"I think I’m the kind of person who believes in the importance of the subconscious, of dreams, of symbols." – Haruki Murakami
For some time now, Haruki Murakami has held a place of interest for me, as he manages to combine the surreal and sublime in a blend that is as captivating as it is disorienting. His storytelling has a very special voice, mixing the everyday with the surreal, urging us to be comfortable with what we know or don’t know. What I love most of all about Murakami’s work is that he’s running around exploring the most profound existential themes ever: identity, existence, and subconsciousness, and they’re somehow transcending cultural and temporal boundaries. Rather than simply presenting an answer, Murakami invites us to ask, interpret, and reflect on the deeper meanings of his stories with their surprising and surreal elements that lead us to discover ourselves more deeply.
In this article, we will examine what it is about Murakami’s writing that keeps us turning the pages, from the fragmentation of his narratives to the philosophical questions that they raise. By looking at some of his most iconic works, I hope to explain how Murakami’s attempt at explaining the human experience has come to apply to the world of uncertainty and complexity.
When reading Murakami, you have to think about what was happening in Japan between the end of the war and current times. It had become the scene of rapid industrialization and modernization, mixing traditional values with Western imprints. The specific period of transformation after Japan’s economic bubble burst in the early 1990’s was a period of disillusionment for people. The rapid rise of consumerism and globalization resulted in a dissonance between tradition and the new, leaving people to negotiate their own sense of identity and meaning in a changing world.
In Murakami this conflict stands out clearly. His characters are always torn between tradition of Japan and the influence of the western world. I observe his protagonists to be fighting both the world and themselves—existential crises, alienation, and the search for an individual identity in a society that seems to become progressively materialistic. It is a theme that is close to my heart as I try to analyse the effects of globalization and technology to my own subjectivity.
"Things are not always as they seem, but at the same time, nothing is ever really lost."
— Haruki Murakami, Norwegian Wood (1987)
Norwegian Wood (1987) is one of Murakami’s best-known works, yet it’s a departure from the surreal signature of Murakami’s other works and takes on a grounding of the theme of love, grief, and youth. Set against the backdrop of 1960s Japan, the novel follows Toru Watanabe, a young man caught in complicated relationships with two women: Naoko, the emotionally fragile one, and Midori, the free spirit. So I’m struck by the way in which Toru’s relationships and the death of loved ones is such a nuanced coming-of-age tale set amid emotional turmoil and existential uncertainty.
While the novel engages with more real life than some of Murakami’s other books, it’s full of themes of emotional isolation and trying to figure out who you are. In this reflection, Toru reflects upon death, mental illness, and identity. The sense of disconnection he feels from others echoes Murakami’s broader exploration of how people are often unable to fully understand themselves or those they love.
The Beatles song that shares this title also play a key role in Norwegian Wood, and in fact, music in general is vital to the story. So the song is a metaphor for memory and the inevitability of change and repeats within the novel. It’s the bittersweet quality of nostalgia—wanting to live in this present, with all of its wonders, but failing to grasp how very deeply it will slip away.
Norwegian Wood is about reality, but Kafka on the shore (2002) which is written in fantasy is about fate and hidden identity. This novel intertwines two separate yet interconnected stories: The one follows Kafka Tamura, a 15-year-old boy who flees from home to avoid having a cursed doom happening to him, the other Nakata an elderly man with limited intellectual abilities that does have some kind of mysterious powers. The novel is a labyrinth of metaphysical questions, dreams and inexplicable events as the paths eventually converge between the two.
"I suppose that’s what I’ve been doing all my life: running from one place to the next, and never getting anywhere."
— Haruki Murakami, Kafka on the Shore (2002)
I like how Kafka on the Shore pushed Kafka's boundaries to reality. That involves talking cats, mysterious storms, the sense that you’re trapped by fate and are being held in some way, and that kind of surrealism. The normal rules of time, space, and cause and effect are essentially collapsed—a sense of instability risks mirroring the postmodern condition—Murakami presents a world. For me this isn’t just the thrill of reading something extraordinary, it’s a way of picking at the nature of the self, and our tendency to believe we understand how the world works.
This is reflected in the novel’s fragmented narrative structure, exploiting perspectives and timelines, for it runs counter to linear, objective storytelling, characteristic of modernist literature. As readers, we too want to make sense of our world, just as Kakfa and Nakata try to do. Murakami asks us to try to solve the secrets of human life, to confront our own fears and desires, and to think of those forces that shape our existence, whether we can really extraordinary or not.
Murakami pushes his exploration of fate and identity even further into new, complex territory, crafting a parallel world that reflects but also obfuscates reality in 1Q84 (2009). The story centers on two first-person narrators—Aomame and Tengo—caught up in Tokyo’s other such as the laws of time and space and no longer fixed societal norms. More intricately tied to the characters’ inner lives than Kafka on the Shore but steeped in surrealism, 1Q84, much like Kafka on the Shore, is surrealism. Aomame is a fitness instructor and assassin; Tengo is a writer trapped in a trap of manipulation, and somehow, somehow both of them feel themselves become less sure of who they are, or even if they exist in a world that feels both a character so close to home and conceptually removed.
The shifting reality of these characters mirrors Murakami’s fundamental theme of identity: things fragile, uncertain, shaped by outside forces that aren’t in one's control. I find 1Q84 extremely interesting for exploring life’s parallels and the fine lines that link us to the world and to the others. The things they chose, no matter how small, seem to have consequences across dimensions: Mochizuki Aomame and Tengo’s lives intersect in such a way that they cannot at first grasp, and that they do so does not have anything to do with aliens, or space, or other such stuff they cannot see.
The entire novel is built on the fundamental uncertainty, and that's why the novel's title is "1Q84," with the "Q" for question. It’s this constant questioning of reality that puts readers to task, asking them to question their own assumptions of the world, whether it's their own place in it. Like Kafka on the Shore, Murakami’s use of fractured, fantastical structure implements a teasing, fragmented story that mirrors how strangeness sits uncomfortably near the edges, collapsing boundaries between reality and fantasy until all is a matter of fickle interpretation, blurring how we know something or understand another’s experience, and leaving us searching for our humanity between sense and nonsense, our own lines of fate dashed if we can even see something out there to define it.
Surrealism and the sublime are the heart of Murakami’s writing. In his hands, Surrealism isn’t a stylistic choice; it’s a way to probe the depths of the human psyche. His characters are often forced to encounter strange things in very dreamlike situations that make me question how I understand reality. In Murakami’s worlds, the boundaries between the ordinary and extraordinary are always in flux, and it’s always hard to tell what’s real and what’s imagined. This uncertainty mirrors the postmodern preoccupation with subjectivity and the unattainability of absolute truth.
Unlike the sublime, this is not from traditional notions of beauty or grandeur, but from the epicness of the human experience—the unknowable, the chaotic, the threatening. Reading Murakami exposes me to the intricacies of human existence and writes a bit of relief into my fingertips when I understand that things aren’t meant to be understood. I have this feeling that life isn’t necessarily supposed to be fully understood, but rather just lived.
Murakami’s characters—no matter what settings they’re in—push themselves to break away from their own fractured selves. The process of self-discovery is rarely linear or straightforward, and I’m often reminded of that. I find the richness in Murakami’s work in this ambiguity.
Music is one of the most unique aspects of Murakami’s writing—Western pop culture in particular. Music in his books isn’t really background noise; it’s how he bridges the external world to the internal emotional states of his characters. Music is a cultural touchstone, whether it’s the melancholy strains of The Beatles in Norwegian Wood or the jazz that permeates 1Q84, a place and time that guides the narrative and—as a result—makes the themes universal.
"The song is so clear in my mind, it’s like I can hear it playing now in my head. The problem is, I don’t know how to put it into words."
— Haruki Murakami, Norwegian Wood (1987)
Murakami’s references to music and pop culture, to me, also list the current status of the globalized world, in which his characters are roaming around. But they’re not only defined by their immediate environment, but rather by the wider cultural landscape too. These references help define who these people are in a way both highly personal and clearly identifiable to anyone from any culture; their struggles with love, loss and selfhood are universal.
Haruki Murakami’s use of the postmodern psyche provides me with a rare chance to address the conundrum of identity, memory, and existence in a piece of disjointed world. No matter what his muses are, whether he’s writing based in reality or based in surrealism, I find myself drawn into the uncertainty and ambiguity that is synonymous to our modern experience. Murakami forces me to consider where on earth and who with I stand, asking me to look at forces that conspire within and outside my orbits.
I read Murakami and realize that life is everything that isn’t meant to be totally dissected. The idea is to experience, live, explore. Murakami provides me a space to sit with the messy expression of being of being human through his surreal landscapes and philosophical musings. I find an enriching literary experience and a richer understanding of myself and the world around me in this exploration.