A blue that is almost infinitely transparent
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Description
Book Introduction
Apocalypse of Eternal Youth!
It is pitiful that youth seems to have traded the privilege of youth, the ability to dream and anticipate a life yet to come, for temporary pleasures.
But looking back, everyone must have had days like this in their youth.
Perhaps for these people, there was no other way out than pleasure, violence, laziness, and irresponsibility?
Murakami Ryu's debut work, "Infinitely Transparent Blue," won both the Akutagawa Prize and the Gunzo New Writer's Award.
It is also evaluated as a work that opened new horizons in Japanese literature.
Because this work was evaluated as a groundbreaking work that completely overturned existing literary trends.
Although Murakami Ryu has been consistently active, there are not many works that surpass the fame of his debut book, "Blue Almost Infinitely Transparent."
In particular, this work can be said to be the highlight of the “Murakami Ryu Selection,” selected by translator Yang Eok-gwan and novelist Jang Jeong-il for the rediscovery of the “Murakami Ryu.”
You will find a complete translation that conveys the original meaning as closely as possible, along with new commentary.
This book, which has the magical power to draw you in as if you were the narrator of the book despite having no specific plot, may serve as an indirect rite of passage for all of us in our youth.
So I don't know if it will be read continuously for a long time.
A novel like a toast to those who must silently pursue the path of life given to them, between ideals and reality, desire and responsibility, the instinct to run and the pursuit of stability, temptation and moderation!
It is pitiful that youth seems to have traded the privilege of youth, the ability to dream and anticipate a life yet to come, for temporary pleasures.
But looking back, everyone must have had days like this in their youth.
Perhaps for these people, there was no other way out than pleasure, violence, laziness, and irresponsibility?
Murakami Ryu's debut work, "Infinitely Transparent Blue," won both the Akutagawa Prize and the Gunzo New Writer's Award.
It is also evaluated as a work that opened new horizons in Japanese literature.
Because this work was evaluated as a groundbreaking work that completely overturned existing literary trends.
Although Murakami Ryu has been consistently active, there are not many works that surpass the fame of his debut book, "Blue Almost Infinitely Transparent."
In particular, this work can be said to be the highlight of the “Murakami Ryu Selection,” selected by translator Yang Eok-gwan and novelist Jang Jeong-il for the rediscovery of the “Murakami Ryu.”
You will find a complete translation that conveys the original meaning as closely as possible, along with new commentary.
This book, which has the magical power to draw you in as if you were the narrator of the book despite having no specific plot, may serve as an indirect rite of passage for all of us in our youth.
So I don't know if it will be read continuously for a long time.
A novel like a toast to those who must silently pursue the path of life given to them, between ideals and reality, desire and responsibility, the instinct to run and the pursuit of stability, temptation and moderation!
- You can preview some of the book's contents.
Preview
Into the book
The end of 'youth' and the world of enlightenment through complete self-loss!
Professor Yuji Hosaka (Sejong University College of Humanities, Department of Liberal Arts) says of the book's theme, "He depicts the return to the original human state from a state of self-loss that has fallen into the abyss as one of its themes."
As he said, Murakami Ryu in his younger days shows the motifs of his life and works in this work.
Kill me quickly, kill me quickly.
I grabbed the neck with the red line drawn on it.
At that moment, the edge of space and time shone.
A blue flash revealed everything in an instant.
Lily's body, my arms, my base, the mountains, and the sky were all revealed.
And I saw a single curve running beyond them that had become transparent.
A curve of a shape I've never seen before, a white undulation—a white undulation drawing a gentle curve. ---p.107
Ryu, the protagonist of "Blue, Close to Infinite Transparency," discovers his true self in a state of self-loss where he has abandoned "himself," and only then does he escape the embrace of the "black bird" that covers the world.
This is the agony of a young man at the end of his youth and his own decision about the world.
Having broken through one world, he finally escaped a moment of 'youth' and found his path.
Every time I breathe, I forget myself.
All sorts of things are leaving my body one by one, and I feel like a doll.
The room is filled with sweet air and smoke scratches the lungs.
The feeling that I am a doll is growing stronger.
Just move as you wish.
I am the happiest slave. ---p.79
Lily, that's a bird. Look closely. That city is a bird. That's not a city. There are no people living on those streets. That's a bird. Don't you see? Really? The man who shouted at the missile in the desert to explode was trying to kill the bird.
I must kill the bird, if I don't kill the bird I won't know myself, the bird is a hindrance, it hides from me what I want to see.
I'm going to kill the bird, Lily, if you don't kill the bird, I'll die.
Lili, where are you? Let's kill a bird together. Lili, I can't see anything. Lili, I can't see anything.
I roll on the floor.
Lily runs outside, and a car sounds.
The light bulb is spinning.
A bird flies, flies outside the window.
Lily is nowhere to be found.
A huge, black bird flies this way.
I picked up the shards of glass that were on the carpet.
He held it tightly and thrust it into his trembling arm.
Professor Yuji Hosaka (Sejong University College of Humanities, Department of Liberal Arts) says of the book's theme, "He depicts the return to the original human state from a state of self-loss that has fallen into the abyss as one of its themes."
As he said, Murakami Ryu in his younger days shows the motifs of his life and works in this work.
Kill me quickly, kill me quickly.
I grabbed the neck with the red line drawn on it.
At that moment, the edge of space and time shone.
A blue flash revealed everything in an instant.
Lily's body, my arms, my base, the mountains, and the sky were all revealed.
And I saw a single curve running beyond them that had become transparent.
A curve of a shape I've never seen before, a white undulation—a white undulation drawing a gentle curve. ---p.107
Ryu, the protagonist of "Blue, Close to Infinite Transparency," discovers his true self in a state of self-loss where he has abandoned "himself," and only then does he escape the embrace of the "black bird" that covers the world.
This is the agony of a young man at the end of his youth and his own decision about the world.
Having broken through one world, he finally escaped a moment of 'youth' and found his path.
Every time I breathe, I forget myself.
All sorts of things are leaving my body one by one, and I feel like a doll.
The room is filled with sweet air and smoke scratches the lungs.
The feeling that I am a doll is growing stronger.
Just move as you wish.
I am the happiest slave. ---p.79
Lily, that's a bird. Look closely. That city is a bird. That's not a city. There are no people living on those streets. That's a bird. Don't you see? Really? The man who shouted at the missile in the desert to explode was trying to kill the bird.
I must kill the bird, if I don't kill the bird I won't know myself, the bird is a hindrance, it hides from me what I want to see.
I'm going to kill the bird, Lily, if you don't kill the bird, I'll die.
Lili, where are you? Let's kill a bird together. Lili, I can't see anything. Lili, I can't see anything.
I roll on the floor.
Lily runs outside, and a car sounds.
The light bulb is spinning.
A bird flies, flies outside the window.
Lily is nowhere to be found.
A huge, black bird flies this way.
I picked up the shards of glass that were on the carpet.
He held it tightly and thrust it into his trembling arm.
---pp.184-185
Publisher's Review
Complete self-denial of reality and 'heterotopia'
The overwhelming and vivid images of 'vomit, bugs, and corruption' belong to the novel's protagonist Ryu, who alone seeks to maintain clarity in a world where everything has rotted away, but also to the twenty-four-year-old writer Murakami Ryu.
Just as all young people in the world are armed with a sense of disillusionment and rejection of the world, Ryu, at the time he wrote this novel, also denied the society he lived in with all his heart.
The nineteen-year-old existentialist Ryu in the novel and the real twenty-four-year-old Ryu are doppelgangers connected by the sensibilities of youth.
‘Heterotopia’, a compound word of ‘other’ and ‘place’, is, unlike a non-existent utopia, folded into the everyday space where we live.
All of the characters in this novel, including the narrator Ryu, are social misfits, but at the same time, they are builders of heterotopia.
The novel's main stages—Reiko's bar, Oscar's house where the sex party took place, and the Hibiya Outdoor Music Hall where the rock 'n' roll performance took place—are their own liberation zones where existing social conventions, power, and morality do not apply.
Only there do they become masters.
No one can tell them to abandon their proud role as owners of the heterotopia they belong to and settle into mainstream society.
Rather than becoming a part of mainstream society, they would rather create a hole (heterotopia) in the rigid mainstream society.
- From Jang Jeong-il's commentary
Another device called 'music' that transcends the limits of linguistic expression
One aspect that cannot be overlooked in this novel is the medium called ‘music.’
The 'music' that appears in this novel appears in every crucial scene involving the protagonist Ryu, and not only plays a role in enriching the atmosphere of the work, but also allows us to read the author's meticulousness in trying to express the limits that cannot be expressed in words, beyond simply describing 'a time in youth'.
This novel features a feast of music that was all the rage at the time, including The Doors, The Rolling Stones, Bar Case, Mal Waldron, Louis Bonfar, James Brown, Charles Mingus, Led Zeppelin, Janis Joplin, Pink Floyd, The Byrds, and Van Morrison.
In particular, the sagging samba of 'Luis Bonpa', 'Black Orpheus' and 'Osibisa' containing African rhythms serve as important mediums for conveying strong emotions, as if reminiscent of scenes from a movie, showing the mental exhaustion of the protagonist Ryu through a wild party scene.
The overwhelming and vivid images of 'vomit, bugs, and corruption' belong to the novel's protagonist Ryu, who alone seeks to maintain clarity in a world where everything has rotted away, but also to the twenty-four-year-old writer Murakami Ryu.
Just as all young people in the world are armed with a sense of disillusionment and rejection of the world, Ryu, at the time he wrote this novel, also denied the society he lived in with all his heart.
The nineteen-year-old existentialist Ryu in the novel and the real twenty-four-year-old Ryu are doppelgangers connected by the sensibilities of youth.
‘Heterotopia’, a compound word of ‘other’ and ‘place’, is, unlike a non-existent utopia, folded into the everyday space where we live.
All of the characters in this novel, including the narrator Ryu, are social misfits, but at the same time, they are builders of heterotopia.
The novel's main stages—Reiko's bar, Oscar's house where the sex party took place, and the Hibiya Outdoor Music Hall where the rock 'n' roll performance took place—are their own liberation zones where existing social conventions, power, and morality do not apply.
Only there do they become masters.
No one can tell them to abandon their proud role as owners of the heterotopia they belong to and settle into mainstream society.
Rather than becoming a part of mainstream society, they would rather create a hole (heterotopia) in the rigid mainstream society.
- From Jang Jeong-il's commentary
Another device called 'music' that transcends the limits of linguistic expression
One aspect that cannot be overlooked in this novel is the medium called ‘music.’
The 'music' that appears in this novel appears in every crucial scene involving the protagonist Ryu, and not only plays a role in enriching the atmosphere of the work, but also allows us to read the author's meticulousness in trying to express the limits that cannot be expressed in words, beyond simply describing 'a time in youth'.
This novel features a feast of music that was all the rage at the time, including The Doors, The Rolling Stones, Bar Case, Mal Waldron, Louis Bonfar, James Brown, Charles Mingus, Led Zeppelin, Janis Joplin, Pink Floyd, The Byrds, and Van Morrison.
In particular, the sagging samba of 'Luis Bonpa', 'Black Orpheus' and 'Osibisa' containing African rhythms serve as important mediums for conveying strong emotions, as if reminiscent of scenes from a movie, showing the mental exhaustion of the protagonist Ryu through a wild party scene.
GOODS SPECIFICS
- Date of issue: August 22, 2014
- Page count, weight, size: 216 pages | 338g | 141*205*15mm
- ISBN13: 9788993690286
- ISBN10: 8993690286
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