61 pages • 2 hours read
Haruki Murakamiafter the quake
Fiction | Short Story Collection | Adult | Published in 2000A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Story 6Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Story 6 Summary: “Honey Pie”
Content Warning: This section of the guide includes discussion of sexual content.
Junpei is a 36-year-old writer and longtime college friend of Sayoko. The novel begins with Junpei telling Sala, Sayoko’s four-year-old daughter, a story about a bear named Masakichi who has no friends and sells honey in town. It is two o’clock in the morning, and Sala has been having repeated nightmares after seeing too much coverage of the Kobe earthquake on television. She dreams of the “Earthquake Man” (108), who tries to trap her in a box. Sayoko is exhausted and called Junpei to help Sala fall back asleep. She avoids contacting her ex-husband, Takatsuki. Sayoko apologizes for interrupting Junpei’s late-night writing session, but he tells her not to worry, as there’s no longer a market for short stories. He suggests a field trip to the zoo so that Sala can meet a real bear. Sayoko asks Junpei to invite Takatsuki so that all four of them can spend time together.
The narrative flashes back to Junpei’s years at Waseda University, where he first met Takatsuki and Sayoko. Junpei wanted to become a novelist but told his parents that he would major in business to appease them. Secretly, he majored in literature. Takatsuki was a good-looking, athletic student who struggled in the literature department but had goals to become a reporter. Junpei never understood what Takatsuki saw in him, an awkward and bookish student, but the two made fast friends when Takatsuki invited him to grab a meal together. Soon after, they made friends with Sayoko and formed a close bond. Sayoko had attended an exclusive prep school and aspired to become a literature scholar. She and Junpei bonded over books, whereas Takatsuki had trouble reading novels.
Junpei fell in love with Sayoko but kept his feelings a secret. He didn’t want to disturb the dynamic of the trio’s friendship and was waiting for the right opportunity. The following fall, Takatsuki confided that he was in love with Sayoko, and the two started dating. Junpei reacted nonchalantly but blamed himself for not acting sooner and skipped classes for a week. Sayoko confronted him and confessed that she loved Takatsuki but needed Junpei, too. She began crying, and Junpei kissed her and felt a switch inside himself. He returned to classes the next day, and the three friends continued to remain close through graduation.
Junpei dated a few women that Sayoko introduced him to, but the relationships typically didn’t last. Junpei was respectful to the women, but without a chance to be with Sayoko, he found more passion in writing. After graduation, his parents found out about his literature degree and disowned him. Junpei took part-time jobs writing and never submitted a piece before getting Sayoko’s opinion. He was nominated four times for the prestigious Akutagawa Prize but never won. Critics praised the psychological depth of his works but criticized his old-fashioned sentimentality and repetitious treatment of unrequited love. Junpei published two volumes of short stories before turning 30. These were well received but not wildly successful. His editor urged him to tackle the novel and experiment with more innovative, edgier styles to reach a broader audience. Junpei tried but could never finish the daunting task of writing a novel. He conceded that his personality would never change and that he was born to write short stories.
Sayoko and Takatsuki married after graduation and often felt more comfortable with Junpei’s company than as a couple alone. As expected, Takatsuki worked as a reporter and would boast about how desensitized he had become to death and violence. Sayoko entered graduate school and gave birth to Sala, whom Junpei named. On a drunken night while Sayoko was in the hospital, Takatsuki told Junpei that Sayoko had always preferred Junpei but that Junpei was too stupid to notice. He commented that Junpei may have been good at writing fiction but was lousy at understanding women. Takatsuki praised Sayoko as incomparable and claimed that he had a right to have her.
Sayoko and Takatsuki divorced before Sala’s second birthday. Takatsuki had an affair and moved in with his girlfriend. He visits Sala once a week, and Junpei joins them to ease the tension. Sala believes that her parents are still together. Takatsuki once encouraged Junpei to marry Sayoko and be a father to Sala, but Junpei scoffed at the idea as indecent.
Two years later, when Junpei was 35, his writing career took off. Sayoko got a stable job translating his stories. Junpei considered marrying Sayoko but hesitated because he felt that nothing had been determined by his own actions. Takatsuki had been the decisive one, whereas Junpei had been passive. The Kobe earthquake struck, and Junpei learned about the earthquake from the news while on a writing assignment in Barcelona. He returned to Tokyo but did not contact his parents and avoided the news. He felt uprooted and ruptured from his past.
The narrative returns to the present, and Takatsuki is unable to make the zoo visit. Junpei and Sayoko take Sala to see the bears. Junpei tells Sala a story about another bear named Tonkichi who hunted salmon and became best friends with the honey bear, Masakichi. The two would trade their food, but when all the salmon disappeared, Masakichi offered to give his honey to Tonkichi for free. Tonkichi refused, believing that true friendship can’t consist only of taking and not giving. Tonkichi left the mountain and was captured by a hunter who sent him to the zoo. Sayoko tells Junpei that he could have come up with a better ending.
That evening, the three have dinner together, and Junpei and Sayoko put Sala to bed. Junpei and Sayoko laugh over the evening’s fun and kiss, sparking the same attraction they had when they were 19. Sayoko comments that Junpei didn’t realize they could be together until the salmon disappeared, and the two have sex. Sala wakes up in the middle of the night and tells them that the Earthquake Man visited and had boxes ready for them. Junpei moves to the sofa and avoids the television, imagining that the boxes are inside the set. He wonders if he has spent his life in a meaningful way and thinks about Takatsuki’s warmth and optimism when they first met. He decides to propose to Sayoko in the morning. He devises a new ending for the bear story, where Tonkichi bakes honey pies with Masakichi’s honey and the two best friends live happily ever after. Junpei also decides to start writing about people who want light and love. He watches over Sayoko and Sala as they sleep and promises to protect them from disasters and not to let anyone put them in a box.
Story 6 Analysis
“honey pie” focuses on the role that storytelling and literature play in processing trauma and demonstrates the theme of The Arts as a Source of Self-Discovery and Renewal. Appropriately, the narrative begins in medias res with Junpei telling a bedtime story to Sala to ease her nightmares about the earthquake. Junpei crafts a gentle and innocent character, Masakichi, the “all-time Number One honey bear” (104), to balance the horrors of the “Earthquake Man” who tries to trap Sala in a box. Masakichi is “a very sweet-tempered little guy” who listens to classical music (105). The story engages Sala’s imagination in a positive way and demonstrates how the imagination is a place of not just fear but also delight.
Junpei also uses the story of the bears to process his own feelings about his cherished friendships with Sayoko and Takatsuki. The three friends met while university students in the literature department, highlighting the importance of stories as a foundation that brought the three together. Junpei portrays Masakichi as a lonely bear who has no friends and belongs in neither the world of bears nor that of people. The moral of Junpei’s fable for Sala is the importance of going to school and making friends. The tale also reflects Junpei’s own gratitude for the friendships he has with Sayoko and Takatsuki. He tells Sala that each of her parents is his “absolute bestest friend” (105). Yet Masakichi is a solitary bear stuck between two worlds, and the bear’s experience of ostracism and isolation hints at a conflict and sorrow buried deep in Junpei’s unconscious, that of appreciating his friendship with the couple while repressing his love for Sayoko.
Literature also plays a role in Junpei’s self-identification. He considers literature an underappreciated art, an assessment that reflects his own self-esteem. During his youth, Junpei was disowned by his parents, who deemed the study of literature inferior to that of business. As a student, he didn’t understand how a charismatic person like Takatsuki would want to befriend a bookworm like himself. Junpei regards his literary interests with a defeatist outlook. When he lost Sayoko to Takatsuki, a boy who had “trouble reading books” (109), Junpei feigned nonchalance to their new relationship and minimized the connection that he and Sayoko shared, a bond built on their shared love of literature. He passively accepted that “Takatsuki had all the qualifications. He himself had none. It was that simple” (112). To Junpei, the aspiring novelist never got the girl.
As an adult, Junpei carries a similar, self-deprecating attitude and copes with his repressed desires and feelings of loss through his writing. He writes collections of short stories that deal with unrequited love and unhappy endings as a coping mechanism for his missed opportunity with Sayoko. Literature becomes a way for Junpei to channel his feelings, yet it also serves as a reminder of his failings. He wins some literary prizes, but not the most prestigious ones. He equates writing short stories with his personality, and both are deemed out of fashion and “on the way out” (107). Junpei feels unappreciated and overlooked, just like the short story form. The story’s title is an allusion to the Beatles’ song “Honey Pie,” an homage to the British music hall style (American vaudeville) about a man pining over a woman he calls his “Honey Pie.” The old-timey song features Paul McCartney’s voice recorded to sound like a scratchy record. The song’s nostalgia reflects Junpei’s feelings of being too old-fashioned and sentimental. His editor encourages him to write more edgy works to appeal to a modern sensibility, but Junpei is neither willing nor able to change his style.
Even when Junpei becomes a successful writer, he does not regard himself or his work highly. He tells Sayoko, “I write ’em. They print ’em. Nobody reads ’em” (107). Yet Sayoko insists that she read every one of his stories. Junpei, too absorbed in his own insecurities, doesn’t see how much Sayoko and Takatsuki value his friendship and talents. When Junpei rejects the idea that Sayoko had always preferred him, Takatsuki chides, “[Y]ou just don’t get it” (119), a comment on Junpei’s failure to confront the world with the same passion that he devotes to his stories. The melancholy of lost love, carried throughout Junpei’s adult life, inspires his writing while also exacerbating his loneliness.
Junpei’s relationship to literature and storytelling changes after the Kobe earthquake. The disaster metaphorically shakes something inside him, and he is impelled to reexamine his life and finally take decisive action to pursue happiness. He writes a new, happy ending for the bears and resolves to write new types of fiction about “people who dream and wait for the night to end, who long for the light so they can hold the ones they love” (131). Junpei essentially describes himself as he lovingly watches over Sayoko and Sala through the night and is eager to propose to Sayoko in the morning. He values resilience and cherishing loved ones. Junpei comes to associate literature not with the tragedy of unrequited love but with optimism and healing.
At the end, Junpei recognizes that he has been making excuses out of insecurity and fear. He admits that “his relationship with Sayoko had been consistently directed by others. His position was always passive” (123). In some ways, he is his own Earthquake Man, a haunting figure who threatens to enclose people in small boxes, limiting their freedom and potential. When Sala announces that the Earthquake Man was ready for them, Junpei realizes that he has no time to waste and decides to devote himself to Sayoko, Sala, and love. He declares, “I will never let anyone—not anyone—try to put them into that crazy box—not even if the sky should fall or the earth crack open with a roar” (131). The earthquake and the Earthquake Man function as the catalysts for Junpei to accept the fragility of life and preserve it at all costs.
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