Review of John Welch's Legal Cases in the Book of Mormon

John Welch’s book Legal Cases in the Book of Mormon shows how the Law of Moses informs the Book of Mormon, particularly in episodes that are explicitly legal (like the trial of Korihor or trial of Abinadi) or have legal connotations (like the story of Sherem).  

It is remarkable how legal cases in the Book of Mormon are consistent with the Law of Moses. For example, in the trial of Korihor in Alma 30, the text mentions that the judge sees that Korihor “would revile even against God” (Alma 30:29) and later, that Korihor “went on to blaspheme” (Alma 30:30). These details might seem odd or arbitrary to modern readers, but they are both defined crimes according to the Law of Moses: Exodus 22:28 forbids reviling against the gods, and Leviticus 24:16 states that blasphemy is punishable by death. 

After Korihor’s back-and-forth with Alma, Korihor asks Alma for a sign to prove that God is real. Of this, Welch writes, “Properly or officially consulting the gods through omens, divination, oaths, and ordeals was indeed a fairly normal practice in ancient Israelite and ancient Near Eastern trials” (121). This idea that the divine manifest their will in the judicial process is present in the ordeal of bitter water in the Torah, and in other Near Eastern laws, such as in the related river ordeal outlined in the Law of Hammurabi. With this as background, we should not be surprised that Sherem and Korihor challenged Jacob and Alma, respectively, to produce a miracle within a legal context: Welch writes, “seeking oracular signs would have been a likely . . .  legal strategy” (124). Welch also writes that people actually believed that dramatic divine manifestations did occur in ancient trials, and cites (among other references) an Aristophanes play where the litigant miraculously becomes mute, as in the outcome of the trial of Korihor.   

While the Book of Mormon authors explicitly say that they followed the Law of Moses, and there are many instances of impressive consistency between the Law of Moses and the legal world of the Book of Mormon, it is also clear that the Book of Mormon contains several legal ideas foreign to the law of Moses. The reforms instituted by King Mosiah which establish “a reign of the judges” also include some freedom of belief: “Now the law could have no power on any man for his belief” (Alma 1:17). This law, of course, doesn’t seem to be in total agreement with the previously mentioned death sentence for blasphemy in the Law of Moses. 

Welch suggests that one reason why Korihor is brought before several different legal and religious decision makers before his final confrontation with Alma and the Nephite chief judge is because the correct judgment is actually not clear due to this tension between the Law of Moses and King Mosiah’s legal reforms. Welch suggests that the judgment of Korihor would need to wrestle with the answer to the following question: 

Should speech be considered merely to be an assertion of one’s beliefs and therefore protected under the civil law and punishable only by divine justice, or should some speech acts be viewed as a type of overt action punishable by civil or religious authorities? (278). 

I found this tension between the Law of Moses and Mosiah’s legal reforms interesting and I wish Welch had included some more discussion of differences between ancient Jewish law and the legal culture in the Book of Mormon. For example, the Book of Mormon emphasizes liberty and freedom in the so-called “war chapters” in Alma, and these ideas are not emphasized in the Law of Moses, as far as I can tell. 

Another interesting aspect of the book is the comparison of Sherem, Nehor, and Korihor. Often, I think readers of the Book of Mormon (myself included) have a tendency to lump these characters into one. However, it was eye-opening to realize that Sherem was a sort of religious fundamentalist, who believed that the Nephite society was not following the Law of Moses properly while Korihor was a radical atheist.  Welch speculates anti-Messiah, pro-Law of Moses arguments that Sherem might have made and concludes that Sherem “may have contested Jacob's doctrines and interpretations of the law for thoroughly pious reasons,” an idea that I think few readers of the Book of Mormon have ever considered (110). 

As something of an amateur historian (although even that modest title overestimates my interest and study), I appreciated this book because it opened my eyes to how the legal world could provide insight into the strangeness of the past. I have heard it said that the past is a foreign country. I have never read a book that has ever made me face the foreignness of the religious past as head-on as this book has. The reason why is that this book is full of scholarship about how ancient legal systems (particularly Jewish legal systems) worked, and the legal systems lay the culture bare. 

For example, I like many others, have been appalled upon flipping through the first books of the Bible and realizing how frequently the death penalty is the explicit punishment for different crimes in the Law of Moses. I am grateful that our modern legal system has moved away from that, but it was still eye-opening to realize the flip side of widespread capital punishment: imprisonment was largely unthinkable in ancient societies. John Welch writes, “A pit, cistern, or dungeon might be used occasionally for temporary restraint, but long-term imprisonment was rarely an option” (7). This forms a sharp contrast with the USA, which has an incarcerated population of 2,300,000 people.

I had not read much about the Law of Moses and this book engendered a desire to learn more about it.

What I learned about the Book of Genesis through Rabbi Sacks' "Not In God's Name"

In his book Not in God’s Name, Rabbi Jonathan Sacks says that “sibling rivalry is . . . a central motif of the book of Genesis,” and he provides the following examples:

• Cain kills Abel (Genesis 4:8).
• Ishmael and his mother are cast out from living with Abraham, Isaac, and Sarah because Sarah doesn’t want Isaac to share the privileges of being Abraham’s son with Ishmael (Genesis 20:10).
• Jacob lies to his father in his successful attempt to steal the birthright from Esau (Genesis 27:19). In response, Esau says he will kill Jacob (Genesis 27:41) and Jacob then flees from his father’s home (Genesis 27:43, Genesis 28:10).
• Leah and Rachel are jealous of each other. Leah acutely feels the fact that Jacob loves Rachel more than Leah (Genesis 29:30), as evidenced by the names she gives to her children (Genesis 29:32-34). Rachel is not initially able to have children leading to her envy of Leah (Genesis 30:1).
• Joseph’s brothers plot to kill him because of his claimed superiority over them (Genesis 37:18). At Judah’s suggestion, Joseph’s brothers sell Joseph into slavery instead (Genesis 37:27).

We can add one more example of sibling rivalry to our list if we expand our notion of “sibling” to include women married to the same man.

• Sarah insists on Hagar leaving the family not once but twice (Genesis 16:6, Genesis 20:10), which nearly results in Hagar and her son’s death (Genesis 21:14-16).

Within the book of Genesis, there is a sense of momentum: stories of familial conflict become increasingly detailed and once-estranged parties reach deeper levels of reconciliation over time.

Source of Conflict	Ending
The Lord accepts Abel's offering, but not Cain's (Genesis 4:4-5).	Cain kills Abel.
Isaac and Ishmael are forced apart by tensions between Abraham's wives (their respective mothers).	Ishmael and Isaac reunite to bury their father (see Genesis 25:9).
Jacob steals Esau's birthright, Esau tries to kill Jacob in revenge, Jacob runs away.	Jacob initiates contact with Esau (Genesis 32:3-4), gives Esau lavish gifts (Genesis 32:13-18), introduces his entire family to Esau, calls himself Esau's servant, bows before Esau, and the brothers have an emotional reunion (Genesis 33:1-4).
Joseph boasts of being the favorite son; his brothers conspire to kill him (Genesis 37:21-24), but at Judah's suggestion, the brothers sell Joseph into slavery instead (Genesis 37:27-28).	Judah tells a disguised Joseph that he would be willing to be Joseph's slave in place of Benjamin (the new favorite son and thus a type of Joseph) as long as Benjamin can go home free (Genesis 44:18-33). Seeing how his brothers have changed, Joseph reveals his identity and the brothers are reconciled (see Genesis 45:1-16).

What of the women? It is heart-wrenching to think of the pain of Hagar, a single mother in an era when that was unthinkable, and of Leah, the unloved wife. There is no reconciliation in Genesis between Sarah and Hagar or between Rachel and Leah. Rabbi Sacks points out that there is some evidence that the authors of Genesis and the law of Moses resonated with the pain of Leah and Hagar. Deuteronomy 21:15-17 states that if a father has a preferred wife and an unloved wife, the father is not allowed to give the birthright to the firstborn of the loved wife if the firstborn of the unloved wife is older than the firstborn of the loved wife. Rabbi Sacks says that the law in Deuteronomy uses the exact same Hebrew word for ‘unloved’ as is used in reference to Leah and can therefore be understood as a direct critique of Jacob’s behavior in giving his birthright to the Rachel’s son rather than the Leah’s son (page 164-165).

So the Book of Genesis provides evidence that deep familial wounds can and should be healed. The stories get better in the end. For Rabbi Sacks, this promise carries great meaning when we consider that Jews, Christians, and Muslims are all part of the Abrahamic tradition: we are members of the same family. According to Genesis, as well as both Islamic and Jewish tradition, Isaac’s descendants are the Jews and Ishmael’s descendants are the Muslims. Rabbi Sacks interprets these stories of family reconciliation in Genesis in light of modern religious conflicts, tackling thorny questions of chosenness on the way.

Review of Thomas Sowell's Intellectuals and Race

Thomas Sowell’s book Intellectuals and Race argues, among other things, that discrimination and past discrimination are not the sole causes for differences in achievement between ethnic groups, that affirmative action usually ends up not helping who it is intended to help, and that perverse financial incentives have a role in motivating what he calls “the race industry.”

Thomas Sowell is one of the most prominent critics of social justice philosophy, but, disappointingly, few people seem willing to respond to him. The Goodreads reviews of Intellectuals and Race tend to be gushing in their praise. One exception is Ryan, who brings up several issues about Sowell’s book. Some of Ryan’s critiques I am not convinced about; however, Ryan has it spot-on on this issue:

There is some recent work . . . about the experiences with discrimination of recent African Immigrants that also undercuts the culturalist explanation- it turns out that being perceived as "Black" regardless of your own culture and values (and other opportunity structures) can limit one's life chances in ways that matter.

Harvard economist Sendhil Mullainathan, the co-author of Are Emily and Greg More Employable than Lakisha and Jamal?, points to a variety of conclusive empirical studies that there is something distinctive about color of skin that results in divergent outcomes even when other factors are controlled for (see here).

Another frustration I have with Sowell’s book is that he seems unwilling to make concessions and instead repeatedly represents liberal attitudes about race solely in a negative light. He is prone at times to overstatement and inflammatory language. For instance, he writes,

Multiculturalism, like the caste system, tends to freeze people where the accident of birth has placed them (110).

Sowell uses “multiculturalism” to mean the liberal vision of race relations. Sowell’s justification for his view lies in the widespread hesitancy in placing the onus on underperforming minorities to improve their situation. Sowell writes,

The corrections being urged are seldom corrections within the lagging groups, such as Hume urged upon his fellow Scots in the eighteenth century. Today, the prevailing tenets of multiculturalism declare all cultures equal, sealing members of lagging groups within a bubble of their current habits and practices, much as believers in multiculturalism have sealed themselves within a bubble of peer-consensus dogma (50-51).

My experience leads me to believe that these statements are an unfair characterization of most of those who do the work on the ground in social justice. I lived in a teacher boot camp for eight weeks at Teach For America Bay Area, an organization that was led and composed of people who, without exception as far as I could tell, ascribed to liberal views on race issues. Yet, at the risk of stating the obvious, we wanted to help students have more opportunities than their parents had, and not uphold the status quo. I certainly was encouraged to have high expectations of my students and was warned about how lowering expectations for students could be a kind of racism.

To his credit, Sowell usually qualifies his statements more carefully, leading to more sound conclusions as below:

Sometimes there is an implicit assumption that any lack of skills or other qualifications among blacks today is solely a result of previous discrimination-- rather than any of the innumerable other factors producing equal or greater differences among other racial or ethnic groups in other countries around the world. Sometimes this belief even became explicit, as when Justice Harry Blackmun declared in the Weber case in 1979 that there could be “little doubt that any lack of skill has its roots in purposeful discrimination of the past” (105).

Sowell's book contains one of the most thorough critiques of social justice philosophy I have ever heard, but I think that unfortunately, its moments of one-sidedness play a part in the fact that the book is mainly ignored by liberals.

I did not know that Thomas Sowell was black when I started reading this book and I was quite surprised when I eventually realized that he was. It is interesting to consider what led Sowell to passionately defend ideas that some might call racist. The book is almost entirely bereft of personal anecdotes, but Sowell does include one revealing footnote:

As a personal note, I lived in Harlem in the 1940s and 1950s, when no one expected the smell of urine to be the norm in places where blacks lived. Others familiar with that period likewise paint a radically different picture of that era. For example: “These were not projects of idle, stinky elevators, of gang-controlled stairwells where drug deals go down. In the 1940s, ‘50s and 60’s when most of the city’s public housing was built, a sense of pride and community permeated well-kept corridors, apartments and grounds.” . . . There was certainly not less discrimination or racism in this earlier period, so the difference was not due to white people. Among the differences between the two eras was that the intelligentsia, both black and white, became more prone in the later period to make excuses such as James Baldwin made for moral squalor and barbaric behavior. After such notions permeated the society, barbaric behavior and moral squalor became accepted norms within some segments of society -- and among many intellectuals observing those segments of society.

So Sowell does have his own personal reasons for his conclusions, which inform his intellectual arguments. I find his arguments about how “enlightened” views about race relations have the potential to be counterproductive to be sincere and persuasive.

Some thoughts about gender relations in the Book of Mormon inspired by Joseph Spencer's A Brief Theological Introduction to 1st Nephi

In his book 1st Nephi: A Brief Theological Introduction, Joseph Spencer writes “the Book of Mormon feels less and less readable in the twenty-first century, that is, in a culture of progressive emancipation for women” (100). Those of us who, like me, grew up with the Book of Mormon, are accustomed to the diminished role of women within that text. However, it is easy to imagine that those who do not have this background find the diminished role of women in the Book of Mormon to be jarring. 

Before reading Spencer’s book, I had never realized that Lehi received commandments about gender relations that were separate from the Law of Moses. In Jacob 2—the chapter where Jacob lambasts the men for, among other things, “committing whoredoms” (v 23) and having “many wives and concubines” (v 24)—Jacob references “commandments [that] were given to our father, Lehi” about gender relations (Jacob 2:34). These commandments from Lehi include the forbidding of polygamy, while polygamy is expressly permitted under the law of Moses. Jacob mentions these commandments again in Jacob 3:5.

Behold, the Lamanites your brethren, … are more righteous than you; for they have not forgotten the commandment of the Lord, which was given unto our father – that they should have save it were one wife, and concubines they should have none, and there should not be whoredoms committed among them.

It is mysterious that Nephi never mentions these commandments about chastity and gender relations from Lehi that meant so much to Jacob. Spencer (sort of) insinuates that Nephi may have contributed to a culture characterized by problematic gender relations. Maybe these commandments about gender relations were included in the lost 116 pages of the book of Lehi?

Jacob’s sermon on chastity includes the following warning:

For behold, I, the Lord, have seen the sorrow and heard the mourning of the daughters of my people in the land of Jerusalem, and in all the lands of my people, because of the wickedness and abominations of their husbands. And I will not suffer, saith the Lord of Hosts, that the cries of the fair daughters of this people, which I have led out of the land of Jerusalem shall come up unto me against the men of my people, saith the Lord of Hosts. For they shall lead away captive the daughters of my people because of their tenderness, save I shall visit them with a sore curse, even unto destruction (Jacob 2:31 – 33).

Spencer comments on this prophecy of Jacob’s: “Jacob’s predictions come spectacularly, terribly true. Nephite men, unrepentant of their sins against women, grow worse as the Book of Mormon near its conclusion.” Here Spencer alludes to the most trigger-warning worthy verses of scripture, which appear in Moroni 9:9-10.

And notwithstanding this great abomination of the Lamanites, it doth not exceed that of our people in Moriantum. For behold, many of the daughters of the Lamanites have they taken prisoners; and after depriving them of that which was most dear and precious above all things, which is chastity and virtue—And after they had done this thing, they did murder them in a most cruel manner, torturing their bodies even unto death; and after they have done this, they devour their flesh like unto wild beasts, because of the hardness of their hearts; and they do it for a token of bravery.

It certainly seems that if one of the main messages of the Book of Mormon is that wicked gender relations lead to spiritual destruction, it should have been repeated more often or been stated more clearly. Jacob certainly sends a strong message about the need for righteous gender relations, but no other Book of Mormon prophet addresses the issue.

The famous author and anthropologist, Jared Diamond, discusses the decline of a variety of different civilizations in his book Collapse. He consistently refuses “single-cause explanations” of demise. For example, Diamond refuses to place the blame of the Rwandan genocide solely on ethnic hatred or extreme levels of population density, instead saying that these were among the factors of the genocide rather than sole factors (328).

We may consider something similar about the spiritual collapse of the Book of Mormon: poor treatment of women was not the only reason why the Nephite civilization collectively lost their spiritual soul, but it contributed to their problem.  

Spencer seems to suggest that the Nephite nation never internalized Jacob’s message about gender relations and the destruction of the Nephite nation is a fulfillment of Jacob’s prophetic warning in Jacob 2. In Jacob’s sermon, Jacob compares Nephite gender relations to Lamanite gender relations and says that Lamanites are in a better place than the Nephites spiritually because the Lamanites’ marriages are characterized by reciprocal love: “their husbands love their wives and their wives love their husbands” (vs 7).   

Spencer sees within the Book of Mormon some evidence that Lamanite women enjoyed a more privileged position in society than Nephite women did. King Lamoni’s wife in Alma 19 is called a “queen” and she exercises some political power as evidenced by her sending for Ammon. In Alma 22, King Lamoni's father's wife is also called a queen and she also has servants to whom she gives commands. The queen of the Lamanites in Alma 47 gives and sends messages to Amalickiah and hears the testimony of witnesses. In contrast, no Nephite queens (or judges) are ever mentioned. No Nephite woman is ever named or ever has a speaking part in the Book of Mormon, while there are four Lamanite women that have speaking parts: King Lamoni’s wife, Abish, the Queen of the Lamanites in Alma 47, and King Lamoni's father's wife. One other Lamanite woman, Isabel, is identified by name (Alma 39:3).

What do we make of the fact that Nephite women appear in scripture far less often than Lamanite women, women in the New Testament, or women in the Hebrew Bible?

The people of King Noah repeat the sins of the Nephites that Jacob preached against. King Noah and his priests practice polygamy, have concubines, and employ harlots (see Mosiah 11:4, 14). Later, King Noah literally commands his people (or at least his men) to abandon their wives and flee from the Lamanites. In the aftermath of that story, the priests of Noah kidnap Lamanite women. In Ammonihah, women were victims of targeted violence (Alma 14). Given where Nephite society ended up, it is reasonable to wonder if these sins that the people of Ammonihah, the people of King Noah, and the people during the time of Jacob had problems with were continuing problems in Nephite society and contributed to the demise (both spiritual and physical) of their civilization.

Review of Alejo Carpentier's Explosion in a Cathedral

In Explosion in A Cathedral, Carpentier depicts the intense climate of moral purity that existed during the French Revolution.  Punishable crimes include showing skepticism about the revolution, hanging around those who were viewed as anti-revolution, playing face cards (as face cards contain symbols of monarchy), playing traditional Catholic hymns, playing music composed by Masons, and holding mass.

Carpentier also depicts the hypocrisy inherent in the ever-changing Revolution. One of the protagonists, Victor Hugues, is a French politician in the Caribbean, and he is fiercely loyal to the Revolution. When Hugues finishes the destruction of the main church in Guadeloupe, he learns that the prevailing religion of the French Revolution has moved from atheism to the Cult of the Supreme Being and Hugues is left in an awkward position.

The worst hypocrisy of the Revolution is most obviously manifested in the attitude toward slaves. Inspired by the democratic ideals of the Revolution, France abolished slavery in its Caribbean colonies in the late 18^th century. However, in Carpentier’s book, French sailors are depicted selling slaves to other colonial powers for financial profit after the decree of abolitionism.  However, a few years later, the French (now under Napoleon) reinstated slavery in their Caribbean colonies. Victor Hugues is still a powerful politician in Napoleon’s era, and the man who formerly announced the emancipation of slavery in Guadeloupe under the Revolution leads efforts to hunt down and kill those who refuse to reenter slavery.

I found the history depicted in this book fascinating. The story of the exiled Acadians is another historical gem. However, I did not find the characters particularly admirable, likable, or (except in the case of Victor Hugues) memorable. I didn’t like any of the characters enough to be sad when the book ended in tragedy.

  

Because the book highlights contradictions and excesses of revolution, it seemed to me that the author, Carpentier, might have some conservative views. As such, I was surprised to learn that Carpentier supported Fidel Castro all his life. This is likely partly explained by how bad the dictatorship was in Cuba before Castro, particularly for intellectuals, but I wonder what other explanations there are to this mystery. 

Review of The Mormon Church & Blacks by Matthew Harris and Newell Bringhurst's

Reading Matthew Harris and Newell Bringhurst’s book The Mormon Church and Blacks: A Documentary History helped me recognize not only the troubling history of blacks in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, but also ways in which that history persists. Unfortunately, this important book is marred by some misleading representations that lead me to recommend reading this book with caution.

I appreciated the high ratio of primary source text to commentary. The primary sources include scriptures, statements made by church leaders beginning with Joseph Smith, and the Church-approved Gospel Topics Essay “Race and the Priesthood,” published in 2013. Many of the primary sources I had never seen before, such as the letter from David Gillispie, a black member of the Church living in Ogden, Utah, to David O. Mckay, the President of the Church in 1967. This letter, which recounts Brother Gillispie’s struggles as a black member, was the most heart-wrenching part of the book for me. He starts his letter, "Dear Beloved, President McKay," and his love for the church is obvious. But he also reveals that he feels "bitterness the likes of which I have never felt before" developing within him in regard to the priesthood ban and the way it has profoundly affected his life (Chapter 5).

While I appreciated access to these primary sources, I also am bothered by the idea that the authors may have misrepresented some of these sources, as they certainly did in the case of the Book of Mormon. Particularly because there is little editorializing in this book, the authors’ introductory comments to primary source material are significant. The second of four paragraphs of introductory material to the Book of Mormon begins as follows:

The Book of Mormon, while not directly addressing race involving blacks or people of African descent, alluded to them through its use of the term black interchangeably with red in describing various dark-skinned people and the curse inflicted on them.

The above sentence is false and misleading in a variety of different ways:

• The word “red” is never used in the Book of Mormon to describe a “dark-skinned people.” The authors reference Alma 3:13 in their footnote, but this scripture does not refer to skin color at all; it states that the Amlicites had marked themselves with “a mark of red upon their foreheads” (Alma 3:13).
• The word “interchangeably” suggests that the terms “black” and “red” appear often in the Book of Mormon. However, “blackness” comes up only once to describe skin (see 2 Nephi 5:21) and “red” only occurs twice, a few verses apart, in reference to the color of a mark on the forehead (see Alma 3:4, 13).
• The word “interchangeably” also suggests that the terms “black” and “red” describe the same groups of people. However, “blackness” is used in reference to the early Lamanites, and the “red” mark is self-assigned by the Amlicites, who are an off shoot of Nephites.
• The authors make a passing conclusion on a debated topic when they suggest that color describes the Lamanite curse.  Among many others, Brent Gardner (see here and here) argues that the curse is separate from skin color.

Later in the paragraph, the authors suggest that the Jaredites may be black and then mention that the Jaredites “perished because of their unrighteousness.” In so doing, they insinuate a connection between the Jaredites’ race and their righteousness. Firstly, their argument that the Jaredites may be black is quite attenuated. Secondly, if it is true that the Jaredites have African ancestry as the authors suggest, then it is misleading to state their eventual fate without mentioning periods of prolonged righteousness, their renowned writing tradition or their prosperous civilization (see Mosiah 28:17-19, Ether 12:24, and Ether 9:16). If the Jaredites were righteous and unrighteous at different times, then clearly there was no connection between their race and their righteousness.

The authors made several significant mistakes and misleading comments in introducing the Book of Mormon to their readers. I only caught these misrepresentations because I know a fair amount about the primary source in question. Seeing this primary source misrepresented does cause me to wonder if there are other misrepresentations in the book that I missed.

Regardless, I found the book quite enlightening. It brought to my attention the history of how ideas in scripture were used to justify racist policy within the Church. While the Church has repudiated some of its racist teachings from the past, it still faces the problem of having canonized scripture with racist connotations and/or ideas (e.g. Moses 7:22, and the Joseph Smith Translation of Genesis 9:26). This presents a vexing issue, as the concept of scripture means that we do not have the luxury of updating it to fit with modern sensibilities. Part of our problem can be resolved through certain generous scriptural interpretations. Nevertheless, we have a persistent problem and I am not sure that there is an easy solution.

After reading this book, I read an article written by Kwaku El (see here) that answers the question "How could any self-respecting African American subscribe to the doctrine of the restored gospel, as given by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints?" While this documentary history showed the uckiness of having canonized scriptures with racist ideas, Kwaku argues that the Book of Mormon is unique among scripture because it preaches against racism. I recommend Kwaku's thoughts to consider alongside this book for those interested in the subject.

Review of Haruki Murakami's Wind-Up Bird Chronicle

At university, I minored in Japanese. In the process, I read works by, among others, Ishimure Michiko, Hoshi Shinichi, Endo Shusaku, and classic Japanese authors like Sei Shonagon. I never read anything written by Haruki Murakami as it was never part of the curriculum. Why? Well, the professor of modern Japanese fiction hated Haruki Murakami. The possibility of Murakami earning the Nobel Prize in literature threatened this Professor's faith in mankind. At the time, I thought to myself, "Dude, take a chill pill." Now I understand.

The New York Times Novemeber 1997 effusive review of the book says,

"By the book's midway point, the novelist-juggler has tossed so many balls into the air that he inevitably misses a few on the way down. . . . In ''The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle'' Murakami has written a bold and generous book, and one that would have lost a great deal by being tidied up."

That Murakami misses a "few" of the balls on the way down is an understatement (I also don't know understand how this book is "bold and generous" but whatever). The book is a mess of loose ends. For example, here are just a few:

* Is the protagonist going to sleep with May Kasahara? Is May Kasahara somehow the same person as Kumiko?
* Why did Cinnamon never speak again after his weird dream / not dream in which he finds a beating heart in a hole in the ground? And whose heart was that?
* How did Cinnamon find Kumiko to write the Wind Up Bird Chronicle #18?
* Why did the well fill up with water when the protagonist is sitting in it?  Why does Cinnamon save the protagonist from drowning?
* How did Creta Kano become a "mind prostitute" in which she has the power to appear to people in their in sexually charged dreams? And why does she appear in the protagonist's dreams without his solicitation?
* Why do the Kanos disappear out of the book after playing a main role in the first 200 pages?
* What is with the parallel usage of baseball bats by the Chinese officers (and Japanese soldier) in the war and by the protagonist? Do they have the same bat?
* Why does the guitar-playing musician attempt, without ever meeting the protagonist and without any explanation, to kill the protagonist?
* Why do the protagonist and the veterinarian share a mark on their faces? How does Creta Kano's alternate-universe kiss give the protagonist his mark?

In general, I agree with Zach's well-liked negative review of the Wind Up Bird Chronicle on Goodreads. Zach's main point is that "Murakami's most heinous crime is writing a 600 page novel that is functionally meaningless."

Some may find meaning in the fact that book reveals the repressed PTSD of the Japanese from WWII.  Due to my interest in Japanese history, I found the stories about Japanese-colonized Manchuria and the Sino Japanese War fascinating. My favorite part of the book was this historical aspect, even though it was very dark.

Zach writes, "Try as I might, I can't find a message Murakami was trying to express through The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle." The only one character whose seems to have anything to say about life is Lieutenant Mamiya. His message is that life has been emptiness in the 40-year span since the war ended. He taught social studies in the interim, but it was pointless, and the only thing real to him is the war that ended 40 years ago. The other characters may have psychic powers, but they don't really believe anything (other than Nutmeg's belief that people should be well-dressed). The protagonist's honesty is a likeable quirk, but his overall lack of belief in anything and his inability to make his own meaningful decisions is frustrating. As Zach from Goodreads puts it, "Whenever the protagonist didn't know what to do next (which happened constantly) a psychic would suddenly and inexplicably appear to tell him the next step, and whenever the action began to slow down, the author would include a surreal dream or grotesque murder." This makes the book feel hollow.

I do have to disagree with Zach that the book was "boring" with "awkward prose." The book was a morbidly fascinating page turner. It was not until the end of the book that I started getting frustrated with it as it became clear that there was no point to the book and that the plot was full of holes.

I wonder what it says about modern society that this book is so well received?