Wind/Pinball: Two Novels

by Haruki Murakami

It is the inherent right of all writers to experiment with the possibilities of language in every way they can imagine—without that adventurous spirit, nothing new can ever be born.

“There’s no such thing as a perfect piece of writing. Just as there’s no such thing as perfect despair.” So said a writer I bumped into back when I was a university student.

All sorts of people told me their stories. Then they left, never to return, as if I were no more than a bridge they were clattering across.

A gulf separates what we attempt to perceive from what we are actually able to perceive.

“In the end we all die anyway,” I said, trying to feel him out. “Yeah. We all die. But it’ll take another fifty years. And, to be blunt, fifty years spent thinking is a helluva lot more exhausting than five thousand years of living without using your brain, right?”

A guy can get used to anything.”

The doctor was right. Civilization is communication. When that which should be expressed and transmitted is lost, civilization comes to an end.

The whiff of ocean on the southern breeze and the smell of burning asphalt carried with them memories of summers past.

If we own things, we’re terrified we’ll lose them; if we’ve got nothing we worry it’ll be that way forever.

One could say that the greatest sins afflicting modern society are the proliferation of lies and silence. We lie through our teeth, then swallow our tongues. All the same, were we to speak only the truth all year round, then the truth might lose its value.

The wind that shook the leaves of the willow trees had a trace of the end of summer.

We sat there for a very long time, just looking at the ocean, the evening sky, and the ship while the sea breeze blew through the trembling grass. As the dusk softened to night, a handful of stars began to twinkle above the dock.

We fell quiet again, listening to the soft sound of the waves lapping against the pier. Time went by, more time than I can recall.

It had been a long time since I felt the fragrance of summer: the scent of the ocean, a distant train whistle, the touch of a girl’s skin, the lemony perfume of her hair, the evening wind, faint glimmers of hope, summer dreams.

All things pass. None of us can manage to hold on to anything. In that way, we live our lives.

Following his wishes, this quote from Nietzsche was carved on his gravestone: How can those who live in the light of day possibly comprehend the depths of night? MAY 1979

Naoko shook her head and laughed. It was a regular sort of laugh, the kind you’d expect from a girl who had received straight A’s in school; yet for some strange reason it lingered long after she had left, like the grin of the Cheshire Cat in Alice in Wonderland

Where there is an entrance, there is usually an exit. That’s the way things are made. Mailboxes, vacuum cleaners, zoos, salt shakers. Of course there are exceptions. Mousetraps, for instance.

All things should have both an entrance and an exit. That’s just the way it is.

Particles of sunlight fell like fine dust, gathering unnoticed on the ground.

The undulating hills resembled a giant sleeping cat, curled up in a warm pool of time.

The drone of the city was everywhere, a mix of countless sounds: subway trains, sizzling hamburgers, cars on elevated highways, automatic doors opening and closing.

I could smell rain there too, although a single drop had yet to fall.

Many sweet scents filled his nostrils, only to vanish. Many dreams, many sorrows, many promises. Yet in the end nothing remained.

For the dead there was no murmuring wind, no fragrance, no feelers they could extend to find their way in the dark. They were like trees cut off from time. The dead had entrusted feelings, and the words to convey them, to flesh-and-blood people.

Each day was a carbon copy of the last. You needed a bookmark to tell one from the other.

I felt like someone who realizes in the midst of looking for something that they have forgotten what it was. What was the object of my search?

The trout tasted like something from the good old days—a mountain path in summer.

“I do have a cat, though,” J added. “She’s getting on, but she’s still someone to talk to.”

We can learn from anything if we put in the effort. Right down to the most everyday, commonplace thing. I read somewhere that how we shave in the morning has its own philosophy, too. Otherwise, we couldn’t survive.”

“The obligation of philosophy,” I began, quoting Kant, “is to dispel all illusions borne of misunderstanding…Rest

“Just about anything looks better from a distance.”

On any given day, something can come along and steal our hearts.

Walk slowly, and drink lots of water.”

“Where are you going?” “To play pinball. I’m not sure where.” “Pinball?” “Yeah. You know, hitting balls with flippers.” “Of course I know. But why pinball?” “Why? This world is rife with matters philosophy cannot explain.”

“There can be no meaning in what will someday be lost. Passing glory is not true glory at all.” “Who said that?” “Can’t recall. But I agree with the idea.” “Is there anything in this world that can’t be lost?” “I believe there is. You should too.”

“I’m not bragging—I just think being an optimistic fool beats the alternative.” She nodded. “So that’s why you’re off to play pinball this evening.” “You got it.”

university lecturer’s business card does wonders with people who don’t know what we do in reality.”

There was something that came out of nothing, and now it’s gone back to where it came from, that’s all.

Tennessee Williams once wrote: “So much for the past and present. The future is called ‘perhaps,’ which is the only possible thing to call the future.” Yet when I look back on our dark voyage, I can see it only in terms of a nebulous “perhaps.” All we can perceive is this moment we call the present, and even this moment is nothing more than what passes through us.

Everything repeats itself… I retraced the path we had taken back to my apartment, put the Rubber Soul record they had left me on the turntable, made some coffee, and sat there in the autumn light, watching the rest of that Sunday pass by outside my window. A November Sunday so tranquil it seemed that everything would soon be crystal clear.