Contents

Preface

Acknowledgments

Introduction: The Power of the “Story”

One Last Dance with the Sheep

From Reader to Writer in Twenty-Nine Easy Steps

Murakami as Global Writer

Murakami as a Japanese Writer

Enter the “Other World”

Into the Cellar of Our Minds

1: New Words, New Worlds

The Ontological Status of Language

Ecos of the Past

Of Dogs and Men

Prophesy and Prediction

Reconstructing the Self through Words: The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle

Reconstructing the Self through Words: Kafka on the Shore

A Question of Subjectivity

A Whole New World: 1Q84

2: Into the Mad, Metaphysical Realm

Mapping “Over There”

Of Psyche and Soul

Martian Winds and Wells: Hear the Wind Sing

Into the Chilly Gloom: Pinball, 1973

Passages to the World of the Dead

Metaphysical Realism: Norwegian Wood

The Unconscious “Shared Space”: The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle

The Body as Vessel

Into the Forbidding Forest

Exploiting the Mind-Body Split

Balance and Flow

An Uncontrolled Substance: After Dark

Once More into the Wormhole

3: Gods and Oracles, Fate and Mythology

Mythology’s Greatest Hits

The Mythological Murakami

The Early Underworld: Cold Storage

Thunder of the Gods

It’s Not Easy Being Divine

Of True and False Prophets

Fate versus Free Will: Kafka on the Shore and 1Q84

The Killing of the Father

4: Murakami Haruki as Literary Journalist

Toward a Definition of Literary Journalism

The Role of the Media

Underground and Underground 2

From Creative Nonfiction to Journalistic Fiction

Fictional Realities and Real Fictions

Double Exposure: 1Q84

5: Forbidden Dreams from “Over There”

The Early Narrative

The Present Narrative

Once More into the “Other World”

Through the Doors of Perception

Forbidden Dreams from “Over There”

Shiro’s Forbidden Dreams

Epilogue: The Roads Not Taken

Notes

Bibliography

Index