ABSTRACT
This chapter explores how Murakami Haruki’s Norwegian Wood (2003 [2000]) and his Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and His Years of Pilgrimage (2014 [2013]) relate to the Bildungsroman or coming-of-age genre in terms of European and American Bildung classics. Furthermore, it looks into how these two Murakami novels also relate to and negotiate two of Natsume Sōseki’s modern classics, Sanshiro (2009 [1908]) and Kokoro (2010 [1914]). The chapter aims to clarify some of the ways in which the two Murakami novels connect to the national as well as the transnational history of the genre. While the novels refer and allude to European and American Bildungsromane or coming-of-age traditions from Goethe and onwards, they also respond to a Japanese genre history. As the chapter argues, they can be seen as responding to Sōseki’s renewal of the genre of the novel during the late Meiji and the early Taishō period. Apart from intertextualising classic coming-of-age texts and themes, the novels also bring new aspects to the youth story, in particular, the intimate conversation between men and women, and the psychological focus.
