Did you watch Assassination of the Knight Commander?
Haruki Murakami's new novel has attracted much attention as soon as it came out, and readers' evaluations of it are now mixed and polarized. Some praised Murakami's ambition and great creativity as a novelist, while others doubted whether Murakami could not walk out of the high walls created by his style.
But it is undeniable that the metaphor is indeed a major feature of Murakami's novel style, with his distinctive personal marks.
Written by | Lee long voice
Yes, the Japanese writer who claims to have "never written a novel before the age of 29, and suddenly become a master of healing in a second" is Haruki Murakami.
Murakami loves metaphors, which is a major feature of his novel style.
Murakami's novels are allegorical, almost entirely a metaphor, and there are many figurative metaphors, such as wells, but the most interesting thing is that the metaphors sandwiched between the lines are mostly well-behaved and unexpected. We might as well flip through "The End of the World and the Cold Alien", which is touching:
"The elevator waited like a trained dog to open the door and I came up."
"The stomach is swollen like a dolphin's stomach, and the lower abdomen can't make it hard."
"There was no movement on the other end of the microphone, and the phone was buried in the sand as if it were completely motionless."
"Sleep in my little room, which is as deserted as the far side of the moon, also hits on time."
The End of the World and Cold Wonderland
Author: [Japanese] Haruki Murakami
Translator: Lin Shaohua
Edition: Shanghai Translation Publishing House, December 2002
Haruki Murakami always came up with metaphors, a variety of forms, such as writing silence, the kind of silence that does not speak with a phone in hand, which makes people confused, nervous, and even afraid, and is compared by him to metaphor: for example, this passage in "Clockwork and the Women on Tuesday":
The phone rang fifteen times, then broke. The bell died, and a silence as deep as gravity out of balance filled the surroundings. The deep, cold silence is like a stone sealed in a glacier fifty thousand years ago. Fifteen phone rings changed the air around me.
Another example is a passage from "Sputnik Lovers":
There was a long silence on the other end of the phone, like the solemn silence brought in by the undead on the Eastern Front.
The metaphor is novel, and the reader is happy to read it, and can't help but ask: Mr. Murakami, if you think about it, how did you come up with those ingenious metaphors? Murakami, who has often surfed the Internet in recent years, answered questions from netizens like this:
He said: "The metaphorical thing naturally came out in the process of writing. I didn't think my metaphor was so good. I think, 'Write all kinds of things easily understandable, a little real', 'make people admire, admire', is the end of the pen, with such a motivation seems to be difficult to come up with good things. ”
[But] he added: "The general list of languages is not convincing." Use metaphors to persuade, to seduce. Take out fresh metaphors that the other party can't imagine and don't impose on others, make the other party frightened, and persuade them. As the saying goes, pull on to bed. ”
Let's first look at how Haruki Murakami used metaphors to surprise people through "Norwegian Forest".
"How much do you like me?" asked Green.
"Tigers in the world's forests are so fond of melting into butter." I say.
"I like you very much, green."
"How much do you like it?"
"The spring bears like it so much."
"Spring bear?" said Green, raising his face again.
"What's that, spring bear?"
"You are walking alone in the spring field, and on the opposite side comes a cute bear with round eyes like velvet, and says to you, 'Hello, Miss, roll with me.' Then you hug the bear and roll around on the clover-covered slope and play all day. Not bad, right?"
"It's really good."
"That's how I like you."
Norwegian Forests
Author: [Japanese] Haruki Murakami Translator: Lin Shaohua
Edition: Shanghai Translation Publishing House, February 2001
It is indeed unexpected, but it is also a bit inexplicable, the tiger melts into butter, and rolls around with the bear, how do you like it? Maybe the surprise is between this seeming understanding and non-understanding. Murakami's writing is extremely simple, and Tong Shu is not deceived, but there is a trick under the light white handkerchief, and it is often not clear when reading, that is, the Japanese love to speak, the language is clear, the meaning is unclear.
So, how can a metaphor be fresh? Speaking of metaphors, it is natural to think of Qian Zhongshu, who plays metaphors on the palm of his hands and seems to be older than Murakami. Qian Zhongshu commented on Su Shi, saying:
His style is characterized by the richness, freshness and relevance of the metaphors, and in his poems you can also see the so-called 'Bo yu' of the Song Dynasty's prose-oriented people or the Shakespearean metaphors praised by the Westerners, a series of various images to express one aspect or a state of a thing. This method of depiction and foil seems to adopt the 'wheel warfare method' mentioned in the old novel, one after another to make the thing overwhelmed, the original appearance, subjugated to the poet's pen.
So, how can a metaphor be fresh? Qian Zhongshu also gave some advice, saying, "The more different places are bigger, the more similarities are foiled; the farther apart they are, the more unexpected the combination is, and the more novel the metaphor is." ”
To give an example of Qian Zhongshu's analogy: "Her eyes are not big, or flexible and gentle, reflecting the fact that the big eyes of many women are only like the big words spoken by politicians, and they are not appropriate."
So if you want to discuss the difference between Qian Zhongshu and Murakami, I think that Qian Zhongshu's metaphor is often a thorny rose, while Murakami is like a cherry tree, basically peaceful, just like his middle school student-like face.
(If Murakami) is sarcastic, the most common technique is to compare sex (obscene?). People who should not be serious will find it ridiculous, as if watching a clown performance, and once a person who is recognized as serious says something improper, people will think that he is mocking.
Stills from Norwegian Forest, released in Japan in 2010
Murakami literature is very pornographic, to put it bluntly, and many people read it for this reason. Precisely because of pornography, according to the principle of "the farther apart you are, the more unexpected the metaphor, the more novel the metaphor", he rarely uses obscene metaphors, does not have to add flowers to the pile, but more often uses an almost indifferent tone to talk about sex, a look of reading the spring of the world or the appearance of a philosopher. such as
Making love is an extremely delicate act, and going to the store on Sunday to buy a thermos is not the same thing. (The End of the World and the Cold Alien)
I remembered that I used to make love like a wildfire without spending money. ("Shelter from the Rain")
It is said that it is far away, but it is not possible to travel all the way through the mountains, but to omit the intermediate links like Sun Wukong in a tendon fight for 108,000 miles, which is unexpected. Haruki Murakami has created an example for us:
Sex, sex, intercourse, intercourse, and everything else are all right, and from these words, behaviors, and phenomena I always imagine a museum in winter. Of course, there is a little distance from making love to the museum in winter. It takes a lot of effort to change the subway several times, to go through the underground of high-rise buildings, and where to let the season pass. But such troubles only begin a few times, and once the distance of this consciousness circuit is familiarized, everyone can walk to the winter museum at once. (Three German Fantasies)
Murakami also believes that metaphors are the condiments of the article, and too much will be annoying. He also liked analogies in everyday conversations, so that the lady was angry, "Don't say those pleasing metaphors to me one after another." Probably silenced by madame, he used the novel as a metaphor, and even flooded.
Finally, to borrow a phrase from "Sputnik Lovers": "The so-called understanding is often nothing more than a misunderstanding of the totality." "Metaphors sometimes lead to misunderstandings, and in the end we seem to understand.
(This article is an excerpt from the audio content of "12 Literary Heroes - Adventures Around Japanese Literature", provided by Douban Time.) Author: Li Changsheng. ）
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