Murakami Haruki: The Simulacrum in Contemporary Japanese Culture

In his book,Murakami Haruki, Dr. Michael Seats offers an important philosophical intervention in the discussion of the relationship between Murakami’s fiction and contemporary Japanese culture. Breaking through conventional analysis, Seats demonstrates how Murakami’s first and later trilogies utilize the structure of the simulacrum, a second-order representation, to develop a complex critique of contemporary Japanese culture. By outlining the critical-fictional contours of the ‘Murakami Phenomenon,’ the discussion confronts the vexing question of Japanese modernity and subjectivity within the contexts of the national-cultural imaginary. Seats finds mirroring comparisons between Murakami’s works and practices in current media-entertainment technologies, indicating a new politics of representation.Murakami Haruki is a critical text for scholars and students of Japanese Studies and Critical Theory, and is an essential guide for those interested in modern Japanese literature.