Murakami

What I Talk About When I Talk About Running, by Haruki Murakami

One day I’d like to write a book with a voice that’s reminiscent of Japanese translated into English.

What a pleasant read! There’s no rush, no hurry. The image of a small stream, no wider than ten or so feet, no deeper than ten or so inches, turning this way and that, gently bubbling as it flowed on a perfect Spring day, that’s how I visually represented this book’s voice. Yes, Murakami talks about the pain and intensity of long-distance running, of training for triathlons, of re-running the original Marathon. But somehow he makes it enjoyable, and the pages turn without your realization.

If you are a runner or if you are a writer, or if you have perhaps within your personality the qualities to be either or both, you might consider reading this book. I identify strongly with this man. One day, around the age of thirty or so, Murakami decided he’d like to write a novel – and did. Just like me. Also, he decided he was going to start running, and quit his four-pack-a-day cigarette habit and the bar he was running. Not so much like me, unless you count the desire to radically change and improve one’s life that I’ve always had. Murakami’s had strong success in both areas, one nurturing the other. He is one of Japan’s leading novelists, and completes at least one marathon a year, for over twenty-five years running.

It’s not really a “how-to” book. It’s not really a “why I do it” book, either. It’s not even what he thinks about when he runs, because – as he struggles to make clear, and I partially understand – as a runner he strives to attain a void when he runs. Maybe as a writer, too, and I think I know what he means. Perhaps you do, too: it’s that window that opens up into another world when you’re typing at your laptop (it used to open up within that sheet of white paper you stared at as you sat at your typewriter). It’s willed, yet it’s not willed, it’s merely allowed to happen, and when it does happen, it’s a grace.

Thoroughly loved it; took me about four hours to read over two days. Solid A. And I may get my hands on one of his novels if I can be convinced of a worthy translation. And, by the way, while writing this book Murakami was also working on a Japanese translation, agonizing line-by-line and word-by-word, of Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby (which I have not yet read, but plan to at some distant point in the future).