Novelist as a Vocation by Haruki Murakami

Novelist as a Vocation by Haruki Murakami

Japanese Non-Fiction

Original title – 職業としての小説家, Shokugyō to shite no Shōsetsuka

Translators – Phillip Gabriel and Ted Goossen

Source – Personal copy

I move on to Haruki Murakami for my second book for the Japanese Literature Challenge 26. This is the eighth book I have reviewed since the blog began; it has been three years since I last reviewed a book by him. I had this on the shelves for a while and was looking forward to it because I’m a fan of what I talk about when I talk about running, and this collection about him as a writer appealed to me. I always admire how writers work, and I’m curious about how their lives as writers have come about, and maybe Murakami’s generation of writers is the last to be able to live as full-time writers. The first half of the collection was published in parts in a Japanese magazine.

WRITING NOVELS IS, to my way of thinking, basically a very uncool enterprise. I see hardly anything chic or stylish about it. Novelists sit cloistered in their rooms, intently fiddling with words, batting around one possibility after another. They may scratch their heads an entire day to improve the quality of a single line by a tiny bit. No one applauds, or says “Well done,” or pats them on the back. Sitting there alone, they look over what they’ve accomplished and quietly nod to themselves. It may be that later, when the novel comes out, not a single reader will notice the improvement they made that day. That is what novel writing is really all about. It is time-consuming, tedious work.

The lonely life of a writer

I suppose the best essay for me was the second one, about how it is almost by accident that we have Murakami. He had written his first book, Hear the Wind Sing, whilst working in a Jazz bar, and sent it to a Literary magazine competition, not expecting anything, then won the prize. Of course, the rest is history. He also talked in that bit about Agota Kristof and how she had written her novels. Elsewhere, he gives speeches in schools about how to be a writer. There is another essay in which he discusses his later books. It starts by discussing how he has come across the characters in his book and how he used to admire Somerset Maugham’s use of them. Then he moves on to later works of his, which I have wondered about. I have struggled with some of his later novels. I may go back after reading this and look at them again later. He also talks about prizes, where he is coy and uses other writers’ words on the Nobel prize winning, of course, he has been on the list as a potential winner for years.

Hear the wind sing is a short novel, less than two hundred manuscript pages long. Yet it took many months and much effort to complete. Part of the reason, of course, was the limited time I had to work on it, but the real problem was that I hadn’t a clue how to write a novel. To tell the truth, although I had been absorbed in reading all kinds of stuff my favorites being translations of Russian novels and English-language paperbacks-1 had never read modern Japanese novels (of the “serious” variety) in any concerted way. Thus I had no idea what kind of Japanese literature was being read at the time or how I should write fiction in the Japanese language.

Hear the wind sing is one of my favourite books by him

I enjoyed this collection less than What I Talk About When I Talk About Running. I feel I may have grown out of Murakami as a reader in recent years. Looking back, it was in 2014 that I last reviewed a novel by him. Perhaps it is the fact I hadn’t connect with his later books and loved some of his earlier books but also in hindsight wonder if they would still be as good as they were when I read them twenty years ago. I still have a hope he may write that Magnus opus that he hasn’t quite written, if that makes sense. He wrote great books, but not one super book. If you are a fan, it is an insight into his mind as a writer, his views on character prizes and other things. But for me, I loved the humour and the more personal insights he shared in the book. What I talk about is a more personal memoir; this is more about his craft as a writer and the writer’s world than Murakami the man. Of course, the piece on Literary prizes. Will he be republished if he wins the Nobel Prize in the coming years? Have you read this book?