Haruki Murakami: The Moment I Became a Novelist(lithub.com)
lithub.com
Haruki Murakami: The Moment I Became a Novelist
http://lithub.com/haruki-murakami-the-moment-i-became-a-novelist/
47 comments
>This epiphany he writes about sounds almost religious in nature. Did he really not consider writing before that? Does his memory fail him, is this a memory construct that makes for a good story but doesn’t hint at what really happened? I’ve never experienced anything like this myself.
Depends on the person. Life-changing decisions do come like that to some people (usually stuff I think about for months or years I never go anywhere with, whereas decisions I take in the moment, I do carry through).
>Except of course when I turned 13 and got into playing rock music on my guitar. I spent the next 7 years feeling lost, because I really wanted to be a musician but the career opportunities seemed unfeasible. It wasn’t until after a brief stint as a data entry clerk in the UK that I came to the conclusion that I needed to get my shit together and go to uni.
Coincidentally Elvis Costello took the inverse path: working as a data entry clerk he decided he wouldn't take it and followed a career in rock.
So, perhaps people who went to do those more unconventional things have more unconventional "deciding moments"?
Depends on the person. Life-changing decisions do come like that to some people (usually stuff I think about for months or years I never go anywhere with, whereas decisions I take in the moment, I do carry through).
>Except of course when I turned 13 and got into playing rock music on my guitar. I spent the next 7 years feeling lost, because I really wanted to be a musician but the career opportunities seemed unfeasible. It wasn’t until after a brief stint as a data entry clerk in the UK that I came to the conclusion that I needed to get my shit together and go to uni.
Coincidentally Elvis Costello took the inverse path: working as a data entry clerk he decided he wouldn't take it and followed a career in rock.
So, perhaps people who went to do those more unconventional things have more unconventional "deciding moments"?
It seems that the magical realism that make his work potent also runs through his self-narrative. As is always the case in honest fiction, the line between the words and the wordsmith is quite blurry.
Quite right. As with the "Draw the rest of the owl" idiom, it often looks like people just "realise" what they want to do, then suddenly become that thing. Whereas anyone with remotely complex thoughts and dreams, will generally be taking plenty of steps and introspecting along the way.
If you've not read any of Murakami's fiction and are interested, check out "Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World". I think most HN readers would enjoy it.
It took me close to three years to finish it. I would get distracted, put it down, and pick it up again much later, months later. The surrealness of the story reminds me a lot of other Japanese media that I never really fully understand. I chalked it up to the usual "the Japanese are truly mad" maxim, but after finishing the book, I suppose my opinion changed a little.
The book is almost exclusively inspired by Western stories, music, and tropes. It has shades of Alice in Wonderland, cyberpunk, casual sexual themes, jazz and rock and roll. What makes the book look so foreign to me is that those stories are getting retold all mish-mashed together in a dream-like state with a dash of Japanese tropes.
In the end I enjoyed it, but I don't think I really understood it, and I don't think I can explain why I enjoyed it. Can anyone explain it to me?
The book is almost exclusively inspired by Western stories, music, and tropes. It has shades of Alice in Wonderland, cyberpunk, casual sexual themes, jazz and rock and roll. What makes the book look so foreign to me is that those stories are getting retold all mish-mashed together in a dream-like state with a dash of Japanese tropes.
In the end I enjoyed it, but I don't think I really understood it, and I don't think I can explain why I enjoyed it. Can anyone explain it to me?
You stated what I wanted to state much better than I ever could
I haven't read that particular one, but probably have it in a bookshelf somewhere. My wife is a big Murakami fan and I've read almost all of them. I will make that the next one on my fiction reading list, thanks!
I particularly enjoyed A Wild Sheep Chase and Dance Dance Dance, whereas my wife loves Kafka on the Shore (which I didn't like). Funny that...
I particularly enjoyed A Wild Sheep Chase and Dance Dance Dance, whereas my wife loves Kafka on the Shore (which I didn't like). Funny that...
Also, I finished 1Q84 recently. It took me 3 years, mainly because it was pretty dull and I read other stuff at the same time.
[deleted]
NewYorker also has a bunch of enjoyable shorts available: http://www.newyorker.com/contributors/haruki-murakami
That's my favorite for sure, Wild Sheep Chase and short stories would be my next reccomendation.
That's also my favorite
Among my group of friends, I've found that everyone's favorite Murakami book is always the first or second they read. After you read a couple, they all start sounding the same. Another angsty young man searches for a girl with serious emotional issues, and there's some metaphor heavy dream sequences and talking animals along the way. I haven't read his recent books but I've read five books of his and it was really tiresome, repetitive reading after book 2-3.
I very rarely downvote comments, but I find it distressing that the top comment thread on this post seems to be turning towards a hate-on-Murakami theme.
Not only do I enjoy his work very much, and found some of it to be extremely influential in my life (i.e. Hardboiled Wonderland and the End of the World) I fail to see the value add in these sorts of comments about any creator's work.
The points about his recurring themes are technically true, but it can be easily debated whether he has reason for using the same metaphors across much of his work.
In any event, to me it seems pointlessly negative to critique such a unique and influential writer with these broad strokes. The best you could hope to achieve with these sorts of comments is nothing, and the worst would be to discourage someone else from finding real enjoyment and meaning by reading him.
Specifically, I enjoyed that little essay about the origins of his writing career so much, and it ever so slightly decreased that enjoyment to turn to the comments and see immediate negativity ... so where is the net gain in that?
Edit: Spelling, and added the last sentence.
Not only do I enjoy his work very much, and found some of it to be extremely influential in my life (i.e. Hardboiled Wonderland and the End of the World) I fail to see the value add in these sorts of comments about any creator's work.
The points about his recurring themes are technically true, but it can be easily debated whether he has reason for using the same metaphors across much of his work.
In any event, to me it seems pointlessly negative to critique such a unique and influential writer with these broad strokes. The best you could hope to achieve with these sorts of comments is nothing, and the worst would be to discourage someone else from finding real enjoyment and meaning by reading him.
Specifically, I enjoyed that little essay about the origins of his writing career so much, and it ever so slightly decreased that enjoyment to turn to the comments and see immediate negativity ... so where is the net gain in that?
Edit: Spelling, and added the last sentence.
This is what I came here to write, I think you're spot on.
There's a similar criticism of Hemingway's works[1]: that his prose is stagnant and unchanging. But the fact of the matter is, his books are phenomenal. I still think about many of them often, and they have had a profound impact on my life. I feel much the same way about Murakami. Yes, his protagonists are often similar (say, if one compares the descriptions of solitude in home life in Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle, which I'm reading now), and many follow similar themes, but regardless his books (and short stories) are a delight to read. They are full of beautiful thoughts and writing that, though similar, often build on and compliment one another.
Just my 2c.
[1] http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2015/07/18/hemingway-s...
There's a similar criticism of Hemingway's works[1]: that his prose is stagnant and unchanging. But the fact of the matter is, his books are phenomenal. I still think about many of them often, and they have had a profound impact on my life. I feel much the same way about Murakami. Yes, his protagonists are often similar (say, if one compares the descriptions of solitude in home life in Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle, which I'm reading now), and many follow similar themes, but regardless his books (and short stories) are a delight to read. They are full of beautiful thoughts and writing that, though similar, often build on and compliment one another.
Just my 2c.
[1] http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2015/07/18/hemingway-s...
I enjoyed that little essay about the origins of his writing career so much
Have you read https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/What_I_Talk_About_When_I_Talk_... ?
That wiki article doesn't really do the contents of the book justice.
Have you read https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/What_I_Talk_About_When_I_Talk_... ?
That wiki article doesn't really do the contents of the book justice.
Or rather:
I am so sick of reading about your calendar/planning startup. It is a company with similar people, using similar technology, doing similar things for the same amount of money and cultural mindshare. Sure everyone likes you as you are the new kid on the block, but can you disrupt some other thing you do not enjoy for the sake of your consumer? You are really boring me.
No one ask Van Gogh to paint another Starry Night, man. (It is this quite, oft-repeated by my parents, that makes me thinks Jodie Mitchell is a true genius).
https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/489495-that-s-one-thing-tha...
I am so sick of reading about your calendar/planning startup. It is a company with similar people, using similar technology, doing similar things for the same amount of money and cultural mindshare. Sure everyone likes you as you are the new kid on the block, but can you disrupt some other thing you do not enjoy for the sake of your consumer? You are really boring me.
No one ask Van Gogh to paint another Starry Night, man. (It is this quite, oft-repeated by my parents, that makes me thinks Jodie Mitchell is a true genius).
https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/489495-that-s-one-thing-tha...
>No one ask Van Gogh to paint another Starry Night, man. (It is this quite, oft-repeated by my parents, that makes me thinks Jodie Mitchell is a true genius).
That's because he wasn't that famous when he lived anyway. If he had any success, art dealers would ask him to paint "another Starry night" all the time.
Besides, it's not like his work is composed of paintings entirely unlike each other. In that sense, he already has like 10-15 Starry nights.
(Constrast with Picasso, who had several entirely different periods of work).
That's because he wasn't that famous when he lived anyway. If he had any success, art dealers would ask him to paint "another Starry night" all the time.
Besides, it's not like his work is composed of paintings entirely unlike each other. In that sense, he already has like 10-15 Starry nights.
(Constrast with Picasso, who had several entirely different periods of work).
Yeah, that's not a surprise. It was a flippant comment by non-plussed Joni Mitchell to frequent requests every concert she play "Big Yellow Taxi" (also known for it's chorus "Paved Paradise, Put a Parking Lot") over and over. She was not amused.
The subtext of my orginal comment, by way of her and not voicing Van Gogh: you end up doing something different, and people only want repeats of your popular previous work, or imitations of others, anyway. (Note remixes of the song, which I embarassingly like, continue to pop-up: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Yellow_Taxi)
I get your point, but I think we are talking past each other.
The subtext of my orginal comment, by way of her and not voicing Van Gogh: you end up doing something different, and people only want repeats of your popular previous work, or imitations of others, anyway. (Note remixes of the song, which I embarassingly like, continue to pop-up: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Yellow_Taxi)
I get your point, but I think we are talking past each other.
>you end up doing something different, and people only want repeats of your popular previous work, or imitations of others, anyway.
Well, perhaps the people know something that the creator doesn't.
If you go to a Sushi place you don't expect or want them to suddenly give you a Carribean menu.
I think it's similar with artists. They tend to think that people came to them for "them" intristically, and that they should relish whatever new thing they decide to throw their way, but that's not how it works.
People came to an artist X because he/she gave them that particular flavor that they liked. Not because they just like the person or the way he thinks in general and would follow him to every and any artistic path.
Well, perhaps the people know something that the creator doesn't.
If you go to a Sushi place you don't expect or want them to suddenly give you a Carribean menu.
I think it's similar with artists. They tend to think that people came to them for "them" intristically, and that they should relish whatever new thing they decide to throw their way, but that's not how it works.
People came to an artist X because he/she gave them that particular flavor that they liked. Not because they just like the person or the way he thinks in general and would follow him to every and any artistic path.
I think people want three things: 1) good; 2) different; 3) similar. If your work is good, all that matters is finding the right audience for it. People want things that are different from your past work and the cultural status quo, but they also want similarity, a connection. There are many artists who substantially change their output while remaining popular, but there are many who screw it up too.
I don't think it's necessarily bad to jam on some themes which you've found to work, looking for the perfect permutation of those ideas.
One of my favorite authors Hermann Hesse has very similar themes in almost every book, with just very different remixes on the same concepts. But I love it that he kept searching for the perfect way to present those themes.
Jumping into a different world, if you look at some stand-up comedians like Louis C.K., they have a certain set that they repeat and perfect over time.
A short ebook I recently read (Hooked On You) put it nicely: "Think of yourself as a DJ building a set. The stories are the records in your record box. All you have to do is choose the right ones, and play them in the right order."
One of my favorite authors Hermann Hesse has very similar themes in almost every book, with just very different remixes on the same concepts. But I love it that he kept searching for the perfect way to present those themes.
Jumping into a different world, if you look at some stand-up comedians like Louis C.K., they have a certain set that they repeat and perfect over time.
A short ebook I recently read (Hooked On You) put it nicely: "Think of yourself as a DJ building a set. The stories are the records in your record box. All you have to do is choose the right ones, and play them in the right order."
That's a very astute observation. I read Norwegian Wood first, but that is so different from most his other works and I didn't love it. I don't remember which one I read after that, but I got hooked around the 2nd or the 3rd.
Common themes: a guy, living on his own (or with an often absent girlfriend), cooking simple dishes while drinking beer after working out. He has an ear fetish. There is a cat somewhere. Some magic realism and lots metaphors.
Common themes: a guy, living on his own (or with an often absent girlfriend), cooking simple dishes while drinking beer after working out. He has an ear fetish. There is a cat somewhere. Some magic realism and lots metaphors.
Common themes: a guy, living on his own (or with an often absent girlfriend), cooking simple dishes while drinking beer after working out. He has an ear fetish. There is a cat somewhere. Some magic realism and lots metaphors.
Conspicuous absence of bar/nighclubs, jazz, records, from that list.
Conspicuous absence of bar/nighclubs, jazz, records, from that list.
True, listening to music and drinking alone at bars happens a lot. Not sure I remember any nightclubs.
I agree with you - the only really "unique" Murakami works I've read are Hard-Boiled Wonderland (a mix of SF and fantasy), his non-fiction (especially Underground is good, a series of interviews with victims and perpetrators of the 1995 Aum Shinrikyo Tokyo gas attack), and After the Quake (even that one walks straight into "typical Murakami" territory sometimes).
I think it's one of the reasons why he won't get the Nobel Prize even though so many always list him as top contender, he's just too repetitive.
I think it's one of the reasons why he won't get the Nobel Prize even though so many always list him as top contender, he's just too repetitive.
>Another angsty young man searches for a girl with serious emotional issues, and there's some metaphor heavy dream sequences and talking animals along the way. I haven't read his recent books but I've read five books of his and it was really tiresome, repetitive reading after book 2-3
So? Unlike, say, detective fiction, literature is never about the plot, only about the way the story is told and what it carries with it.
So? Unlike, say, detective fiction, literature is never about the plot, only about the way the story is told and what it carries with it.
While not as completely out-of-the-blue, I also had a similarly sudden realization that I wanted to become a computer scientist.
I was in my third year of living in Japan at the time, teaching English in a small, conservative town in which I felt isolated and out of place (despite having become mostly fluent with the language).
My best friend there had left, ironically inspired by me (or so he had claimed) to leave his country and pursue his dreams abroad, in Australia. I had very little left to offer me in Japan, but I had no idea what else to do; my undergrad in physics had left me with an impressive degree but no marketable skills, certainly none that I still possessed 5 years later.
I was in a grocery store in Hamamatsu, listening to one of my favorite podcasts called Skeptically Speaking (now called Science for the People). The episode[0] had a guest named Mark Stevenson, who had written a book exploring the future of various areas of science. At one point he talked about the work of Hod Lipson at Cornell, who had written a program that could investigate data and guess physical equations, and who had also created a robot that taught itself how to walk. I remember him saying that in AI, it's the hard things that are easy, and the easy hard. I remember being so fascinated by this research that I thought, how cool would it be to be involved in this kind of thing? And it was in that moment I decided quite suddenly to become a computer scientist.
I went to a dollar store and bought a notebook, went home and immediately went to MIT's opencourseware site and started the watching the lectures of their introductory CS course. Seven months later, I was back in America at grad school, and a year after that I was a full time software developer.
I still wonder what might have happened if I hadn't happened to listen to that podcast.
[0]: http://www.scienceforthepeople.ca/episodes/an-optimists-tour...
I was in my third year of living in Japan at the time, teaching English in a small, conservative town in which I felt isolated and out of place (despite having become mostly fluent with the language).
My best friend there had left, ironically inspired by me (or so he had claimed) to leave his country and pursue his dreams abroad, in Australia. I had very little left to offer me in Japan, but I had no idea what else to do; my undergrad in physics had left me with an impressive degree but no marketable skills, certainly none that I still possessed 5 years later.
I was in a grocery store in Hamamatsu, listening to one of my favorite podcasts called Skeptically Speaking (now called Science for the People). The episode[0] had a guest named Mark Stevenson, who had written a book exploring the future of various areas of science. At one point he talked about the work of Hod Lipson at Cornell, who had written a program that could investigate data and guess physical equations, and who had also created a robot that taught itself how to walk. I remember him saying that in AI, it's the hard things that are easy, and the easy hard. I remember being so fascinated by this research that I thought, how cool would it be to be involved in this kind of thing? And it was in that moment I decided quite suddenly to become a computer scientist.
I went to a dollar store and bought a notebook, went home and immediately went to MIT's opencourseware site and started the watching the lectures of their introductory CS course. Seven months later, I was back in America at grad school, and a year after that I was a full time software developer.
I still wonder what might have happened if I hadn't happened to listen to that podcast.
[0]: http://www.scienceforthepeople.ca/episodes/an-optimists-tour...
These are lovely anecdotes and he's obviously an interesting and capable story-teller, but he worked very hard to make his nominal epiphany true. The trick of writing in a foreign language as a way of discovering his own voice is fascinating, but it also must have been very difficult.
So a better title might be: "How I was motivated to be dedicated enough to become a novelist." And this is actually a more interesting story, at least for other artists, because the thing everyone faces at the outset is failure and lack of belief in our own work. We have to have something to keep us going. He had that single moment at a baseball game. Others have other things, but having a weird little talisman like that can be very useful in solving the ongoing problem of motivation.
In my own life, at the age of 13 I ate at a Chinese restaurant for the first time (on a school trip to the 'big city' a couple of hours distant from the town I grew up in) and got a fortune cookie that read, in its entirety, "An ambition far beyond your reach".
I've achieved a good deal in the forty years since then, and at times when the going has been particularly tough I've thought back to that and told myself, "Yeah, well, you were told what to expect and went ahead anyway. So don't complain, just get back to work."
Would I have accomplished as much without being able to do that? Maybe, maybe not. But being able to do it made the journey easier at times. It's a silly thing--I don't believe in fate or fortunes--but sometimes silly things can be made to work for us.
So I could say that was "the moment I became X", where X is any major achievement since, but "One weird trick to stay motivated and focused on your goals" would be at least as accurate.
So a better title might be: "How I was motivated to be dedicated enough to become a novelist." And this is actually a more interesting story, at least for other artists, because the thing everyone faces at the outset is failure and lack of belief in our own work. We have to have something to keep us going. He had that single moment at a baseball game. Others have other things, but having a weird little talisman like that can be very useful in solving the ongoing problem of motivation.
In my own life, at the age of 13 I ate at a Chinese restaurant for the first time (on a school trip to the 'big city' a couple of hours distant from the town I grew up in) and got a fortune cookie that read, in its entirety, "An ambition far beyond your reach".
I've achieved a good deal in the forty years since then, and at times when the going has been particularly tough I've thought back to that and told myself, "Yeah, well, you were told what to expect and went ahead anyway. So don't complain, just get back to work."
Would I have accomplished as much without being able to do that? Maybe, maybe not. But being able to do it made the journey easier at times. It's a silly thing--I don't believe in fate or fortunes--but sometimes silly things can be made to work for us.
So I could say that was "the moment I became X", where X is any major achievement since, but "One weird trick to stay motivated and focused on your goals" would be at least as accurate.
I've read this story before, and often think about how if people don't have examples in life these 'epiphanies' are hard to come by. Non-fictional heroes may get more attention with the access to knowledge we have nowadays, but there's still the problem of focusing in and having the possibility made real in our own minds.
My story: - The pretty big theater I worked for had a crackerjack unix head running a windows/exchange environment like it was no big thing, all from an iBookG3. I was in the shower, at some point in the late fall. and I thought to myself 'I'd like to have a job/get paid to "fix computers"'. I sent away for Apple's Tech Training, someone's husband was starting a consulting company, and 10 years later... well, I like what I do and am lucky to have as many advances as I've had in my short career. Workstation-level sysadmin may not be highly regarded, but at least the book I wrote wasn't by hand.
My story: - The pretty big theater I worked for had a crackerjack unix head running a windows/exchange environment like it was no big thing, all from an iBookG3. I was in the shower, at some point in the late fall. and I thought to myself 'I'd like to have a job/get paid to "fix computers"'. I sent away for Apple's Tech Training, someone's husband was starting a consulting company, and 10 years later... well, I like what I do and am lucky to have as many advances as I've had in my short career. Workstation-level sysadmin may not be highly regarded, but at least the book I wrote wasn't by hand.
What would be a good introduction to his work?
I have this (obviously poetic) theory there are two kinds of people (just how most people gravitate towards either New York or LA, not both) ... some people prefer "Hardboiled Wonderland and the End of The World," some prefer "Wind Up Bird Chronicles."
A Wild Sheep Chase
I confused him with Ryū Murakami, another novelist but very different style.
Ryu Murakami is the better one of the two. Haruki s books make it easy to fall asleep.
interesting you say that because I found Ryu unbearably boring and bland. Maybe it was poor english translation but I couldn't make it past the first hundred pages of Almost Transparent Blue.
I haven't read all of Ryu's novels so I cannot comment on all of his work. I have tried to read several of Murakami's novels and stopped half way because I found it way too boring. I guess it's just not for me. I can't fathom why he is so popular, honestly.
cmgani(3)
I often tell people, when asked about why I do what I do, that I knew I wanted to be a software developer at the age of 10. But it wasn’t a sudden realisation. It came to me after getting an Amiga 500, playing games and then realising I could make my own games. I vividly remember a summer trip to my aunt’s place in Norway where I brought a book on BASIC and devoured a tutorial on how to make a hotel booking system. I was utterly enthralled and thought “maybe one day I can make hotel booking systems for a living”. From then on there was little doubt I would do this.
Except of course when I turned 13 and got into playing rock music on my guitar. I spent the next 7 years feeling lost, because I really wanted to be a musician but the career opportunities seemed unfeasible. It wasn’t until after a brief stint as a data entry clerk in the UK that I came to the conclusion that I needed to get my shit together and go to uni. So I studied Computer Science and here I am at the ripe age of 35 with 10 years of software development experience, thinking I always knew I wanted to do this. But I didn’t, and writing this made me realise that.