村上春樹『1Ｑ84』論–神話と歴史を紡ぐ者たち

The Weavers of Myths and Histories: On Haruki Murakami's '1Q84'

Approaching to the Japanese classics is one of the literal prototypical experiences for Haruki Murakami. In his works of recent years, he does even quote from those books such as ”Ugetsu-Monogatari” and ”The tale of the Heike”, which were extremely favorites from his youth. And as for ”Kojiki”, although it mentioned only one time in his latest novel ”1Q84”, yet we can’t ignore the importance of the significance of this text in it.In regard to the generation process of this history description by letter writing of oral expression, if we recollect the thesis talked in IMO NO CHIKARA by Kunio Yanagita; Hieda no Are (the narrator of Kojiki) was female, we can easily find out the homogeny between this text and Fuka- Eri's ”Air Chrysalis” rewritten in ”1Q84” by Tengo Kawana, who is one of the protagonists of the novel. And this Air Chrysalis supports the world of ”1Q84” behind it as something like the myth about genesis. It has been pointed that Murakami's works obviously have mythical constructions even in his early pieces. But more important in ”1Q84” is the metaphorical function fulfilled by Air Chrysalis as the myth about genesis. It makes the exodus of Tengo and Aomame from the world of ”1Q84” at the end of the novel, the representation of possibility how to the mankind oppose to the existing myths and histories which incidentally oppress them.