The anxieties of cultural influence : cross-cultural contrasts and conflicts in Steve Erickson and Ryu Murakami

Abstract

A 1997 piece in Shincho literary magazine featured Steve Erickson and Ryu Murakami in conversation with one another. The most notable subjects of the discussion were details of their respective literary influences and working methodologies. Similarities between both writers have been noted with regard to style and tone to make this a particularly fascinating piece. Interestingly, both writers published novels around the time of this piece, conveying comparable themes and subject matter. Erickson’s The Sea Came in at Midnight (1999) and Murakami’s In the Miso Soup (1997) each depict close interactions between American and Japanese characters in order to highlight cultural contrasts between the two nations. Confusion and conflict, in this context, comes not through the dichotomous contrast between the two cultures, but in how a character’s preconceptions do not correspond with the reality. Criticism will focus on how destructive imagery is an implicit feature of the relationship between both nations, predicated by the 1945 bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. My paper will also document the changing nature of Japanese culture during the 1990s to illustrate a collective amnesia with regard to the country’s ancient traditions, and how this has given rise to a fetishising of American commercialism.