Novelist as a Vocation

by Haruki Murakami

“So this is how it is,” I thought. “Time just slips away.”

“If something that simple can make it, I could write a novel, too,” he sniffed, and left. I was a little put out, of course, but I also knew what he meant. “The guy may not be entirely off the mark,” I thought. “Perhaps anybody could turn out something as good.” All I had done was sit down and riff on whatever came into my head. There were no complicated words, no elaborate phrases, no elegant style. I had just thrown it together as I went along. If that classmate of mine did go home and write a novel, however, I never heard about it.

What I want to say is that in a certain sense, while the novelist is creating a novel, he is simultaneously being created by the novel as well.