Land Of The Sinking Sun, English 85D: 21st century novels & the post-literate experience

Land Of The Sinking Sun

Sep.22.2027

Murakami Returns:

Reclusive author announces release of first novel after decade of silence.

By Chazz Pewilter

Renowned author Haruki Murakami provided a pleasant surprise for his fans and much of the book-reading world yesterday when he broke an almost decade of self-imposed silence and confirmed rumors that that he would, in fact, be publishing a new novel. In an open-letter published on, what was believed to be, his defunct website, the 77 year old writer provided details about his newest and, now massively anticipated, work but notably declined to mention anything directly about his 10 years of absence.

Entitled “Land of the Sinking Sun” the novel seems to draw from the same surrealist, science-fiction, and autobiographical vein that made Murakami famous in the 1980s. The story follows a fictionalized version of the author who grows tired with his Howard Hughes-esque retreat from the world and decides to see a therapist who specializes in helping agoraphobes. The “therapist”, however, is quickly revealed to be something extra-normal (in true Murakami fashion) when the fictional Murakami is prescribed a special type of medicine which can allow him to trade bodies with any living-thing he encounters.

After taking pity one day on an American hitchhiker caught in the rain, the fictional-Murakami seizes his opportunity to escape himself and makes a deal with the hitchhiker, offering to switch places with the vagabond through the shared use of the mysterious drug. When the American accepts the deal, the disguised Murakami leaves Japan and assumes the American’s life as an English student in California, or the “land of the sinking sun” as the American jokingly refers to it.

The post leaves us in suspense with this last plot point, but it is clear that Murakami will be working out some of his personal demons in this new book. Murakami’s exile from his already minimal public life came after a savage beating at an Osaka book signing in 2017. The attack was at the hands an Ultra-Nationalist group who took offensive to some of Murakami’s perceived criticisms of Japanese culture. The author survived but he lost the use of his left eye, so a novel about escape seems fitting. Indeed, the noted westophile may be delivering his most personal fantasy yet with a tale of starting life again as a Californian….

Chazz Pewilter is an automated journalistic algorithm, if you are experiencing factual errors plz contact us at globonews.support@bingbong.com

2.

English 85D: 21st century novels & the post-literate experience

Apple Orange Jr.

English 85D

2/15/2035

Teach-Sim#198500b

@PCQ/Land of the Sinking Sun/ Neo-Structuralist Iconoclasm

@ssertion:

In hiz book Land of the Sinking Sun Murakami is trying to deal with his fame and the bad stuff that happened to him but also he is trying to destroy the idea of himself. The novel is a “personal-iconoclasm” which is a concept that is super important to this guy Arthur Jinks whoz a really big “neo-structuralist” and knows about that sort of stuff. Anyway, whats cool about the novel is that its a stream of consciousness talking about reading novels that are stream of consciousness and thats hella meta which I actually think is pretty chill because it fucks with structures and stuff. </insert image html “thumbs up” gif/>

Passages:

“So you do recognize me?” I said.

“Yeah, it just took me a minute” said the American, as I lit his cigarette.

I could tell he felt uncomfortable, he didn’t want to say that it was my disfigurement that had caused his confusion. In fact, I wondered if he really believed me at all and I was troubled suddenly to find how proud I had become.

Inhaling, the American motioned towards the car’s stereo.

“You really do like Bob Dylan after all” he said grinning. He was trying to change the subject.

Pg. 87

what I like about this part I guess is that its when he first meets the hitchhiker or whatever but you can tell Murakami is like really self conscious about getting his face messed up or whatever and the american is smoking cigarettes or whatever and thats like probably the first part where Murakami is like dang screw japan i wanna be this guy i guess. lol :) ❤333

“It was almost my turn to speak in class. The students were assembled in a large circle as they gave their summaries in the forms of assertions and connections. I was oddly nervous, somehow, I still couldn’t believe my english sounded completely correct when it came out of the American’s body. It was the imperfections, the parochial amercianisms, that made me most nervous. The hitchhiker and I had spent several days coaching each other on how to mimic one another properly. I had believed that my life would easier as him, and that I was getting the better end of the deal. Now I am not so sure. I am thinking of my body back home and what he might be doing with it. Was it even still my body? How would I review my own novel? Hard Boiled. The book had been difficult to read in english. If the professor did not like what I had to say, would I explode? Would I reveal myself as an imposter? If I was revealed, who would be the bigger imposter- me? or the American? Or had I always been an imposter, until now?

Pg.198

I thought this part was really crazy cuz he doesn;t even know who he is anymore or something and hes thinking maybe he was always a fake and just didnt know it until he was a pretend fake. Ive had some fake ass friends and that shit sux. also I really think it would suck to have to go all the way to a building and talk infront of people its much better just to talk to teach-sim from my house lol. idk :))))

Connection:

I guess the connection I would make would prbly be the time I took too much ketamine with my cousin and saw that Arthur Jinks guy because it was suppose to get us into a good sim-college or something. He was talking a lot about murakami and how important his stuff was or whatever but the lights got too bright and i started tripping out so i left or something I think the ketamine was bad cuz my cousin printed it in his garage and didnt use the right chemicals or something idk lol. ;) ;) ;)

Anyway I had hard time connecting too much because id rly get why murkami wants to trade places with this guy cuz hes already a big author or whatever and i think it would suck to have to be a ginger or whatever lol jk. :D

Question:

Would you trade places with murakami if you could? idk it might be chill to live in japan and have a ton of money i bet you could party a lot. Idk if I would do it tho lol. :) ❤3 100