First Person Singular (Haruki Murakami) 2: “On a Stone Pillow”
Before getting naked, before revealing ourselves and becoming vulnerable, we might try to verbally prepare the other for what they are about to see. “I have scar on my chest,” one might say; or, “I have a birthmark on my leg.” What do these statements do? They ensure that the attention of the other person — the beloved, perhaps — is oriented to our imperfection. The other person might otherwise miss that imperfection, without our act of foregrounding, without our invitation to see. Do we announce our vulnerabilities to take an active role in relation to them? To get an explicit reaction (a decision) from the other person? Or to offer a priori reason for the rejection we might face, for the possible failure of our relationship? In Murakami’s, “On a Stone Pillow,” a short story about the memory of a one-night stand, we read about a woman who tells our narrator, before they make love: “I might yell another man’s name when I come. Are you okay with that?”
What are the implications of that forewarning? “I might yell another man’s name…” It could mean: My heart will be elsewhere while we make love. It could mean: Our intimacy will be imperfect. But is an act of intimacy ever perfect? Is it ever completely detached from memory, from fantasy, from absences and failures? Is perfection ever our concern? Could we say that, with her forewarning, the woman reveals her belief in the possibility of perfect intimacy, combined with the belief that such perfection will not be achieved here-and-now. She might be saying that perfect intimacy is possible as something that can happen elsewhere, perhaps to other people. She confesses her emotionally unavailability, her being in love with another man (who happens to have a girlfriend). “He calls me whenever he wants my body,” she tells our narrator. “Like ordering takeover over the phone.” But is this a situation, in which she happens to find herself? Or is this a situation she has chosen to maintain, along with the resulting unavailability?
Can we consider that she has accepted her role in the relationship with the unavailable man? Through his point of view, her being is divided into soul and body. He wants the latter, but not the former. We might think that that arrangement leaves her soul open and available for intimacy, but that turns out not to be the case. Even with this new young man — our narrator — she only has her body to offer. The act of yelling another man’s name, and the forewarning that both invites attention to her yelling and suggests she doesn’t have any intention to do otherwise, firmly establishes her position as available-in-body and unavailable-in-mind. Another clue that suggests she has an active role in maintaining that position is given in her statement about loving someone.
“Loving someone is like having a mental illness that’s not covered by health insurance,” she said, in a flat tone, like she was reciting something written on the wall.”
Or like reciting a personal (self-protective) philosophy written on stone. If the woman’s mind, or her soul, isn’t engaged in her romantic relationships, then how and where is she engaged? Murakami answers this question: She writes tanka poetry.
What is notable about this soulful activity is that it is done alone. Here is a bit of conversation that, I believe, is key:
“Are you in a poetry club or something?”
“No, it’s not like that,” she said. She gave a slight shrug. “Tanka are something you write by yourself. Right? It’s not like playing basketball.”
I said that she only has her body to offer our young narrator, but that isn’t exactly true. A week after their meeting, she sends him her collection of poems. The narrator finds her poems to be moving and profound (Murakami includes examples in the short story). They are her most personal and most soulful expressions, the distillation of her essence.
Perhaps her inability or unwillingness to give herself fully to another person is because she has already given herself fully to her poetry. We also read about her attitude toward work, which is purely practical. She never expects to enjoy the work she is employed to do. Perhaps all she has, in terms of interest and passion, is already devoted to her poetry. In other areas of life, she has no expectations and, thus, she brings no investment. Her poetry, in turn, has shaped the way she lives — distant from everyone and all other activities.
“The title of the poetry collection was On a Stone Pillow,” the narrator informs us. Is that a different way of talking about a headstone? Is it a symbol of all that she has buried — all parts of herself — in order to sustain the flow of tanka poems?
I read this short story as a representation of Murakami’s own method, his own sacrifice, and his way of sustaining a writing life through sacrifice. The method of active fragmentation and perspectival purification, which I detect (correctly or incorrectly) when reading any of his novels, in particular Hard-Boiled Wonderland, applies equally to Murakami and to the poet he writes about in this short story. His writing, I believe, has reinforced his solitude (the singularity of the first person), as his solitude has reinforced and sustained his writing. There is, of course, more to say about this short story, but I will stop here and (in the near future) turn to the next story in the collection.
