The Kangaroo Communique- 09/26/08.

"Maybe that strikes you as odd.  You ask yourself, Why should looking at kangaroos make me want to send you a letter?  And just what is the connection between these kangaroos and me?  Well, you can stop thinking those thoughts right now.  Makes no nevermind.  Kangaroos are kangaroos, you are you.

In other words, it's like that:

Thirty-six intricate procedural steps, followed one by one in just the right order, led me from the kangaroos to you--that's it.  To attempt to explain each and every one of these steps would surely try your powers of comprehension, but more than that, I doubt I can even remember them all."

This passage is located toward the beginning of the book.  It sets up relationships the relationship between the main character and the person he is writing to in an unorthodox way.  First, Murakami uses informal diction and the second person point of view when writing this short story.  This makes the reader feel as if she or he is that person he writes to.  Though this allows for a connection with the narrator, it also leaves us a little confused because as this other person, the reader supposedly knows everything.  In this way, the reader starts out incredibly confused in the beginning of the story and slowly accumulates information indirectly.  The association Murakami sets up between this other person and kangaroos is one example of the gap in our knowledge.  For some reason, Murakami chooses to set this association then tells us to forget about it.  It is difficult to understand why Murakami piques our interest through the use of rhetorical questions, "Why should looking at kangaroos make me want to send you a letter?  And just what is the connection between these kangaroos and me?" and then completely tells us to abandon the idea.  Then, Murakami aggravates the reader further by repeating this structure.  He tells the reader he arrived at his connection through 36 specific steps and then refuses to reveal these steps claiming they "would surely try your powers of comprehension."  These little irritating things are syntactically compiled to bring about the most irritation in the reader.  Murakami begins a thought, drops it, begins another, drops this one, and then tells the reader she or he simply would not understand.  I think Murakami does this to stimulate as much interest as he can from the reader.  By purposely and obviously with holding information, he causes the reader to eagerly wait on the rest of the story hoping he'll throw a few more scraps of information our way.