Deal Me In Challenge: The Ice Man by Haruki Murakami

Card Drawn:

"Dreams come from the past, not from the future. Dreams shouldn't control you--you should control them."

Another Murakami! I'm getting lucky with these diamond cards.

It is difficult to come up with a universal definition of magical realism since it embodies many different schools of thought. As an author who has written extensively in this literary mode, I prefer Salman Rushdie's interpretation, which draws attention to the contradictory aspects of the oxymoron term: "it is a commingling of the improbable and the mundane." In short, the "improbable" aspect often refers to an intrusion of reality by something magical and fantastic that is too uncanny to believe but is accepted as empirical truth. Taking Rushdie's definition into consideration, Haruki Murakami's "The Ice Man" is clearly a work of magical realism and the eponymous character is presented as a mythical figure in the folk-lore tradition. 

The story is narrated in the first person by the Ice Man's wife as she reflects upon their unconventional relationship from their  very first meeting at a ski resort ("It's hard to imagine a more appropriate place to meet an Ice Man"), to getting married much to the chagrin of friends and family and eventually moving to the south pole. He is nothing like the superhero from Marvel's X-men, bearing the same name, who takes an ice-covered form with the special ability to manipulate ice and cold into powerful attacks. Rather, this Ice Man is covered with permafrost so his body temperature always exerts coldness. He is often reserved, solitary, cold and distant; thus, The Ice-Man being an apt metaphor for someone who is taciturn and incapable of expressing their feelings. He loves his wife but is heavily withdrawn and emotionally detached, which causes her to feel empty in their marriage. His origin story is never revealed because he claims to have no past: 

"I know the past of everything else, and preserve it. But I have no past myself. I have no idea where I was born. I don't know what my parents looked like, or whether I even had any. I don't know how old I am, or if I even have an age." 

Once again, the Ice Man is emblematic of the magical realism in the story because he is presumably supernatural and surrounded by mystery that cannot be explained in rational terms. He simply exists in this world and that is enough. However, one of his many oddities is that he possesses the gift of intuitive perception but for some reason remains clueless about his wife's emotional needs to feel desired and understood: "I just know these things, like I'm looking deep into a clear block of ice. When I gaze at you like this, I can see everything about you." The inconsistencies in his character were a little confusing and difficult to grasp. Moreover, as you can see, Murakami is fond of using a cold/ice similes and metaphors but they do become a tad redundant. Here's another one: "The Ice Man was as isolated and alone as an iceberg floating in the darkness." We get it. He is a literal and figurative Ice-Man. The author returns to familiar themes of isolation and loneliness although the story seems to lack the usual pathos expected from him. Still, Murakami's beautiful writing and his occasional nuggets of wisdom help to make up for some of the story's deficiencies.