Sartre's second century

188 Chapter Twelve
stories, there are further hints that Murakami, if not quite consciously
drawing upon "Sartrean sources", shares with his existentialist forebear a
number of preoccupations that bespeak similar perspectives and
interrogations. Let us consider a few examples. First, the anonymous firstperson
narrator of "The Mirror" 43 has a problem recognising himself in it:
My reflection in the mirror wasn't me. It looked exactly like me on the
outside, but it definitely was not me. No, that's not it. It was me, of course,
but another me. Another me that should never have been. 44
This disconcerting inability to comprehend one's own image as, in fact,
just that is powerfully reminiscent of the scene in which Roquentin suffers
the same frightening and sickening experience:
On the wall there is a white hole, the mirror. It's a trap. I know I'm going
to let myself get caught. That's it. The grey thing has just appeared in the
mirror. [...] it's the reflection of my face. [...] I understand nothing about
this face. Other people's have a meaning. Not mine. 45
For Murakami, this anomaly leads his narrator to banish mirrors from his
house and to conclude that "the most frightening thing in the world is our
own self', 46 a conclusion reached also by Sartre's trio of damned
characters in Huis clos, from whose hellish confines mirrors are equally
banished, so that they must rely entirely and agonisingly on each other's
gaze for their sense of self.
Next, we find the concept of the "wall" used by Murakami as a
metaphor of containment, limitation and frustration—"I'm going to be
surrounded by this thick wall for ever, never allowed to venture outside.
The rest of my insipid, pointless life" 47 —much as it is by Sartre in his
prize-winning collection of short stories, Le Mur (The Wall). 4 * Or again,
Murakami touches upon the contingency of human existence in another
place, telling us that a poor aunt's "existence is her reason. Just like us.
43
In Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman, 55-59.
44
Ibid., 58.
45
"Au mur, il y a un trou blanc, la glace. C'est un pi&ge. Je sais que je vais m'y
laisser prendre. £a y est. La chose grise vient d'apparaitre dans la glace. [...] c'est
le reflet de mon visage. [...] je n'y comprends rien, a ce visage. Ceux des autres
ont un sens. Pas le mien" (La Nausee, 22).
46
'The Mirror", 59.
47
"A Folklore for My Generation", 71.
48
In (Euvres romanesques, 211-388; published in 1939 and awarded the Prix du
Roman Populiste in 1940.