On Murakami and Gaiman

Every creative fiction writer has a different way of incorporating genre and style in their works. How implausible their themes might be from the real world, they have the ability to insert diverse elements in order to draw in the reader’s imagination in their own fictional world and make these stories come into life. Many times the peculiarity of their plot might bring the reader into question the possibility of a particular element in the real world. However, the lesson we learned from reading these works bridges the fictional world to our reality.  

Neil Gaiman and Haruki Murakami are popular writers of creative fiction novels. Their works are known by many people because of their linguistic dexterity and stylized manner of creative writing. In this blog, each of their own written works will be analyzed on how they integrate action and performance in their texts. By examining written works of Gaiman and Murakami, it will shed light on how they differ in terms of capturing bodily movement in their writing styles.

Neil Gaiman’s Harlequin Valentine, is about a theatrical pantomime called a harlequin, who fell in love with his dearest Columbine, named Missy. The story’s main theme centers on unrequited love. This romantic aficionado expressed his devotion to this young lady in a very peculiar way by pinning his own heart to the door. What made it more interesting is Missy’s reaction throughout the whole story. She travelled with the heart in her pocket to find out who it belongs to, while ending up eating the heart which led to the discovery of the harlequin.

Gaiman delicately described every bodily movement in the story especially on the part where Missy found the heart pinned on her door.

“She removes the pin from the heart, and puts the heart into the plastic sandwich bag. She wipes the blood from the door with a squirt of cleaning spray and rub of paper towel…”

He described the whole scene as it where the most natural and ordinary to thing to do in the world. Although there’s a subtle hint of a ghastly image involving the presence of a human heart, he was able to build a strange, yet fantastic visual in the reader’s mind while using ordinary household items to build a more realistic image. Since Gaiman used the character of a harlequin or an English pantomime known for its tricks and humor, the performance is marked by animation and outwardness. Also, every performance became a metaphor of its own on explaining the harsh circumstances of unrequited love. There you can see how magical realism is being incorporated on realistic fiction. 

Gaiman also formed vivid scenes of bodily movement by creating fanciful imageries.

“She tosses the wand into the air: it tumbles and twists in high arc, red and yellow ribbons twisting and swirling about, and then it lands neatly, almost silently, back into her hand.”

There you can see how the author depicted a performance by evoking sensory impressions and adding feminine details to achieve a colorful and dramatic scene. Throughout the whole piece, Gaiman effectively achieved the integration of performance and bodily movement through the use of fantastic images in his language and style of writing.

On the other hand, Haruki Murakami’s Birthday Girl is basically about birthday wishes and wishful desires. The story is about a young waitress compelled to work for a night shift on the night of her birthday. The recurring element of the story centers on the owner of a restaurant she works in, who apparently never been seen by any of her co-workers except for their manager who brings dinner to the owner’s room. However, it happened that the manager fell ill on the same day and it was waitress who was asked to fill in. On that fateful meeting, the owner upon discovering that it was the night of the waitress’ birthday, he decided to give her a present by making one of her birthday wishes come true.

The story was basically filled with psychological predicaments. The birthday wish made by the waitress was never been mentioned but somehow, it created a sense of anticipation for the reader on discovering what was the wish all about. Meanwhile, the integration of performance in the story relied on the discourse of communication and manner of thinking.

“She was at a loss for words. One wish? Whipped by the wind, raindrops tapped unevenly at the windowpane. As long as she remained silent, the old man looked into her eyes, saying nothing. Time marked its irregular pulse in her ears.”

Murakami also applied a very subtle manner of depicting bodily movements and impressions in his work.

“The eyes she turned on me seemed to lack any depth. The desiccated shadow of a smile flickered at the corners of her mouth, suggested a kind of hushed sense of resignation.”

Compared to Gaiman’s Harlequin Valentine, it can be noticed that every performance happened continuously by moving the character to one place to another. While in Murakami’s Birthday Girl, the performance is in a fixed setting. The scenes happened in a stable environment so every bodily movement is very limited and marked by preciseness.

In analyzing Gaiman and Murakami’s writing style in integrating performance and bodily movement, we may infer that these writers applied different techniques on how they paint the character through a series of interpreted actions. Gaiman’s Harlequin Valentine is filled with animated and vivid performances while Murakami’s Birthday Girl can be very delicate yet artful in its own style.