Text | Jean-Michel Serres, Composer-pianist (Apfel Café Music): Website

2 June 202122 August 2023

The Movie “Drive My Car” Will Be Released on 20 August

The movie “Drive My Car” based on Haruki Murakami’s short story, directed by Ryusuke Hamaguchi, starring Hidetoshi Nishijima, decided to be released on 20 August 2021.

Official Site (Japanese)

Book Review | Drive My Car from Men Without Women: Stories by Haruki Murakami & Philip Gabriel, Vintage, 2017 (Originally Published in 2014)

This story is a story about driving as a spiritual activity, acting as a common activity and differences between men and women. The content is not directly relevant to the Beatles’ song, Drive My Car. But concerning from the lyrics, “She said, ‘baby, can’t you see I want to be famous, a star on the screen. But you can do something in between’.” and “Baby, you can drive my car. Yes I’m gonna be a star.” (A girl said to a boy.), this title is an irony to Kafuku.

This story is a story about car as a machine. But car is not only a machine, one’s driving reflects the human mind, sensibility, characteristics and personality. Driving a car in this novel is a psychological and spiritual activity. It is like playing a musical instrument, communicating to the environment or the world, a reflection of self and a spiritual treatment for one’s mind. And it’s an enjoyable and refreshing act also a life-threatening act that hurts and damages other(s) and self.

Also, this story is a story about actors and acting. Acting is a psychological and spiritual activity too. Kafuku said he can become someone by acting and it’s fun, and people all play roles. And, on Novelist as a Profession Murakami wrote he can become someone by writing a novel. In this novel, I think the profession of actor is a symbol of today’s people. He acts in a role made by other(s). We all act something social roles, but by the roles, anyone lost their true selves. It’s essential problem in the contemporary world.

The notion by Kafuku in the first part, suggests women can’t separate consciousness and action, and mind and body while an activity. So he founded a kind of tension in women's drivings. And women can truly act a role in a drama. So his wife couldn't separate herself and roll, and she slept with actors with which she co-starred.

Watari Misaki, an inelegant and manly woman who smokes her favourite Marlboro cigarettes (a symbol of American masculinity), is a person who can across men and women. Watari in Japanese means “go across” or “cross over”, and Misaki means “cape”. She can go across between capes of men and women, can talk naturally with men as an individual, or can understand the minds of each of men and women. She helped Kafuku to heal his heart by put him in the passenger seat, driving his car and talking about his and her past.

And this novel is Murakami's own thoughts about and reflection on writing and woman. Driving and actings is an activity to enjoy its operation, transition and moving. And I think both of them are partial metaphors of writing a novel. Acting is an activity of interpreting and tracing others’ stories. On Novelist as a Profession Murakami wrote to write a novel is to ride on or to fill a content with a proper vehicle or container. (This long short story is a small-medium size vehicle.) In these two activities are equal to writing a novel, Murakami described the mental differences of men and women. On these activities to commit stories, states of men and women appear differently, men can’t understand the core of the state of mind of women and its reason and mechanism.

Via this short story, Murakami succeeds to express about the mysteriousness of women he thinks, through to describe driving car and acting.

Details of the Book

Men Without Women

Haruki Murakami

Bungeishunju, Tokyo, 7 October 2016

300 pages, JPY 748

ISBN: 978-4167907082

Men Without Women: Stories
Haruki Murakami (Author), Philip Gabriel (Translator), Ted Goossen (Translator)
Vintage, London, 17 May 2018
240 pages, £9.99
ISBN: 9781784705374
Contents:

Drive My Car
Yesterday
An Independent Organ
Cheherazade
Kino
Samsa in Love
Men Without Women

Summary | Drive My Car from Men Without Women: Stories by Haruki Murakami & Philip Gabriel, Vintage, 2017 (Originally Published in 2014)

Kafuku thinks women’s drivings are either too rough or too careful, also he found a sign of tension in a woman who can drive usually. There’s no tension like this was founded in drivings by men. Men can divide naturally and unconsciously the tension and existence of self.

So Kakufu puzzled that a veteran, skilled repairman Ohba recommended a middle twenties woman Misaki Watari as his driver. Ohba said she was not beautiful and inelegant, and smoked cigarettes profusely sometimes.

Kafuku’s yellow Saab 900 convertible was repaired and refined completely. When Ohba explained the details of the bill to Kafuku, Misaki arrived at the factory. Kafuku tested Misaki, they drove the central area of Tokyo. He found Misaki drove relaxingly and naturally. When they waited for a traffic light she smoked Marlboro cigarettes. Misaki said she is from a rural mountain area of Hokkaido, so she had driven car from the middle of teenage and her driving skill became very good. Misaki asked why Kafuku looked for a driver, so he talked about Kafuku’s minor collision and glaucoma.

Misaki drove Kafuku from his home in Ebisu to a theatre in Ginza. During drivings, Kafuku recited his lines of a drama. On the way home, Kafuku listened to Beethoven’s Strings Quartets and old pop music like the Beach Boys, the Rascals, Creedence Clearwater Revival, the Temptations. Misaki wasn’t conscious of his recitation and music, she was looked to be a kind of state of zen is made by driving.

When he sat in the side seat, sometimes he remembered his wife had passed away. Somehow she slept with at least four actors of which she plays together. But Kafuku and his wife lived together and slept with usually. Misaki was 24 years old. And she was the age to Kafuku’s child lived only 3 days. Kafuku and his wife were very shocked and they were completely absorbed in their job of acting. They decided they didn’t make a child, and she might begin to sleep with actors.

Misaki asked why Kafuku became an actor. Kafuku said he was unexpectedly invited to a student troupe by a girl, and he found he enjoyed himself acting, and he can become someone by acting and return himself. Then Misaki asked why Kafuku did make friends. Kafuku said he made a kind of friend ten years before, after his wife had passed away, and his name is Takatsuki, a handsome actor who must sleep with her several times. They got along in halves of a real friend and acting.

After the passed away of his wife, Kafuku came across Takatsuki in the lobby of a TV station. He invited Takatsuki to drink and talk about his wife. They drank and talked with her wife at a booth of a famous bar in Ginza. Kafuku had goodwill with him. And they promised to meet again.

They became friendly drinking companions. At a night, they drank at a small bar in Aoyama. Kafuku said he lost his wife completely and he couldn’t really understand the important part of her, it’s a blinking point. And Takatsuki said we (men) can’t completely understand what women think, and to watch others certainly we must only reflect ourselves profoundly.