Postmodern Surrealism in the Second Bakery Attack
Since its establishment, surrealist media has been able to capture our attention with its abstract thought provoking nature. It began with literature and spread to all other forms of expression across the globe. Although it had gained such renown, it wasn’t until The Second Bakery Attack was released in a collection of short stories by Haruki Murakami that surrealist literature arrived in Japan. The Second Bakery Attack stood out above all other literary releases of its time, receiving universally positive reviews and revolutionizing the way Japan viewed literature. The story is set in modern times, revolving around a newlywed couple who awake one night with a strange and powerful hunger. The narrator is the husband, speaking in the first person, he dictates his thoughts on the events as they unfold. The couple soon set out on a mission to rob a bakery in order to break their “curse” of hunger. Throughout the story, strange situations arise, which the husband convinces himself are normal aspects of married life. In order to clarify the husband’s feeling towards his wife, Murakami uses a vivid, metaphoric image of a volcano beneath the sea. By using a unique and original postmodern surrealist style and descriptive imagery in the short story The Second Bakery Attack, Haruki Murakami was able to give birth to a new era of surrealist literature in Japan. This originality served to break away from the realism of the traditional Japanese I-novel and appeal to the Japanese people of the time who desired literature with more of a western approach.
By only giving the main characters of the story an understanding of their strange behavior, Murakami broke away from the conventions of stan...
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...ablished norm of the time and created a masterpiece. The Second Bakery Attack will always be remembered as one of the first Japanese postmodern surrealist piece of literature. If it were not for Murakami it is possible that Japan would not have escaped from the cliché that is the I-novel.
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Murakami, Haruki. "Haruki Murakami: The Second Bakery Attack". 11/02/09
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Fallows, James. "After Centuries of Japanese Isoation, a Fateful Meeting of East and West." {Smithsonian} July 1994: 20-33.
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Reischauer, Edwin O., and Albert M. Craig. Japan, Tradition & Transformation. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1978. Print.
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"Japanese literature :: The significance of the Man'yoshu -- Britannica Online Encyclopedia." Encyclopedia - Britannica Online Encyclopedia. 15 Feb. 2011 .
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