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The First Trailer of the Movie “Drive My Car” Based on a Short Story of Haruki Murakami Released

A 30-second trailer for “Drive My Car,” a movie adaptation of the short film by writer Haruki Murakami, starring Hidetoshi Nishijima, has been released.

Official Site (Japanese)

Summary | Novelist as a Profession by Haruki Murakami, Switch Publishing, 2015

1. Are Novelists Tolerant Persons?

Many novelists have no harmonious personality and appropriate view.

I think a novel as such, anyone who wants to write it can write it. Who can write text, has a ball pointed-pen and a note and own certain ability makes a story, can write a novel anyway without a specialist training. Novel is a form of expression that has a broad entrance. But to continue to write good novels and to be a novelist is difficult.

To write a novel is not suitable for smart persons. To tell a story does at a slow pace. It is not smart work and is a succession of paraphrases as “for example” to express a personal theme. I think there’s the truth of the novel in this roundabout process.

I respect novelists who continue to write novels, they own core, will, endurance and requirement as a professional novelist.

2. When I Became A Novelist

Before I became a novelist, I ran a jazz café (The Japanese unique style café, plays jazz records.) from I was a university student. It was hard and tough work and life, but I spent the time happily. At end of my twenties, through this hard life, my mind reached a "settled and open space".

A clear spring afternoon, the 1978 opening day of the Central League, at the Meiji Jingu Stadium, I lay down on the outfield lawn bleachers and watched the game. When the first batter of the Yakult Swallows, Dave Hilton hit a fine double, at the moment, an epiphany fell into me, then he realized “That’s it, maybe, I can write a novel !”.

Anyway, I wrote the first manuscript of my debut novel Hear the Wind Sing as I like, but I didn’t satisfy it. So, I translated it to English and I translated the English translation to Japanese again. Then I got a neutral and flexible style that has my own natural voice.

The manuscript was adopted and was awarded a prize, so I became a novelist unexpectedly.

3. On Literature Prizes

I've kept a distance from the Japanese literary circles. Because I was an ordinary man, so I don’t know much about the circles and literature prizes. I think true writers treasure a response of which they create meaningful things and exist of readers understand the means. And I have no qualification to be a member of a literature prize committee, because I’m a too egocentric person, and to continue to write novels I must be egocentric.

4. On Originality

I think conditions that we can mention a creator is original are below. 1. A creator owns his original style apparently different from others. 2. And the creator can do version up the style by own energy. 3. The style must become a standard and it will be taken in people criterion of judgment.

"To reduce anything from yourself" is necessary work to be original. We get and have lots of content and information in the process of life. So we throw away wasteful things and simplify a brain, then we can act freely. I think the most important question to be original is “are you happy to do it like that ?”. If my originality maybe exists, it’s caused by my free and natural sense. I’ve written novels by my own voluntary natural and free will of I want to only write a novel.

5. Well, What Should I Write?

Young people who want to be a writer should read many novels first. And they should watch people, scenes and things. Then stock them as “materials” in their brain.

I had been felt I have no things to write, because I was a usual boy who didn't experience particular experiences, all the same, the fact becomes a weapon, means I can write freely anything by the magic of combination like the “E. T. system“ when I start to write a novel once.

6. Taking Side with Time: To Write Long a Novel

I think I'm a long novel writer basically. To a long novel as "a total story owns a possibility may reform myself“, I need a vast “space” I can use freely and unlimitedly. When I write a long novel I make rules and a routine, such as I do the work of long novel only and I write 4000 characters every day without fail like a factory.

After I finish writing the first draft anyway, I rest for a week, and I rewrite and boldly edit it for a month to two months. And I redo the same process. After the rest of a week, I rewrite the second draft, it is an accumulation of detailed edits, additions and adjustments of the consistency of the story, descriptions of sceneries and tones of talkings. Then I put the manuscript in my drawer for half a year to one year, and I rewrite and finish it.

To rewrite a novel or the attitude is important for novelists, I think. I like very much to rewrite a manuscript many times. I can say I prefer to rewrite rather than write the first draft.

7. An Extremely Personal and Physical Activity

To write a long novel is extremely lonely and personal work. I shut myself up in my studio and write for five or six hours every day, this daily routine goes on one to three years. To keep it up, I need physical strength and a sturdy body, then they gain agility of thinking and flexibility of spirit. Spirit or brain is a part of the physical body equally.

To write a novel or to tell a grand story is to go down the bottom of one's darkness of mind by oneself, bring back and face with it. The act is dangerous, I need a certain physical strength. People want a novelist to the “antisocial characteristic”, but I think a novelist shouldn’t express his chaos in his private life. I spend a usual and healthy life for I write a novel.

8. About School

I didn't like schools and their education. The study of schools was a bore, and I thought to read many novels, to intently listen to music and to go with a girl are important person studies.

Since I was a high school student, I've red many English paperbacks, so I can read English books through anyway. But my results of English tests are not well, also students who got high marks in English should have no ability to read an English book through. So I understand the English education in Japanese high schools don’t do for students to learn living actual English, it does for to gain the score of university entrance exams exclusively.

The aim of the Japanese education system is to make obedient people. It influences the whole Japanese social system such as companies and government officials. Its rigidness of numerical system, and efficiency and utilitarianism like mechanical memorizing, cause serious losses in various fields.

I think imagination is very important in any period. The thing that is on the opposite side of imagination is efficiency. I only wish for schools to “don’t suppress the imagination of a child already own his imagination”.

9. What Characters That I Should Present?

I hardly use a real person as a model of a character. Characters are automatically created during I write a novel. To describe characters, you must watch the appearances and sayings of people and keep them in mind.

I think I can become anyone by writing a novel, also a novelist is partly created and modified by his novel.

10 Who is I Write for?

(…)

11 Going Abroad: The New Frontier

(…)

12 The Place a Story Is in: Memories of Dr. Hayao Kawai

(…)

Afterword

5 or 6 years ago I thought of that I have to write down a text about writing a novel. The manuscripts of this book are written on the assumption for a lecture meeting. (But I didn’t speak the content of this book.) This book would be regarded as an “autobiographical essay”, yet I only wish to write down as concretely and actually as possible how I worked and spent as a novelist. This book may be an egocentric text, though I appreciate it if it’s useful to readers.

Product Details

Novelist as a Profession (Hardcover)
Haruki Murakami
Switch Publishing, Tokyo, 10 September 2015
313 pages, JPY 1944
ISBN 9784884184438
Contents:

Novelist as a Profession (Mass Market Paperback)
Haruki Murakami
Shinchosha, Tokyo, 28 September 2016
352 pages, JPY 737
ISBN 9784101001692

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

Haruki Murakami a prononcé un discours lors d’une cérémonie d’entrée à l’Université Waseda

Le 1er avril 2020, Haruki Murakami a prononcé un discours devant 1400 étudiants de première année lors d’une cérémonie d’entrée du département de littérature et de culture de son ancienne école de l’Université Waseda, tout en utilisant ses expressions et métaphores uniques. Ce qu’il a dit est ci-dessous.

« Bonjour. Félicitations pour ton admission. Toujours le monde, mais ne s’installe pas facilement, cette année c’est donc se retrouver ici avec tout le monde, pour fêter ensemble les nouveaux départs je trouve ça super.

Je suis entré au département de littérature de cette université il y a plus de 50 ans (1968), mais à cette époque, je n’avais pas de désir particulier de devenir romancier.

Mais quand je me suis marié, que j’ai obtenu mon diplôme universitaire et que j’étais occupé à travailler tous les jours, j’ai soudainement eu envie d’écrire un roman, et quand j’ai soudain réalisé que je suis devenu un romancier comme celui-ci. D’une manière ou d’une autre, ça s’appelle Nariyuki, ou quelque chose qui m’y a amené. Je ne le comprends pas vraiment moi-même.

Au fait, je me suis mariée pendant que j’étais à l’école, alors je me suis d’abord mariée, j’ai commencé à travailler et j’ai finalement obtenu mon diplôme. L’ordre a été inversé par rapport à celui des gens ordinaires. Je ne recommande pas vraiment ce mode de vie, mais c’est quelque chose qui peut être fait.

Donc, je pense qu’un romancier ne peut pas être très intelligent. C’est parce que les gens intelligents pensent tout de suite aux choses. Les romans écrits auxquels je pense dans ma tête ne sont généralement pas très intéressants. Vous ne pouvez pas écrire un bon roman sans y penser avec votre cœur, pas avec votre tête.

Cependant, écrire des phrases que d’autres personnes liront utilise beaucoup de tête, donc je travaillerai ma tête au besoin. Mais c’est juste le bon moment pour être une personne talentueuse et non un étudiant d’honneur. Il est difficile de trouver le bon moment.

Parce que certains étudiants de la Faculté des lettres et de la Faculté de la culture, des médias et de la société, vous voudrez peut-être devenir romancier, mais veuillez trouver un bon équilibre entre eux. Je pense que l’Université Waseda est un environnement assez approprié pour un tel travail.

Cet automne, le Musée international de la littérature (bibliothèque Haruki Murakami) ouvrira ses portes sur ce campus de Waseda. C’est un espace où les étudiants peuvent utiliser librement des livres, du matériel et des collections de musique.

La devise de la bibliothèque, ou le mot à l’entrée, est “Ouvrons une histoire, disons à nos cœurs”. Cela peut nécessiter quelques explications.

Tout d’abord, il semble facile de parler de son cœur, et c’est assez difficile. Parce que nous pensons généralement que c’est notre esprit, parce que ce n’est qu’une petite partie de notre esprit. En d’autres termes, notre conscience n’est rien de plus qu’un seau d’eau pompée de l’étang de nos cœurs. La zone restante est intacte et est laissée comme une zone inconnue.

Mais ce qui nous émeut vraiment, c’est le cœur restant. Ce n’est pas de la conscience ou de la logique, c’est un cœur plus large et plus grand. Alors, comment pouvons-nous trouver le royaume inconnu de cet esprit? Comment puis-je trouver la source du pouvoir qui m’émeut vraiment? Une des choses qui joue ce rôle est l’histoire.

L’histoire met en lumière des zones de l’esprit où notre conscience ne peut pas être bien lue. Il transforme notre esprit indicible en une forme de fiction qui émerge au figuré. C’est ce que nous, les romanciers, essayons de faire. Par exemple, c’est la fonction de base du roman. Il y a quelque chose appelé «par exemple» qui ne peut être exprimé que sous une forme de remplacement en une seule étape. En parlant de ronds-points, ce sont des ronds-points, n’est-ce pas?

Par conséquent, le roman est de peu d’utilité directe pour la société. Quoi qu’il en soit, ce n’est pas comme un médicament ou un vaccin à action rapide. Cependant, sans le travail du roman, la société ne peut pas avancer de manière saine.

C’est parce que la société a aussi un cœur. Des choses qui ne peuvent être ramassées uniquement par la conscience et la logique. Les choses qui sont laissées pour compte. C’est le rôle de la littérature dans le roman de ramasser de telles choses fermement et lentement. Le roman comble le fossé entre l’esprit et la conscience.

Par conséquent, les romans ont été repris par des personnes sous diverses formes et dans divers endroits depuis plus de 1000 ans. Le métier de romancier s’est transmis comme un flambeau. Je serais très heureux si certains d’entre vous héritaient du flambeau, ou s’il y avait quelqu’un qui la chérirait chaleureusement et la chérirait.

Encore une fois, félicitations pour votre entrée. Passez une bonne année sur ce campus. »