My Weekend of Transgression - Avenue Q and The Book of Mormon

Well, what a weekend it was. 

 

(And I’m not talking about the ongoing attempted coup by the Muskrat - I recommend following Alt National Parks, Heather Cox Richardson, and Rebecca Solnit for updates and ways you can resist. In addition to passing along information on social media, I have been calling representatives daily. Phones are seriously busy today. Do what you can - resistance to fascism is going to have so many facets, and everyone can do something.) 

 

But, for today, I am going to talk about what I saw on stage. 

 

First, on Friday, I took an adult kid to see Avenue Q at our local theater, Ovation. Second, I joined my wife’s group of knitting friends to see the traveling production of The Book of Mormon. 

 

Both of these plays are transgressive, irreverent, shocking, borderline obscene, and funny as hell. (And literally hell in one case…) They are also related. 

 

For reasons I cannot understand, a lot of people have no idea that The Book of Mormon was created by the South Park guys. Really? How did they miss that? South Park was also a huge influence on the writers of Avenue Q. In turn, Avenue Q itself influenced The Book of Mormon. 

 

I feel silly giving a warning like this, but apparently people are clueless. Both of these plays are not for children. Don’t let the puppets in the one, or the Mormons in the other, make you think these are good clean fun. They aren’t. They are good, aggressively filthy, fun. 

 

To be clear: puppets having sex on stage, discussion of pornography and sexuality in the one case; graphic discussion of female genital mutilation, rape of infants, and beastiality in the other. So, yeah, this may or may not be for you. South Park. Got it?

 

The reason both of these plays are as fun as they are, though, is that they are wicked satire, not just vulgarity for its own sake. 

 

Avenue Q subverts the good-intentions liberalism of Sesame Street with some uncomfortable truths about human nature and human systems. 

 

The Book of Mormon takes on not just LDS doctrines (which it does) but also the problem of religion generally, and “White Savior” missionary work specifically. 

 

Both plays are funny - and uncomfortable -  because they present truth. 

 

Since I saw it first, I’ll talk about Avenue Q first. 

 

The premise is very much a Sesame Street spoof - the neighborhood, the local characters, human and puppet. There are the conflicts, the resolutions, the happy ending. 

 

But, this is a good bit more gritty, and often surreal. Rather than the beloved Maria, we get…Gary Coleman. Who, in this timeline, after losing his money, went to work as a building Super. Kind of sadly, this is a better ending than the real-life Coleman got. 

 

Leaving that aside, though, Liz B. Williams was hilarious in the role, getting the mannerisms and the delivery of iconic lines so very right. I did realize I am old, however, because this stuff went right over the head of my kid, who has never seen Diff’rent Strokes. 

 

Instead of Bert and Ernie, we get Rod and Nickie. And we do not have to speculate if Rod is gay - he clearly is, even if he isn’t entirely out to himself. 

 

We also get the cute couple, Kate and Princeton, who get together, break up, and are reconciled. And, well, a bit of a Miss Piggy clone, Lucy the Slut, to provide some villainy. 

 

Rounding out the puppet cast is Trekkie Monster, who is a porn-addicted version of Oscar. 

 

We can’t forget the humans either. In addition to Gary Coleman, we have Brian and his mail-order bride Christmas Eve. 

 

Wait! There’s more too: the Bad Idea Bears, which are pretty much what you get instead of an angel and devil on the shoulders - they are in full agreement about doing stupid things. In fact, I rather suspect that a number of people I know personally and professionally do in fact have their own Bad Idea Bears. 

 

The plot is simple enough. Will Kate and Princeton find love with each other? Will Rod ever find a soulmate? Will Kate get to leave her dead-end job and realize her dream to open a school for Monster children? Will Christmas Eve ever get Brian to marry her? Will Lucy the Slut and the Bad Idea Bears ruin everything? 

 

The cast was excellent, as has been the case at Ovation for years. The live music was welcome as well - and I know most of the band. (We have a great music scene here in Bakersfield, with a lot of really awesome people.) 

 

I’ll give a particular shout-out to Zachary Gonzalez (as Rod), who is apparently good at everything. His puppeteering was particularly emotive, with his own body language mirroring the puppet. 

 

It isn’t as easy as one might think to make puppets truly come to life, but this production really did, and all those involved should feel proud of their work. I won’t name everyone, but you know who you are, and I appreciated the fine work. 

 

The songs are worth mentioning - both musicals have wicked funny lyrics. For example, “It Sucks to be Me” is the perfect satire of the self esteem genre endemic to kids television. (Not that I am against self esteem, but….it needs a bit of parody now and again.) “The Internet is for Porn” is also hilarious. And plenty pointed. The hypocrisy of religious folks regarding this is incredible - it is well proven that porn consumption is highest in religious communities, and the more Fundie the community, the higher (and more transgressive) the use. One could, um, speculate as to causes here. 

 

The two best songs, though, were “Everyone’s a Little Bit Racist” and “Schadenfreude.” 

 

Everyone's a little bit racist

Sometimes.

Doesn't mean we go

Around committing hate crimes.

Look around and you will find

No one's really color blind.

Maybe it's a fact

We all should face

Everyone makes judgments

Based on race.

 

If we all could just admit

That we are racist a little bit,

Even though we all know

That it's wrong,

Maybe it would help us

Get along.

 

There is so much truth in this. Despite what certain people claim, nobody is truly color blind. We all have our biases and assumptions, but more than that, we live in a society filled with unspoken and unacknowledged beliefs surrounding race. (And sex and gender as well…) We swim in the water, so to speak. 

 

One of the first steps toward making things better is to acknowledge that all of us are at least a little bit racist (and sexist.) Once you see something, you can work toward fixing it, right? And also working as a society toward norms that work for everyone. 

 

Making the distinction between bias and behavior helps, as does focusing more on positive steps towards dismantling the systems that perpetuate inequality rather than white people competing at performative wokeness. 

 

(Last year, Ovation performed The Thanksgiving Play, written by Native American playwright Larissa Fasthorse, which skewers white performative wokeness really well.) 

 

As I noted in my post about that play, here in Bakersfield, in the Trump Era, I see a lot more aggressive bigotry than performative wokeness, but mileage varies. My hope is that our current emergency will lead to more real action, and less posturing. 

And then there is “Schadenfreude.” Wow. What a great song. And again, pointing out human foibles. We shouldn’t pretend that we don’t ever take pleasure in other peoples’ pain. Because we absolutely do. 

 

GARY COLEMAN:

Right now you are down and out and feeling really crappy

 

NICKY:

I'll say.

 

GARY COLEMAN:

And when I see how sad you are

It sort of makes me...

Happy!

 

NICKY:

Happy?!

 

GARY COLEMAN:

Sorry, Nicky, human nature-

Nothing I can do!

It's...

Schadenfreude!

Making me feel glad that I'm not you.

 

NICKY:

Well that's not very nice, Gary!

 

GARY COLEMAN:

I didn't say it was nice! But everybody does it!

D'ja ever clap when a waitress falls and drops a tray of glasses?

 

NICKY:

Yeah...

 

GARY COLEMAN:

And ain't it fun to watch figure skaters falling on their asses?

 

NICKY:

Sure!

 

GARY COLEMAN:

And don'tcha feel all warm and cozy,

Watching people out in the rain!

 

NICKY:

You bet!

 

GARY COLEMAN:

That's...

 

GARY AND NICKY:

Schadenfreude!

 

GARY COLEMAN:

People taking pleasure in your pain!

 

NICKY:

Oh, Schadenfreude, huh?

What's that, some kinda Nazi word?

 

GARY COLEMAN:

Yup! It's German for "happiness at the misfortune of others!"

 

NICKY:

"Happiness at the misfortune of others." That is German!

Watching a vegetarian being told she just ate chicken

 

GARY COLEMAN:

Or watching a frat boy realize just what he put his dick in!

 

NICKY:

Being on the elevator when somebody shouts "Hold the door!"

 

GARY AND NICKY:

"No!!!"

Schadenfreude!

 

GARY COLEMAN:

"Fuck you lady, that's what stairs are for!"

 

NICKY:

Ooh, how about...

Straight-A students getting Bs?

 

GARY COLEMAN:

Exes getting STDs!

 

NICKY:

Waking doormen from their naps!

 

GARY COLEMAN:

Watching tourists reading maps!

 

NICKY:

Football players getting tackled!

 

GARY COLEMAN:

CEOs getting shackled!

 

NICKY:

Watching actors never reach

 

GARY AND NICKY:

The ending of their oscar speech!

Schadenfreude!

 

GARY COLEMAN:

The world needs people like you and me who've been knocked around by fate.

'Cause when people see us, they don't want to be us,

and that makes them feel great.

 

NICKY:

Sure!

We provide a vital service to society!

 

GARY AND NICKY:

You and me!

Schadenfreude!

Making the world a better place...

To be!

 

GARY COLEMAN:

S-C-H-A-D-E-N-F-R-E-U-D-E! 

 

I’ll list a few of my own instances: I loved watching Tom Brady get dumped on his little candy-ass. I love seeing reckless drivers get pulled over. (And also truckers who obstruct traffic.) I love hearing Dan Snyder whine about how the team is winning now that he sold it. Hell yes. 

 

Perhaps, in the end, Avenue Q is a more grown-up look at the messiness of living. By acknowledging our warts and less attractive impulses and encouraging us to laugh about them, perhaps we can, in a way, live together more peacefully, and make the world a better place. FOR PORN! (Sorry, I let Trekkie Monster borrow my computer for a second….) 

 

Moving on to The Book of Mormon. Probably even those who have no idea what they are getting into are at least aware of the plot. 

 

To give some background here, I have a number of Mormon friends, and have since I was a kid. California isn’t Utah, obviously, but we pretty much have a lot of everything. Many of my early string orchestra rehearsals and concerts took place at an LDS church in the San Fernando Valley. And we ourselves attended a megachurch for a few years that was just down the street from a Thai Buddhist temple - which has a great weekend street food event, by the way. I know where the mosques and the gurudwaras are in my town, and that is in addition to all the other Christian denominations. 

 

So, I have had to learn a decent bit about a variety of religious traditions, including LDS doctrine and practice.

 

In the musical, a group of young men is being sent out on their two year “mission” that most LDS kids do after college. They are paired up - because that’s how Jesus did it back in the day - and sent off to various places around the globe. 

 

For the two main characters, Kevin and Arnold, they get sent to Uganda. Kevin is the golden child, the perfect Mormon on the outside at least. Tall, handsome, and charming, he is horrified to be paired with the short and very awkward Arnold. Particularly since Kevin was counting on getting sent to Orlando instead. 

 

They get to the village, to find that nobody has been converted, and the villagers seem far more concerned about not getting whacked by the local warlord, dying of AIDS or starvation, or drawing too much attention to themselves. 

 

When the warlord kills a local man in front of him, Kevin has a freakout and leaves to try to get a transfer. 

 

Arnold, on the other hand, smitten by a pretty local girl with the ambition of standing up to the warlord, finds himself pressed into service. 

 

After an abortive attempt to teach his new students the stories in the Book of Mormon, he realizes nothing in there actually resonates for modern Africans, so he starts making up stories to address their actual issues. 

 

Including things like “don’t try to cure AIDS by raping a virgin infant.” (How he does this is…hilarious.) 

 

Shockingly, he ends up converting the entire village, and becoming - for a short while - the hero of the LDS Church. 

 

Unfortunately, his students insist on doing a play reenactment of the Book of Mormon - as it was taught to them. Scandalized, the missionaries are pulled from assignment in disgrace. 

 

But. Well, Kevin, having survived having the Book of Mormon shoved up his ass by the warlord as well as a dream about hell, seems to have had a change of heart. Either that, or his coffee binge put some courage in him. He and Arnold show up at the village’s confrontation of the warlord - and since Arnold’s love interest has told them lions ate them, he is treated like a ghost, and it all ends happily. 

 

And, along the way, it’s a crazy ride. Be prepared for a lot of sex stuff (although not quite the same sex on stage thing of Avenue Q) and some definite dysentery. 

 

One thing I was actually surprised at is that the authors are more respectful of religion than I expected. I mean, in a way, they seem to actually support the idea of using stories (which are clearly not factual) to make sense of life and guide good behavior. The play assumes good intentions on the part of the young missionaries (which certainly has not been the case all of the time in real life), and thus treats the subject with rather more grace and gentleness than I was expecting. 

 

With that, let’s talk a bit about The Book of Mormon itself - and how it connects to my own former religious tradition. 

 

Let’s start with this: the whole story about the origin of the book - as the play hilariously illustrates - is utter shite. Joseph Smith was a charlatan and made the whole thing up. 

 

Furthermore, the story of the lost tribes of Israel coming to North America is not only completely ludicrous and unsupported by any archaeological or genetic evidence, it also is a version of a very racist myth created to dehumanize the Native Americans. 

 

And that’s before you get into the historical examples of doctrinal racism. 

 

But my point here isn’t really to disparage Mormonism, and certainly not Mormons. I have Mormon friends who are good people, and I admire the way that the LDS church actually looks after its own better than most other denominations. 

 

I also take issue with grouping LDS with more control-based groups such as the Jehovah’s Witnesses and Scientologists. In my experience, Evangelicals are actually worse about shunning ex-members (example: my experience in my own birth family.)

 

What Mormonism is, more than anything, is a particularly American expression of religion. 

 

It represents one form of adapting an existing religion to a new cultural framework, importing the new myths to go with the old ones.

 

And that is exactly the point of the musical.

 

Let me be clear here: Evangelical doctrine is every bit as made up and 19th Century as LDS doctrine.

 

American Evangelicalism (particularly as practiced by white people) is every bit as much of a phony-ass man-made made up bunch of bullshit as the Book of Mormon. You would be surprised how much was just made up here in the 19th (and 20th!) centuries, and appears totally weird to those outside of the US. 

 

I should do a whole post on it, but everything from our eschatology (John Nelson Darby!) to our embrace of capitalism and Manifest Destiny as core doctrines to our hyper-individualist approach to society - it’s all made up and modern. 

 

The doctrines that most of us raised Protestant generally would consider to be historic Christian core doctrines are mostly present in LDS doctrine. And as far as I can tell, Evangelicalism, if anything, rejects more core Christian practice than Mormons do. 

 

The thing that really unites both, however, is a uniquely American (and 19th Century) syncretism - the fusing of American mythologies with historic religion to tell ourselves a story about our nation and our history. 

 

To a large extent, this includes (in both cases) an attempt to absolve ourselves as white Americans for our deep national sins, which boil down to white supremacy. We exist here on North America because we displaced the original occupants. We killed many of them with disease, enslavement, starvation, and outright murder. 

 

To build our economy, we enslaved millions of people of African descent, and continue to use our systems and institutions to preserve white social, economic, and political dominance. 

 

To avoid feeling guilt from these sins - and continue to commit them as a society - both Mormonism and Evangelicalism use the new syncretistic myths to tell stories in which we are the heroes. 

 

For Mormons, the myth of the lost tribes of Israel and Christ’s appearance to them in America serve to establish a birthright for white Christians to North America. No longer are the indigenous peoples the rightful inhabitants, but interlopers on land rightfully belonging to white Christians. 

 

Evangelicals tell themselves slightly different stories - ones not quite as rooted in easily disprovable myths, but rather in our White Savior complex. Sure, we stole land, slaughtered the inhabitants, and enslaved people. But hey, white Christians are the new Israel, donchaknow, and at least those half-naked savages both black and indigenous got to hear about Jesus so it’s all fine and we are the heroes. 

 

There are many more too. The “everyone gets a planet to colonize” is pretty clearly an extension of the colonialist impulse, and a justification of Manifest Destiny in the present life. Dominionism (aka Theofascism) in Evangelical circles has gained popularity because it gives theological cover for white supremacy (and patriarchy.) It’s all very similar, just with different stories. 

 

This is literally what The Book of Mormon the musical is about. 

 

The reason Arnold struggles teaching the Book of Mormon to Africans isn’t just that it is old. And it isn’t just that it is irrelevant to modern African experience.

 

The problem is also that the stories, because they exist to give absolution for white supremacist actions, it really does read as “and here is why we are allowed to look down on people with darker skin and oppress them.” 

 

This is rather how Evangelicalism feels to those outside of it as well. Except you can also add in the justification of the oppression of LGBTQ people (worse than in LDS culture - which is why Utah has more - if insufficient - protections for LGBTQ people than Evangelical-dominated states) and grinding the faces of the poor. 

 

Arnold’s epiphany, such as it is, is thus vitally important. He realizes that you can’t just tell the same stories in the same way and reach people for whom the stories simply don’t work. 

 

Interestingly, it is Nabulungi, the young girl, who inadvertently reveals the full truth. The villagers aren’t stupid, and they know that Arnold’s stories are made up and laughable. They also know that the point isn’t that the stories are fact, but that they tell truths in a non-literal manner. 

 

And my god, the line about this, which I am not finding directly quoted, but is essentially:

 

“You don’t think anyone actually believes that man fucked a frog?” 

 

Where was this line when I needed it during my Evangelical days?

 

Man, I could have used it. There are so many things in the Bible that were never meant to be literal - not when they were written, not for thousands of years of interpretation. The pseudo-scientific literalism of Evangelicals is one of those very things made up as a response to the Enlightenment. It was an attempt to give a veneer of science to religion, and it worked as badly as one might expect. 

 

Seriously, they are the only ones who think that man actually fucked a frog. 

 

Now, all this is very funny and very on point. But the show does have problems.

 

First, it is embarrassingly full of stereotypes about Africans. They did re-write some stuff a decade ago to try to fix it, but I’m not sure the story itself can be entirely fixed. That said, I do think that one can read the whole thing as a critique of colonialism. But one wonders if there were a better way to do that. 

 

As I experienced it, the laughs at the expense of the missionaries, at white saviors, at white guys in awkward navy blue and white (just like Gothard’s cult members!) were guilt free, and well deserved. The cheap shots at Africans, not so much. 

 

In particular, the laughs about AIDS are likely harmful to our actual work to address the disease. One wonders if the stereotypes blaming African culture for the spread of AIDS is one reason the Republican Party is so hostile to USAID and the NGOs working to save lives. 

 

I would strongly recommend reading actual African authors for a more accurate portrayal - Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie comes to mind first, but there are others. Heck, even Barbara Kingsolver gets things far better in her critique of white missionary savior complex. 

 

That said, I did find the good parts of the musical to outweigh the bad. One also must, as with Avenue Q (and indeed with many forms of deliberately transgressive humor), assume the rules of the genre. Critique what falls short, but don’t be too sure you get it right either. 

 

Because this was a professional touring production, I won’t talk too much about the cast. I haven’t seen any of them before, as far as I can tell, so I have less emotional investment in them than I have in local actors, or the regulars at other venues we frequent. They were fine, the production was good, and the only real flaw was the terrible acoustics at Mechanics Bank Theater - where I perform all the time with BSO. It made things muddy, which is what the cavernous shape does. 

 

I won’t quote the lyrics, but I will link my favorite songs:

 

Hasa Diga Eebowai - classic and hilarious. And a clear spoof of Hakuna Matata.

All American Prophet - which makes it clear just how American our doctrine is…

Spooky Mormon Hell Dream - one of the funniest songs ever written, and it looks like a banging place to go - beats anything in Orlando

Joseph Smith American Moses - the play the Africans put together

 

And, the final takeaway: 

 

“I can’t believe Jesus called me a dick!”

 

I deliberately choose the title of this post. As a kid, while my parents didn’t start out Fundie, they did have some weird cultural hangups which got worse as I got older. Basically, they were like the typical Boomer white Evangelical. 

 

One of them was their freakout about language. I get (from a religious point of view) the opposition to the use of religious terms in a profane way - although as an adult, I realised that “taking the Lord’s name in vain” didn’t refer to “oh golly” but to using God’s name to justify your hate and violence toward others. (Something, unfortunately, my parents and Evangelicals generally do all the time.) 

 

Less understandable now is why English-speaking Protestants are so weird about the “nine Saxon physiological monosyllables” as Sinclair Lewis put it. Shit and fuck aren’t naturally dirtier than poop or intercourse - they literally mean the same thing. The difference is, the four letter ones were used by the conquered and less educated Saxons, while the others came from the more educated Latin and French used by the Norman conquerors. It’s just a lingering class thing from 1066 and all that. 

 

My parents also had a real hangup about the portrayal of sex. Not that we didn’t talk about it in a clinical sense - I got a fairly good sex education from them. But innuendo, dirty jokes, dirty pictures, sex - or even making out - on screen? Those were real bugaboos. 

 

Unlike many Evangelicals I have met since, they didn’t have weird counterpart, which is the fetishization of violence. You know, where Braveheart is the best movie ever, and Saving Private Ryan is fine, except for the nude women. It’s no big deal for kids to see human brutality, but heaven forbid they get horny. Whatever. In any case, my parents had a low tolerance for violence as well, although not as low as their tolerance for sex. 

 

I was thinking of them regarding both of these plays, because they would have freaked the hell out at both of them. 

 

And, my own baggage about this stuff hasn’t entirely gone away, and I still have a reflexive cringe at times. Seeing stuff like this feels really transgressive and irreverent. I mean, these days, I see the equivalent of Hasa Diga in scripture, but I’d have a hard time saying it. 

 

So yes, a very irreverent and transgressive weekend, but also another step in my journey to freedom from authoritarian and toxic religion. 

Sing, Unburied, Sing by Jesmyn Ward

Source of book: Borrowed from the library

 

I previously read The Fire This Time, edited by Jesmyn Ward, which included one of her essays. I have had Sing, Unburied, Sing on my list for years, but given the length of that list, well, it takes a while to get to stuff. 

 

I’ll say at the outset that this is not a pleasant or positive book. It is dark, full of generational trauma, Southern racial violence, and ghosts that won’t rest in peace. Also, domestic violence, drug use, child abuse, and police brutality. So, not light reading. 

 

It is fairly short, though, and moves fast, so it’s not an endless slog or anything. There wasn’t much humor to lighten things, either, so just expect that. It is an interesting look inside a complicated family dealing with the downstream effects of white supremacy - which hurts everyone, black and white. 

 

There are multiple perspectives in the book. The main narrative is told alternately by Jojo, the teen boy, and his mother Leonie. Later in the book, we get a third thread, told by Ritchie, the ghost of a young boy who Pop (JoJo’s grandfather) looked after when they were both in jail decades ago. 

 

There are other ghosts as well: Leonie’s younger brother Given, who was murdered by a white man jealous of Given’s archery skills. And, eventually, the ghost of Mam, JoJo’s grandmother, who dies near the end of the book. And a whole heck ton of other unnamed ghosts. 

 

And there are a handful of human characters. Pop and Mam, the most functional people in the book, the ones who are raising JoJo and his toddler sister Kayla. Leonie’s boyfriend - father to JoJo and Kayla - Michael, the white cousin of the man who killed Given. Michael’s viciously bigoted father, Big Joseph, and his mother who is trying not to be an asshole, and occasionally succeeding. Al, Michael’s lawyer and/or drug dealer. Misty, Leonie’s white coworker and friend, but also the one who got her into drugs. 

 

And everyone is complicated in this book, except possibly Big Joseph, who is the kind of pathetic old racist that we all have met at least once somewhere. Everyone else is a mix of good and bad. The good is predominant in Pop and Mam. And Kayla is just a kid. JoJo is at that awkward age of trying to become a man too soon. Michael and Leonie have serious demons that they can’t seem to shake. And no wonder with their traumas. 

 

The heart of the story is that Michael has been in prison for a few years (probably for drugs, but we never get the full story), and is now getting released. Leonie decides to go pick him up, taking Misty for moral support (her man - who is black - is also incarcerated, but not getting out yet), and dragging JoJo and Kayla against their will. 

 

There are lots of flashbacks and stories told by the characters to fill in gaps. Given’s life and death. How Pop got sent to jail for being in the wrong place. What happened with Ritchie. And a few others. 

 

I did find the story - stories really - interesting, and characters believable. Some of these situations were things that I grew up with in my neighborhood. We were the place kids would come crash when their parents didn’t come home due to a drug bender, or a bad fight between the parents. 

 

[Note: when I talk about how my parents have devolved, this is what I mean. They were really good people once, before Fox News and Bill Gothard and the rest of the white christian nationalist industrial complex ate them.] 

 

I didn’t note many lines in this book - it really is one more to just read and go with the flow. 

 

However, there is a quote from Eudora Welty on the cover page, and a line that really encapsulates the parts of the book involving JoJo. 

 

“The memory is a living thing - it too is in transit. But during its moment, all that is remembered joins, and lives - the old and the young, the past and the present, the living and the dead.”

~Eudora Welty 

 

Once you read the book, you realize how this idea forms the basis of the book, its very bones. 

 

The quote comes during a section JoJo narrates, as he has been listening to Pop tell his old stories and give his generally solid advice. This is part of a longer monologue by Pop, about his own coming of age. 

 

“Some days later, I understood what he was trying to say, that getting grown means learning how to work that current: learning when to hold fast, when to drop anchor, when to let it sweep you up. And it could be something simple as sex, or it could be something as complicated as falling in love, or it could be like going to jail with your brother, thinking you are going to protect him.”

 

For JoJo, he is in many ways torn between his loyalties. He ends up choosing to protect Kayla, to a significant degree at the cost of his relationship with his mother, Leonie. Which is sad, but feels inevitable. And so the cycle of trauma continues. 

 

It’s an interesting book, and worth a read.

 

Kafka on the Shore by Haruki Murakami

Source of book: I own this

 

It has been a while since I posted. One reason is that my book reading ended up with me in the middle of several books all at once but not finishing one. The other was a certain amount of malaise (ongoing) around the state of our country. It’s too overwhelming to blog about right now, although I recommend following Heather Cox Richardson and Rebecca Solnit (on your preferred social media) if you want good analysis of Il Toupee’s latest unconstitutional actions.

 

This book was this month’s selection for The Literary Lush Book Club, our monthly gathering of friends to discuss books. I believe this is the first time the club has read Murakami’s fiction - we read Underground, his non-fiction account of the subway terrorism a couple years ago. Two of us are definitely fans, so we were excited to get to discuss this one with the others. I will list the links to my other Murakami reviews at the bottom of this post. 

 

Having read Kafka on the Shore, I think this will be the book I will recommend for first-time Murakami readers. While his most accessible is still definitely Norwegian Wood, that book is also somewhat uncharacteristic - it lacks the magical realism and the interconnected symbolism of his other books. Kafka contains all of the elements, but is of more moderate length than many of his books, and is tightly plotted, with fewer digressions and disconnected subplots. 

 

(That said, The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle is a definite masterpiece.) 

Keep this handy when you read any Murakami novel...

 

Before getting too far into this post, I do want to mention a few things that might make this book problematic for some readers. 

 

First, Murakami is a Boomer male, which means he shares many of the faults of his generation of male writers throughout the world. Like Dickens, he struggles to write female characters well, and often treats them as “types” that exist mostly for the role they will play in the life of the male protagonist. (Ahem, David Copperfield…) 

 

Oddly, Kafka is better about this in some ways, and worse in others. On the plus side, he has multiple female characters that actually have a backstory and an inner life. That’s good! 

 

On the other hand, my GOD does he objectify breasts in this book. Seriously, dude, you come off as a horny old man writing about your fantasies of being a 15 year old boy again. So, read this book with your eyes open. Or not as you prefer. 

 

Second, and this is a serious trigger warning, Murakami’s books usually have one incredibly intense and disturbing scene in there. And they often come out of nowhere, getting really dark and horrible really fast. 

 

(As explanation: Murakami credits Stephen King as one of his major influences - and it shows at times. Most of this and his other books are not horror at all, but there are those scenes…) 

 

In this case, if cruelty to animals, including cat heads in the freezer, is too much for you, be warned. If you want to read the rest, skip chapter 16 and find a summary instead. 

 

Our club was torn on whether this scene was needlessly gratuitous or not. I tend to lean toward “not,” but your mileage may definitely vary. 

 

I also do want to mention one unexpectedly progressive element in this book, particularly considering it was originally published in 2002 (translation published in 2005.) There is a transgender character, who is mostly handled well. This character is given a history and an inner life, his trans-ness is not particularly important to his purpose in the book, and he has no unpleasant ending. He’s just an important and interesting transgender character who happens to be in this book. 

 

Kafka on the Shore contains many of the usual elements of a Murakami book: questions of identity, memory, history, free will, human nature, and the process of maturity. And the symbols: dry wells, cats, missing things, forests, libraries. 

 

Front and center in this one is one of Murakami’s favorite points: evil is often a lack of imagination. If we cannot imagine, we cannot understand morality let alone act morally. This is, more than anything, what separates us from other living things. 

 

The book contains two parallel narratives, which do not intersect in the real world (whatever that exactly means in this book.) They do, however, intersect in the dream world, the magical world, or whatever you want to call it. The characters are connected as well - a figure in the magical world will represent one in the real world, and a character in each thread can be a stand-in of sorts for one in the other. 

 

The first thread, which gets the odd-numbered chapters, has a rough plot as follows: A 15 year old boy, who has given himself the name of “Kafka,” runs away from home to escape the curse his father has put on him. This curse will seem familiar to any student of literature, because it is the Oedipus Curse: he will kill his father and have sex with his mother. And, in this particular twist, he will sleep with his long-lost sister as well. 

 

As we discover, Kafka’s mother disappeared when he was a small child, taking his older sister with her. No one knows where they went or what happened to them.

 

Kafka steals enough money to last for a while, and heads south. He eventually discovers a private library open for tours (which reminds me of a smaller version of a favorite place of my own experience, the Huntington Library.) There, he meets the middle-aged and mysterious Miss Saeki, in charge of the library, who he finds out has a tragic past. (Her boyfriend - from the family whose estate houses the library - is senselessly murdered in college, and she has never gotten over him.) 

 

He also is taken in by Oshima, a young transgender man who works as an assistant to Miss Saeki, who introduces him to classical music and literature. Oshima’s brother has a cabin in the forest on the coast, where Kafka stays on two occasions. 

 

Meanwhile, Nakata’s story fills the second narrative. We flash back to his childhood, during World War Two, when he is sent away from the city for safety, but then becomes part of a mysterious event where a group of school children all lose consciousness. Nakata is the only one who doesn’t regain consciousness within a few hours, and when he finally does, he has lost his memory and ability to read. But he does discover he can talk to and understand cats. 

 

Fast forward to the present, and Nakata is retired and on a pension (a Sub City as he calls it), and supplements his income by finding people’s lost cats. 

 

A particular case leads him to the harrowing scene I mentioned above, and he is practically forced to kill the cat-abuser, who calls himself “Johnnie Walker.” 

 

Later, we find out that this is the first intersection of the plots, and of the worlds. “Johnnie Walker” is killed, but in real life that turns out to be Kafka’s father. Nakata comes to after the murder, and finds there is no blood, no evidence it ever happened. Instead, it is Kafka, who, having lost consciousness, wakes up covered in blood. 

 

There are some definite Oedipus parallels in this entire narrative - the book is full of Easter Eggs like all Murakami novels. 

 

Shaken by this, and impelled on a quest that he cannot articulate beyond “must find the entrance stone,” Nakata hitchhikes his way south. Taking pity on him, and wanting a little vacation, is Hoshino, probably the best character in the book. Hoshino got in a little hometown jam, so they put a rifle in his hand - so to speak. His mild criminal history followed by a military stint, eventually led him to his present occupation as a commercial truck driver. 

 

The strange friendship between Nakata and Hoshino is what makes this narrative thread so delightful - and I think it is the best part of the book. 

 

I’ll leave the plot description there, in part because trying to explain it is difficult, and misses much of the magic of the writing. 

 

As is often the case, the ending is difficult to entirely decipher. What exactly happened? And, perhaps more to the point, what did all that mean?

 

Murakami wasn’t much help in this regard. He recommended that the book be read several times. The reader would then begin to see all of the interconnected riddles, and, perhaps figure out a solution. That said, Murakami also indicated that there was no one correct solution, and readers could discover or synthesize many. 

 

He also explained that he came up with the title of the book first, then the character of Kafka, then the other characters, and then he followed them to find out what would happen. How true this is can perhaps be debated given the tight plotting of the book. However it started, Murakami clearly went back through it and made sure everything connected and corresponded, because few if any threads are loose in this book. 

 

I ended up writing down lot of lines this time. There are so many good ones in this book, particularly of the philosophical variety. There are undoubtedly spoilers in here, so if you want to read the book first, then come back to this post, this is a good place to do that. 

 

Kafka has a kind of alter-ego he calls “The Boy Named Crow.” This is another literary in-joke. “Kafka” means “Crow” in Czech, something the OG, Franz Kafka, consciously used in his own writing. Crow is kind of a Tyler Durden sort (h/t to another book club member for that insight) - he both gives Kafka the courage to run away and take other actions but also isn’t exactly a great influence. Here is a particularly Durdenesque bit early in the book:

 

Sometimes fate is like a small sandstorm that keeps changing directions. You change direction but the sandstorm chases you. You turn again, but the storm adjusts. Over and over you play this out, like some ominous dance with death just before dawn. Why? Because this storm isn’t something that blew in from far away, something that has nothing to do with you. This storm is you. 

 

The flashback to the weird incident of the children is told through official reports. Which, as you might imagine, pose multiple levels of narrative unreliability. And they are often surreal, with the teacher (who is hiding some things) seemingly overly poetic in her descriptions. 

 

It was a very strange sight. The children had collapsed in an odd, flat, open space in the woods where it looked like all the trees had been neatly removed, with autumn sunlight shining down brightly. And here you had, in this spot or at the edges of it, sixteen elementary school kids scattered about prostrate on the ground, some of them starting to move, some of them completely still. The whole thing reminded me of some weird avant-garde play.

 

I mean, WUT?? And there is the parallel of this spot - in its own way like the bottom of a dry well - with one later in the book where Kafka has some crossover with the dream world, along with some leftover soldiers from the war. (That scene expressly describes the clearing as being like the bottom of a well.) 

 

Murakami loves libraries - and I agree with him. Kafka goes looking for a library for reasons that have drawn others since they were created. 

 

I decided to kill time till evening at a library. Ever since I was little I’ve loved to spend time in the reading rooms of libraries, so I’ve come to Takamatsu armed with info on all the libraries in and around the city. Think about it - a little kid who doesn;t want to go home doesn’t have many places he can go. Coffee shops and movie theaters are off-limits. That leaves only libraries, and they’re perfect - no entrance fee, nobody getting all hot and bothered if a kid comes in. You just sit down and read whatever you want. 

 

This is one reason the Right Wing is increasingly hostile toward libraries. As one of the few places you can go without being expected to spend money, they are a natural place for meeting, connection, and ideas, that cannot be monetized or controlled. 

 

There is also a fun conversation between Nakata and a cat, who he names “Otsuka.” 

 

“Otsuka?” the cat said, looking at him in surprise. “What are you talking about? Why do I have to be Otsuka?”

“No special reason. The name just came to me. Nakata just picked one out of a hat. It makes things a lot easier for me if you have a name. That way somebody like me, who isn’t very bright, can organize things better. For instance, I can say, On this day of this month I spoke with the black cat Otsuka in a vacant lot in the 2-chome neighborhood. It helps me remember.”

“Interesting,” the cat said. “Not that I totally follow you. Cats can get by without names. We go by smell, shape, things of this nature. As long as we know these things, there’s no worries for us.”

“Nakata understands completely. But you know, Mr. Otsuka, people don’t work that way. We need dates and names to remember all kinds of things.”

The cat gave a snort. “Sounds like a pain to me.”

 

One of my favorite passages in the book is the discussion of Adolf Eichmann. Kafka is reading one of the books in the cabin, and runs across notations by Oshima, including this one. The thing about the Eichmanns of the world is that they see life as just following orders, solving technical problems - and they have no imagination, or they would have empathy. 

 

It’s all a question of imagination. Our responsibility begins with the power to imagine. It’s just like Yeats said: In dreams begin responsibilities. Flip this around and you could say that where there’s no power to imagine, no responsibility can arise. Just like we see here with Eichmann.

 

This theme becomes a thread working its way through the entire book - both narratives. There is another fascinating scene in the Johnnie Walker chapter. Walker is himself involved in this grand project - one which is terrifying and evil - but which Walker himself complains nobody respects his project. He himself has grown tired of it, but fate compels him to continue it until stopped. By….someone. He can’t commit suicide for reasons, so he has to get Nakata to do it for him. (Definite shades of Oedipus here.) 

 

“But why - why ask me? Nakata’s never killed anyone before. It’s not the kind of thing I’m suited for.”

“I know. You’ve never killed anyone and don’t want to. But listen to me - there are times in life when those kinds of excuses don’t cut it anymore. Situations when nobody cares whether you’re suited for the task at hand or not. I need you to understand that. For instance, it happens in war.” 

 

And that really is the question of war, isn’t it? WHY do we have to kill? A war starts and it is kill or be killed. As Walker notes, “Human history in a nutshell.” 

 

There are several scenes which do feel like digressions - not specifically connected to the rest of the plot. I suspect they are intended to be part of the overall philosophical discussion, however. 

 

We learn that Oshima is transgender when a pair of ostensible “radical feminists” show up at the library to make trouble. And the main way they intend to make trouble is by essentially being TERFs. (I hate the term for reasons, but that’s beyond the scope of this post.) 

 

Specifically, they are furious that there is no designated bathroom for women at the library. What there is, because the library is small and has a small number of visitors, is a single unisex bathroom that all can use. 

 

Oshima tries to explain using some familiar analogies - bathrooms in an aircraft are all unisex, for example - but the women are determined to argue anyway. 

 

Finally, after pages and pages of their obnoxiousness, Oshima has had enough of the accusations that he is a male sexist pig, and explains in excruciatingly graphic detail about who he is, from genitals to sexual orientation to his experience of having a male brain. 

 

While I am sure that there are things to quibble with here in the way things are stated (and also in Kafka’s struggles to categorize Oshima in his own brain), there is a lot to like about Murakami’s respect for transgender people and identities. 

 

Where I think that Murakami shows his age and limited experience in this passage is that he almost but not quite understands that these women aren’t feminists - they are just bigots. (Hence why I love Elaine Castillo’s description of TERFs as “Trans-exclusionary non-feminists.”) 

 

What Murakami does get very right in this scene is the deliberately misleading and inflammatory rhetoric of anti-trans bathroom panic. The women claim that “the majority of women are reluctant to use shared bathrooms” and hints at the “all men - and especially trans women - are violent” argument as well. 

 

Oshima correctly notes that this is literally not an issue. The number of actual bathroom assaults by transgender women is nearly zero, and in any case FAR LESS than the number committed by Republican congressmen. I mean, right now, being a sexual predator is practically a requirement to serve in the Trump Administration. 

 

So, while not perfect, Murakami actually handles this…pretty well. Kafka indicates he doesn’t quite know how to understand Oshima, but that he accepts him fully. 

 

“I appreciate it,” Oshima says, and lays a gentle hand on my shoulder. “I know I’m a little different from everyone else, but I’m still a human being. That’s what I’d like you to realize. I’m just a regular person, not some monster. I feel the same things everyone else does, act the same way.” 

 

This is the truth, even if the Right Wing prefers to demonize and inflict violence on transgender people (and indeed anyone different from them.) 

 

“I’ve experienced all kinds of discrimination,” Oshima says. “Only people who’ve been discriminated against can really know how much it hurts. Each person feels the pain in his own way, each has his own scars. So I think I’m as concerned about fairness and justice as anybody. But what disgusts me even more are people who have no imagination. The kind T. S. Eliot calls hollow men. People who fill up that lack of imagination with heartless bits of straw, not even aware of what they’re doing. Callous people who throw a lot of empty words at you, trying to force you to do what you don’t want to. Like that lovely pair we just me.” 

 

Oh yes, I know too many people like that, who cannot (or will not) imagine transgender existence. Or the experience of discrimination for that matter. It is endemic on the Right these days, with its turn toward open fascism. A lack of imagination. Hollow men. And thus, gross immorality. 

 

“Narrow minds devoid of imagination. Intolerance, theories cut off from reality, empty terminology, usurped ideals, inflexible systems. Those are the things that really frighten me. What I absolutely fear and loathe. Of course it’s important to know what’s right and wrong. Individual errors in judgment can usually be corrected. As long as you have the courage to admit mistakes, things can be turned around. But intolerant, narrow minds with no imagination are like parasites that transform the host, change form, and continue to thrive. They’re a lost cause, and I don’t want anyone like that coming in here.” 

 

Sigh. This is why I feel that my former religious tribe is a lost cause. And why I have given up on my parents ever admitting they were wrong and correcting their intolerant and judgmental minds. That whole passage describes the systems of white supremacy, patriarchy, and religious bigotry that parasitized their minds over the last several decades, destroying the good people they were. 

 

Before ending up with Hoshino, Nakata catches a variety of rides. On one of them, he finds himself hearing the life story of the driver, who admits “I’ve never talked to anyone like this before.” Each of the people who come in contact with Nakata feel strangely comfortable around him, perhaps because of his simplicity and lack of judgmentalism. Or, maybe people are like cats, and can sense the right sort of person. 

 

Oshima gets a lot of the best philosophical lines. I wonder if a literary reason he is transgender is to fill the role of the sexless (eunuch?) wise man - he isn’t old or a real guru, but he is definitely a character who thinks a lot. Here is another great passage by him. 

 

“Listen, Kafka. What you’re experiencing now is the motif of many Greek tragedies. Man doesn’t choose fate. Fate chooses man. That’s the basic worldview of Greek drama. And the sense of tragedy - according to Aristotle - comes, ironically enough, not from the protagonist’s weak points but from his good qualities. Do you know what I’m getting at? People are drawn deeper into tragedy not by their defects but by their virtues. Sophocles’ Oedipus Rex being a great example. Oedipus is drawn into tragedy not because of laziness or stupidity, but because of his courage and honesty. So an inevitable irony results.”

 

This is part of a larger conversation about the murder of Kafka’s father. Because Kafka has an iron-clad alibi, he isn’t a suspect, but he is wanted for questioning. The problem is, in some non-linear way, Kafka did kill his father. In a dream? In the magical realm? By somehow taking possession of Nakata? Oshima calls this “poetic responsibility,” which is an interesting idea.

 

And then there is the problem with Kafka falling in love with the ghost of the 15-year-old Miss Saeki. (Yeah, it’s….complicated, and leads to some icky sex.) 

 

As Oshima says, “For a fifteen-year-old who doesn’t even shave yet, you’re sure carrying a lot of baggage around.” 

 

Believe it or not, there is yet another magical character who manifests as and calls himself “Colonel Sanders.” Who describes himself as “an idea” - not a god or being per se, and also being, of all things, a pimp. And his role in this drama is to take Hoshino to find the “entrance stone” that Nakata needs to do…whatever it is that he is supposed to do. (And if you can figure out exactly what the ending means, bully for you. I’ve read several possibilities and they are all plausible.) 

 

One of the most hilarious lines in the book comes from Sanders: 

 

“This time I decided to take on a familiar shape, that of a famous capitalist icon. I was toying with the idea of Mickey Mouse, but Disney’s particular about the rights to their characters.” 

 

No kidding. Don’t ever mess with the mouse. 

 

As if a pimping Colonel Sanders wasn’t enough, Hoshino ends up arguing with him about the existence of God. 

 

“Yeah, but the stone is owned by God, right? He’s gonna be pissed if we take it out.” 

Colonel Sanders folded his arms and stared straight at Hoshino. “What is God?”

The question threw Hoshino for a moment. 

Colonel Sanders pressed him further, “What does God look like, and what does He do?”

“Don’t ask me. God’s God. He’s everywhere, watching what we do, judging whether it’s good or bad.”

“Sounds like a soccer referee.” 

“Sort of, I guess.”

“So God wears shorts, has a whistle sticking out of His mouth, and keeps an eye on the clock?” 

 

This then leads into a discussion too long for this post, about the role of the gods in Japanese life, and the way the emperor ceased to be a god because General MacArthur said so…

 

Throughout the book, Kafka never truly puts down roots - he carries his backpack with him whenever he goes out. (Until the ending dream sequence - another symbol perhaps.) Again, Oshima has a fascinating observation. 

 

“That backpack’s like your symbol of freedom,” he comments. 

“Guess so,” I say.

“Having an object that symbolizes freedom might make a person happier than actually getting the freedom it represents.” 

 

Hello, America and its gun problem? And so many other things. The symbol creates the happiness more than the actual thing would. 

 

“Perhaps,” Oshima says, as if fed up,” Perhaps most people in the world aren’t trying to be free, Kafka. They just think they are. It’s all an illusion. If they were really set free, most people would be in a real bind. You’d better remember that. People actually prefer not being free.” 

 

Unfortunately, this is all too true. And people who do not wish to be free resent those who do prefer freedom.

 

And later, “This is pretty obvious, but until things happen, they haven’t happened. And often things aren’t what they seem.” 

 

There are a few things in this book that are startling reminders that the setting is different. Japan is not America, for sure. I smiled at this line, from the rental car guy:

 

“How about a Familia? A very reliable car, and I swear nobody will notice it at all.”

 

The Mazda Familia was better known to us as the 323. Ironically, here, it kind of stood out as a bit less anonymous than the ubiquitous Accords and Camrys. 

 

On the other hand, the mention of a No Fear shirt sure brought me back to the 1990s. And to the heyday of T & C Surf Co. shirts - a big thing here in southern California when I was a certain age. 

 

I mentioned that music tends to be a crucial part of any Murakami book. Here, it plays a role in Kafka’s coming of age - Oshima introduces him to classical. Later, Hoshino is introduced to music, giving him and Oshima something in common when they finally meet. Hoshino asks if Oshima believes that music has the power to change people. For Oshima - and for Murakami himself, the answer is yes. 

 

(Like The Violin Conspiracy, this book has an online playlist - as do most Murakami books.) 

 

I have to mention the book’s description of mosquitoes. The whole “hiking in the woods” stuff is interesting writing, and the last scene is evocative, if a bit hazy on its meaning. 

 

Huge black mosquitoes buzz me like reconnaissance patrols, aiming for the exposed skin around my eyes. When I hear their buzz I brush them away or squash them. Whenever I smush one it makes a squish, already bloated with blood it’s sucked out of me. It feels itchy only later. I wipe the blood off my hands on the towel around my neck.

 

During the long march to the dream city, or whatever it is, Kafka does a lot of thinking. 

 

Why do people wage war? Why do hundreds of thousands, even millions of people group together and try to annihilate each other? Do people start wars out of anger? Or fear? Or are anger and fear just two aspects of the same spirit? 

 

I wonder that too. Probably all decent people do. 

 

And more:

 

A question. Why didn’t she love me? Don’t I deserve to have my mother love me?

 

Another one I often wonder about. Why was I so easy to throw away? Was it too much to ask to be accepted for who I was, not a fantasy of how I would fix her daddy issues?

 

After everything is done, Oshima has a final word that has stuck with me. 

 

“Every one of us is losing something precious to us. Lost opportunities, lost possibilities, feelings we can never get back again. That’s part of what it means to be alive. But inside our heads - at least that’s where I imagine it - there’s a little room where we store those memories. A room like the stacks in this library. And to understand the workings of our own heart we have to keep on making new reference cards. We have to dust things off every once in a while, let in fresh air, change the water in the flower vases. In other words, you’ll live forever in your own private library.” 

 

That’s a taste of what is in this book. I happen to enjoy Murakami, and definitely this book, despite its defects. 

 

The translation is by Philip Gabriel, who I think captured the spirit of the writing well. (I have read translations of Murakami’s other books by Jay Rubin and Alfred Birnbaum, and I think Gabriel’s flows the best.) 

 

I read the book in hard copy, but other members of our club listened to the audiobook. Particularly good things were said about the one with two narrators, one for each thread. I can’t remember the names, but presumably you can discover that with a bit of looking. 

 

***

 

The Murakami List:

 

The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle

Norwegian Wood

Hard Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World

The Strange Library

Underground