Murakami's body narrative combines the body of"speaking of ego"and the body of"isolating ego"with the body of"accessing otherworldly space", to show the"outside-to-inside"trend as a whole. His body narrative adopts an explicit spatial framework to reveal the blood and soul which are connected and separated, body and real world and otherworldly space which are combined and intersected, so as to refract that the real world seems"enormous", but"tiny"in nature, and that mankind has to turn to inner world and otherworldly space to seek for real existence, namely, a living dilemma. Well, woods and mirror are the core space which ushers characters in novels to enter the unknown world to explore ego. From the choosing, setting and artistic flexibility of these three kinds of space, it is easily detected that Haruki Murakami has considered human tendency of self-constitution from the origin.Chapter seven focuses on the relation between spatial structure of fictional text and framing theme, and analyses the mimetic polyphonic structure in Norwegian Wood and nested structure in The Kidney-Shaped Stone That Moves Every Day. In Norwegian Wood, Haruki Murakami has set and eliminated successively a triangle relationship among five groups of characters, and interwoven Flash-Forward twice about one's death stated by narrating self, to deliver one theme from several aspects—mankind fatefully walk on a track showing an opposite feature,"lose and find". In The Kidney-Shaped Stone That Moves Every Day, Haruki Murakami has used characters'emotional issues as a vector, with inter-elimination and inter-framing in three nested narrative levels, to form a mixture of a circulation pattern of"lose—seek—lose"seen always in Haruki's novels and a common imago of father's omission, therefore, to create a pattern of"lose—seek—elimination (father's omission)", which also illustrates post-modern rebelliousness and eliminatedness in the novels.In conclusion, artistic features of time-space narrative in Haruki Murakami's novels and writer's reflection on existence and time-space shown in novels are summed up. Artistic features of time narrative includes frequently used flash-forward with the intention of framing theme, frequently used flash-back in the form of individual narrative with the value orientation of self-healing and self-cognition, technique of defamiliarization applied and spatialization of time. Artistic features of space narrative consist of five points: multi-division and multi-construction of space, artistic treatment for the"narrator alike"of space, the construction of"otherworldly space (mysterious space)", artistic application of text's structure space, and the timed space. In his novels, Haruki Murakami simultaneously describes two kinds of connection between human existence and time, namely,"back mirror"and"time in the box", which present writer's general overview of existence and time—relying on the past, bridging the present, suspending the future. In his novels, he also describes the loss of"scenery"in the outer world, the chaos of the inner world and separation and suspension of soul and blood in a body to display the"box-like"existence that mankind may or may not exist in the outer world. Not only does the fascination of Haruki Murakami'novels lie in language and content, but, more specifically, results from his"magic power"of thinking patterns shown in transposing meanings to rethink existence.