Note | Novelist as a Profession by Haruki Murakami, Switch Publishing, 2015 | Jean-Michel Serres, Composer-pianist (Apfel Café Music): Website

‘Novelist as a Vocation’ by Haruki Murakami is ‘essais’ about his views to literature, art and writing novel.

1: Are Novelists Tolerant Persons?

novel; novelist; literature

Murakami thinks almost all of novelists are idiosyncratic persons and hard to deal with. But they have tolerances to novel or to write novel. To write novel isn’t a difficult thing, and is a form of expression everyone easy to participate. But it’s difficult to continue to write novel in a long term. There’s a kind of a qualification.

intelligence; knowledge; low-gear; story; clitics; ‘for example’

To write novel is not suitable for smart people. Novelists change things by their consciousness to story. Novelist make use of a dynamism of difference between an original thing and a result. Smart people can’t keep on write novel. To write novel isn’t a efficient activity.

‘bovine’ work; ship in a bottle; pace

internal drive; tough endurance

Each professional novelists has a qualification or a strong core as an internal derive can’t stop writing and an tough endurance.

2. When I Became a Novelist

age 30; experiences; general; common knowledge; Jazz; coffee; liquor; the Student Movement; niche; Shigeharu Mukai; Aki Takase; difficulty; Waseda University; disturbance of university; power of moral; Shinjuku; Kabukicho

Before Murakami became a novelist, he spent an unusual life. He married when he was a university student and run a Jazz café in suburban Tokyo. His youth are a tough and hard years, but he was happy and gained wide experience.

Jazz café is the Japanese unique style of café, coffee shops play Jazz records all day long.

Jean Racine; Sendagaya; unsociable nature

a sunny day of 1978; the Jingu Stadium; Yakult Swallows; beer; green lawn and white ball; Dave Hilton; Charlie Manuel; double (two-base hit);

A sunny day of 1978, Murakami watched a baseball game of Yakult Swallows at the Jingo (Shrine) Stadium, Tokyo. When Dave Hilton hitter a double, Murakami hit on a notion ’Well, I may also write a novel’. After the works of Jazz café, he wrote his debut novel Hear the Wind Sing on a kitchen table everyday till late at night.

Russian novels in the 19th century; English paperbacks; Japanese contemporary novels; epiphany; Olivetti typewriter; écriture (style of text); ‘translational style’; neutral; flexible

Murakami finished the draft of his first novel, he was’t satisfied with it. So he rewrote the novel in English by an Olivetti typewriter. By rewriting in English, he got the his own rhythm of text. Then he translated that English text to Japanse. He think his style of text isn’t a ‘translational’ style, but is a neutral and flexible style of écriture.

way of expression; important moving; to play music; set of tools

Finding of an own method of writing and to finish the first novel are a ‘important moving’ for him and the feeling is ‘to play music’ rather than ‘to write a novel’.

‘good feeling’; ‘delight’; happiness

The ‘good feeling’ and ‘delight’ he gained when he wrote the first novel, are still unchanged, and he feels the happiness of writing novel every morning when he starts work.

3. About Literature Awards

literature awards; Ryunosuke Akutagawa (Literature) Prize (the Akutagawa Prize)

literary circle; ordinary life

Murakami was’t thinking of keeping away from the Japanese literary circle, he spent only a ordinary civil life and it made his unique position spontaneously.

He wasn’t content with the first and second novels, but he was glad about to get the ticket (qualification) to write novels.

–

a storm in a teacup; business; Academy Awards; Novel Prize; Raymond Chandler; Nelson Algren; Kurt Vonnegut; Autobiography of Studs Terkel;

Murakami treasured readers buy his book out of their own pocket, rather than literature prizes, medals and favourable reviews. To miss winning the Akutagawa Prize is good for Murakami because of not to put his name and reputation on ’an Akutagawa winning writer’.

5%; Ray Bradberry; Fahrenheit 451; YouTube; 3D Video Game

Murakami thinks 5% of people read books actively. So to read books will not die out.

member of a section committee; individualism

Murakami haven’t served a member of section committee of any literature awards. It may be abandonment of responsibility to young novelists, but he thinks his primal duty as a novelist is to continue publishing high-quality works.

qualification (ability) of a individual; it can’t be argued in the same way

4. On Originality

originality; Oliver Sacks; Anthropologist on Mars; original creativity; Beatles; Please, Please Me; the Beach Boys; Surfing USA; works has fixed value; Gustav Mahler; Thelonias Monk; classic (master piece)

To explain originality is difficult. For example, people can’t continue to hear the songs of the Beatle and the Beach Boys as novel and fresh music. It’s case by case that originalities will fede or not. The originality of the music of Gustav Mahler would be discovered by the posterities.

van Gogh; Picasso; ‘reference’; Sohseki Netsuke; Ernest Hemingway; écriture; Psyche

Novel originalities might become a ‘reference’ of fine art or literature as ‘classic’, like van Gogh, Picasso, Sohseki Natsme or Ernest Hemingway. To evaluate current contemporary works is more difficult than to evaluate ‘classics’ had became original.

artist; style; unique style; standardize; flash in the pan; Beethoven; Symphony No. 9; worth as a work

By Murakami’s opinion, requirements of original artist are below.

An unique style.
He can version up his unique style by his own ability.
The unique style will became a standard among people’s psyche.

chronological substance; ‘marriage swindling’; illusionist; decency; Zbigniew Herbert; avant-garde or not; right-wing or left-wing; fine literature or popular literature; coordinate axis; ’custom’; ‘unwritten rule’; the counter generation

Murakami want to be a ‘unique (original) novelist’. But originalities should be judged by a collaborate work of readers with ‘certain time’.

information glutted society; expression; needs (necessities); freedom; model; natural feeling;

Murakami thinks to make an originality, it needs to reduce anything(s) by myself. To find your necessities, you should find your own spontaneous joy and pleasure. To novelists, it may be more difficult to write simple, necessary and dry words and texts rather than to write complicated, tricky and serious words. Murakami thinks his originality and root of writing novels are a free and natural feeling.

‘self who hopes for no one’; ‘despite’; writer’s block;

Murakami has no slump, because he write only when he want to write spontaneously by the natural feeling.

5. Well, What Should I Write?

training; custom(s); to read books a lot; to watch things and phenomenons; clear conclusion; ‘at present, I can’t conclude neither of them’; things ’as they are’; Paul Valéry; Albert Einstein

Young people who want to be a novelst has to read books a lot and watch things and phenomenons in detail. People who concludes smartly and immediately are not apt to a novelist. The attitude necessary for novelists is like one of ‘at present, I can’t conclude neither of them’ and to accept things ‘as they are’.

collection of things in details; unordered details; ’incoherent memories’; James Joyce; imagination; combination(s) of partial memories; Steven Soderbergh; KAFKA

When Murakami write novel he cites collection of things in details or incoherent memories. A combination(s) of partial memories makes a story.

essay (essai); materials; stock of junks; ‘magic’

When Murakami writes a novel he does’t writes essai or anything except for the novel, to concentrate using materials of memory for the novel.

experience(s); happiness; unhappiness; ordinary family

’nothing to write’; new words and style; not to explain; music; jazz; rhythm; harmony; free improvisation; ad-lib

When he first novel, he had no idea to write, so he felt ‘I only to write I have no things to write’ or make use of a feeling as ’I have no things to write’. But the feeling as ’I have no things to write’ changed ‘I can write anything freely’, then he wrote the novel like playing music while modelling the rhythm and free improvisation of jazz.

inner self; daily life; ’renewable energy’; enduring creativity

It’s easy for novelists to weave a story from inner self rather than to rely on the seriousness of material (facts). You may as well make use of materials as scenes and people of your daily life, and put your imagination to build your own story.

reality of novel; age; era; own reality; to deposit

6. Taking Side with Time: To Write Long Novels

long novels; novelette; short novel; characteristic; quality

Murakami thinks long novel and to write it are his life line or his main battle field, and short novel and novelette are place(s) of training.

’business as usual’; life and work cycle; chores (small jobs); noise

When Murakami writes a long novel, he fixes (keeps) a cycle of life and work like a ‘business as usual’ for keeping vast energy to do a very long term work.

regularity; artist; factory; a liberal; Isaac Dienessen

When Murakami do a long term work as writing a long novel, he must writes 10 pieces of manuscript just calmly everyday. Because the regularity of work is important for him.

first draft; rewrite; ’aging’ (leaving)

Murakami wrote a first draft then rewrote it freely without the care of the conclusion and the whole consistency. After a second or third rewriting, he leave the manuscript for one week or one month for ‘aging’.

my wife; editor(s) of a publisher

Then he consults and argue with his wife, and he rewrites parts in question. There’re no complete texts in novel. So act of rewriting itself is important.

galley; ’carpenter’s work’; Raymond Carver; time; ’preparation’ (arrangement); silent term; understanding; processes

Murakami rewrites many many times, and the works take a lot of patience. But he can’t help feeling happy during the rewritings. Time is one most important essential elements of writing novel, especially term of ‘preparation’ to cultivate a bud of novel. So novelists should set their schedule actively (aggresively).

7. Extremely Individual and Physical Activity

individual activity; intangible subjective things; tangible objective things

To write novel is extremely individual activity in an own writing room. It is the work to change intangible subjective things to tangible objective things. All of writing novel are works in your individual writing room, if you write a novel out of your room or outdoor.

individual motivation of ‘I want to write novels’; solitary work; ‘One day at a time.’

to obtain physical strength;

From Murakami’s individual view, to obtain physical strength is the most important element to write novel. To decrease physical strength makes decrease strength of thinking and mind.

hippocampus; neuron; combination in daily life, between physical exercise and intellectual work;

A combination in daily life between physical exercise and intellectual work ideally affects the kind of creative works of which novelists do. Murakami started running when he had became a professional writer, still now do it about a hour almost everyday.

to tell story; bottom of his consciousness; darkness of mind; collective unconsciousness; individual unconsciousness; ruin and chaos; anti-social literary man; ‘activist writer’

The basic of novelist is to tell (weave, make) story. And to make story is, in other words, to descend the bottom of my consciousnes or darkness of my mind. In the darkness, it’s mixed of a collective unconsciousness and an individual unconsciousness, the primitive age and the contemporary era.

Anthony Trollope; model; usual (ordinary) life; Franz Kafka; principal occupation; side job; concentration by taciturnity; sustainability without being discouraged

Murakami thinks necessary things of novelists are a concentration by taciturnity (reticence) not to show off like ‘Well, my inner chaos is so big like this !’, and a sustainability without being discouraged.

happiness; miracle; genius (gift); ability; technique; capacity; view of the world

types of novelist; Mozart; Schubert; Pushkin; Rimbeau; van Gogh; genius artists; quality of a way of life itself; total balance

8. About School

schools; school education; whole of education

study; to read books; to listen to music; to watch movies

Murakami had been thinking the study of school is boring. But he thought he wasn’t loafing, so that to read books, to listen to music passionately, to play baseball and to go out with girls are his important private study.

English novels; mystery; sci-fi; practical English; collage entrance examination; educational system; individual nature

When Murakami was a high-school student, he started reading English novels by himself. But he could’t obtain good scores in English tests on the school, also honor students in Japan should not read a English novel or speak English with native speakers. Because Japanese English education concentrate(d) on to gain good score on collage entrance examinations, and teach(ed) the technique for it.

interest; sports; ‘doggy characteristic’; ‘catty characteristic’; ‘characteristic like sheep’; Japanese social system; stickiness of ‘priority to numerical value’; bubble economics; wisdom of men; common sense; sophistication of system; consensus; depth; profundity; reflection

The Japanese social system emphasize on utilitarianistic efficiency and materialistic profit. But Murakami thinks Japanese people should make important on flexible and total thinkings like wisdom and common sense.

Fukushima nuclear disaster; structural defeat; economic efficiency

resurgence; development; intention; individual; association; ‘recovery place of individual’

making some mutual friends; to read many books; compound view; objective

To read many in school days made Murakami’s objective compound view and his individual place.

system of school; boring; dreaming (fantasy); efficiency; safety dogma (safety dogma); dangerous brief values; a free thinking and its axe of idea

Murakami thought schools were boring. He prefer to imaginate stories than going to schools. The most different thing to imagination is ‘efficiency’. The conclusion of the Japanese efficient social system may be the Fukushima nuclear disaster. His wish to the Japanese school education is only ‘Don’t oppress children’s imagination’.

9. How Characters That I Should Present?

characters; real person; Somerset Maugham; ’automatic pygmy’s effect’; ‘making characters’

Murakami make characters during building story automatically and naturally. Writing story makes happen details and features of characters.

persons; appearance; saying; negative characters

To write novels, you must know a lot of persons include which you don’t like. To write profound stories, you need to know and write various persons include negative, malicious and curious ones.

Raymond Chandler; Philip Marlowe; first person; third person; imaginary ‘I’

One of Murakami’s pleasure of writing novels is the thing ‘If I wish, I became anyone’. In the former half of Murakami’s career, he aimed at to weave stories by the axe of imaginary ‘I’. In the later one, he began to experiment of using the voice of third person.

naming of characters; nickname

Scott Fitzgerald; * The Great Gatsby*; J. D. Salinger; The Catcher in the Rye

To adopt third personal pronoun, Murakami felt ‘I can became almost anyone’, and he can rely a separated self on a other as a method of story telling.

unpredictable elements; fiction

Novelists create novels, at the same time certain part of self of novelists are created by novels.

character of same age as the novelist; relativization

To describe novel and characters is like a testing ‘a different self’ by unfittable shoes. So Murakami hasn’t write a main character of the same age to him.

10. Who is I Write for?

(…)

11. Going Abroad: The New Frontier

(…)

12. Place a Story Is in

(…)

Product Details

Novelist as a Profession
Haruki Murakami
Switch Publishing, Tokyo, 10 September 2015
313 pages, JPY 1944
ISBN 9784884184438
Content

Are Novelists Tolerant Persons?
When I Became a Novelist
About Literature Awards
On Originality
Well, What Should I Write?
Taking Side with Time: To Write Long Novels
Extremely Individual and Physical Activity
About School
How Characters That I Should Present?
Who is I Write for?
Going Abroad: The New Frontier
Place a Story Is in: Memories of Dr. Hayao Kawai