I’m currently ‘reading’ Killing Commendatore; well, i’m actually listening to it as an audio book. What a Lazy toad, I know!
Murakami’s themes are perennial. The ‘circle’ is opened, often by a symbolic act, which allows ‘things’ to get out and ‘things’ to get in. The ‘world’ undergoes a transformation, but then of course, ‘what has been opened, must now be closed’.
Murakami often uses the symbol of a door or portal that needs to be sealed. This invariably entails a sacrifice on the part of the closer.
This place of ingress, like the ‘grail castle’, is a ‘location’ the unwary protagonist just happens upon, initially; It is found when one is not looking for it and its importance and elusiveness is not suspected until one tries to find it again.
But it must be looked for again in order to reseal the circle.
The quest to re-find it is circuitous and arduous; It is a journey into the dark and there is an element of sacrifice in this endeavour as it requires to be sealed from the ‘other’ side.
There is always reluctance with this as, what you most want to find just happens to be where you least want to look.
“In sterquiliniis invenitur” — in filth it will be found.
Such a journey necessarily involves a death and rebirth, at least in a spiritual sense. We will find there what we fear most and a part of us is destined to die.
The ‘grail castle’ for murakami’s protagonist is the pit in the woods. This is the womb like chamber that he is reborn from after his perilous journey through the ‘birth canal’; The constricted space where one cannot see a way forward and one cannot see a way back.
The unwillingness to press on, towards ones doom, is eventually overcome, what other option is there? This is the dream-fear; The ever shrinking passage and to be trapped underground. Like Alice in wonderland and the tiny door, we wonder how we can possibly progress further, for the way appears ‘impossible’.
This is an initiatory journey. Something dies and something is transformed.
I am reminded of the countless, such ‘initiatory’ tunnels and chambers scattered across europe.
These underground passages are termed ‘Erdstall ‘ in German, literally ‘place under the earth’.
They are thought to date from the medieval period, but despite the vast number that have been found to date, they were entirely secret, with not a single written record of such a construction dating from that period being known.
These tunnels are almost completely empty and appear to be have been swept clean, as if they were an abode for the spirits.
They were not designed to be comfortable, but to provide an ordeal. The main tunnel areas can only be negotiated crawling on ‘all fours’. There can be no turning around and the only way is onwards, but then one comes to a ‘schlupf’ or slip; A seemingly impassable round hole in the floor with a diameter of just 40cm leading to a lower level of tunnels. This is the birth canal; The body needs to be contorted to even have a chance of getting through here. The tunnelling eventually leads to a small chamber where, it might be assumed, The ritual/ initiation would reach its culmination.
