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Paper short abstract:

This paper focuses on several works of Murakami Haruki, Takahashi Gen’ichirō and Shimada Masahiko, their ironic and often parodic depiction of student movement, and their own rebellion towards canonical figures like Ōe Kenzaburō or Mishima Yukio.

Paper long abstract:

In the context of Japanese literary history, the period from late 1970’s and through the 1980’s was in many ways transitional. During this period a generation of post-war born writers like Nakagami Kenji, Murakami Ryū, Murakami Haruki, Takahashi Gen’ichirō or Shimada Masahiko made their literary debut. Their works are associated with deconstructive or relativistic attitudes towards modern phenomena like individual identity, family, history or the idea of nation state or literature itself.

This transition can be also seen in treatment of various figures and works from modern and post-war literary history. Murakami Haruki in 1973 nen no pinbōru (1980) alludes towards Ōe’s novel Man’en gan’nen no futtobōru (1967), in Hitsuji wo meguru bōken (1982) his dismissive depiction of Mishima Yukio’s televised speech before his seppuku is coupled with the theme of right-wing legacy of Japanese history. Takahashi Gen’ichirō often uses allusions towards figures and works of modern and post-war literary history in an ahistorical way, robbing them of their historical context and putting them on a same arbitrary level as any other sign. Early works of both writers are heavily influenced by the 1960’s student movement they both experienced, albeit in a very different way. In this sense, their rebellion towards literary canon couples with shadow of post-war history and student rebellion, that caused the end of so called seiji no kisetsu, or “political season” and marked a generation for decades to come. On the other hand, Shimada Masahiko’s early works are in sharp contrast to Murakami and Takahashi. Being from a younger generation, Shimada’s ironic and parodic detachment towards the idea of rebellion is even deeper, as expressed not only in his often comedic depiction of young activists, but also his parodic allusions to works by Ōe, or his ironic depiction of Mishima Yukio in works like Boku wa mozō ningen (1986).

This paper focuses on function of allusions towards mostly post-war authors, that provide a political charge to the works of above-mentioned authors, and examines, how this often dismissive or ironic treatment of modern and post-war legacy marks a transition towards the postmodern.