The Elephant Vanishes: Stories

As in most of the stories in the collection, animals are a central motif in “The Kangaroo Communiqué.” Murakami structures the story in the form of a letter (the titular communiqué) written by the narrator, who draws a connection between watching four kangaroos at his local zoo and the woman who filed a complaint with his company about her purchase. Specifically, the narrator reveals that there were “thirty-six intricate procedural steps” (53) that led him from the kangaroos to the addressee. The narrator never discloses these steps (he is not even sure he himself can remember them all), but the connection between the letter and the kangaroos is important enough that the narrator names his letter “The Kangaroo Communiqué.” To the narrator, the kangaroos—like himself and the woman—are simply fellow creatures connected by what he calls the Nobility of Imperfection: “the proposition that someone in effect forgives someone else” (55). The kangaroos—being animals—are inherently imperfect, just as he and the woman are imperfect. Their communication will inevitably be imperfect, necessitating forgiveness.

The tone and meandering quality of the narrator’s letter emphasizes the theme of Existential Anxiety in the Modern World so prominent in Murakami’s stories. The narrator himself has a hard time pinpointing what excites him so much about the woman’s complaint, though it clearly has something to do with the imperfections of her letter (and even the implausibility of the complaint, which in his view is hardly a complaint at all). The woman, in other words, is real, and this reality comes through in her imperfection (just as the reality of kangaroos comes through in their imperfections). To the narrator, there is something erotic in all of this: He admits freely that he wants to sleep with the woman despite knowing nothing about her—another instance in which a female character becomes simply a projection of the male narrator rather than a character in her own right.

The narrator is also “extremely dissatisfied” (64) with himself, and specifically with what he views essentially as the imperfection of his own existence—namely, his “singularity” (64). As the narrator reveals, all he wants is “to be able to be in two places at once” (64). This desire, at the core of the narrator’s being, represents his fundamental existential anxiety. This existential anxiety connects to his Internality and Social Relationships (both real and desired), which is the essence of the letter itself. It is less about a feeling of connection to the woman herself and more about a need to find expression for his own internal thoughts, sexual desires, and anxieties. The man longs for simultaneity or doubleness, a motif reflected in the doubling—or confusion—of the woman with the kangaroos and the woman’s mistaking of Mahler for Brahms, as well as the man’s dissatisfaction with the inherent singularity of his existence and his striving for the “Nobility of Imperfection.” In the end, the man resolves to send the letter, even though he is dissatisfied with it, reflecting that “what the hell, I’m striving for imperfection, so I’ve got to live happily by my choice” (65). He does not give thought to any effect that receiving such a letter might have on the woman, reinforcing the sense that he views the letter—and its recipient—as simply an outlet for his own anxiety, longing, and desire.