Advanced capitalism

From Dance Dance Dance by Haruki Murakami:

I enjoy shopping at [the fancy-schmancy Kinokuniya supermarket]. You may not believe this, but the lettuce you buy there lasts longer than lettuce anywhere else. Don’t ask me why. Maybe they round up the lettuce after they close for the day and give them special training. It wouldn’t surprise me. This is advanced capitalism, after all.

Nearly everyone I know who has read Murakami dislikes his books because they don’t like the narrators, who are—i guess—”unlikeable.” Murakami’s narrators represent the postmodern everyman: Detached, deadpan, resigned.. annoying, because his apathetic attitude means that you don’t love him or hate him enough to find him interesting. Remind you of anyone?

Dance Dance Dance is only the third Murakami novel I’ve read (the others being A Wild Sheep Chase and Norwegian Wood). Verdict: this is not escapist literature. The narrators are unlikeable probably because they remind us of ourselves, and that’s the point, isn’t it? Surrealism isn’t the same as magical realism, and Murakami is actually a master of the latter. When you adjust expectations, the narrators’ introspection becomes eerily relatable. The perfect windows into their worlds, which can be just as bizarre as our own realities. Very Nick Carraway-esque; I’m sane and everyone around me is crazy. Or is it that I’m crazy and everyone else is sane?