Novelist as a Vocation

by Haruki Murakami

I’m not that good at logical argument or abstract thought. The only way I can think about things in any kind of order is by putting them in writing. Physically moving my hand as I write, rereading what I write, over and over, and closely reworking it—only then am I finally able to gather my thoughts and grasp them like other people do. Because of this, through writing over time what’s been gathered in this volume, and rewriting it over and over, I’ve been able to think more systematically and take a broader view of myself, a novelist, and myself being a novelist.

Now I am not suggesting that the more hardship you endure the better off you will be. If you manage to get through this life without suffering, so much the better. I know there is nothing at all pleasant about hardship—it can drive you so low you can’t get up again. Nevertheless, if you are dealing with adverse conditions and the painful thoughts that come in their wake, you should take it from me that what you’re going through now may bear fruit down the road.

Words have power. Yet that power must be rooted in truth and justice. Words must never stand apart from those principles.

I could only write in short, simple sentences. Which meant that, however complex and numerous the thoughts running around in my head, I couldn’t even attempt to set them down as they came to me. The language had to be simple, my ideas expressed in an easy-to-understand way, the descriptions stripped of all extraneous fat, the form made compact, and everything arranged to fit a container of limited size.

it was through writing in a foreign language that she succeeded in developing a style that was new and uniquely hers. It featured a strong rhythm based on short sentences, diction that was never roundabout but always straightforward, and description that was to the point and free of emotional baggage. Her novels were cloaked in an air of mystery hinting at important matters hidden beneath the surface.

Then I sit there and muse about what to write that day. Such moments are pure bliss.

In the end, after all, honors are merely a formal social and literary ratification of an existing reality.

I’m not a big fan of generalizations, but if you will permit me to venture one (my apologies!), Japan is a country

What is originality, after all, but the shape that results from the natural impulse to communicate to others that feeling of freedom, that unconstrained joy?

In most cases, I try to fix a few telling details about the event (or the person, or the scene) in my mind. Since it is hard to recall (or, having attempted to remember, easy to forget) the whole picture, it is best to try to extract specific features in a form that can be easily held for safekeeping. This is what I mean by a minimal system.

I was able to cobble together an appropriate Japanese style to use in my work.

Two principles guided me. The first was to omit all explanations. Instead, I would toss a variety of fragments—episodes, images, scenes, phrases—into that container called the novel and then try to join them together in a three-dimensional way. Second, I would try to make those connections in a space set entirely apart from conventional logic and literary clichés. This was my basic scheme.

I can’t play a musical instrument. Or at least I can’t play one well enough to expect people to listen to me. Yet I have the strong desire to perform music. From the beginning, therefore, my intention was to write as if I were playing an instrument. I still feel like that today. I sit tapping away at the keyboard searching for the right rhythm, the most suitable chords and tones. This is, and has always been, the most important element in my literature.

Writers who do not rely on weighty material but instead reach inside themselves to spin their tales may, by contrast, have an easier time of it. That’s because they can draw on their daily lives—the events routinely taking place around them, the scenes they witness, the people they encounter—and then freely apply their imaginations to that material to construct their own fiction. In short, they use a form of renewable energy. They feel no need to fight on the battlefield or in the bullring, or to shoot lions.

Short stories are agile vehicles that can be maneuvered to cover the smaller topics that novels can’t handle very well. They are perfect for launching bold new experiments, whether stylistic or plot-based,

Whichever course I have followed, once I have sat down and rewritten a given section I almost always find it much improved. It seems that when a reader has a problem, there is usually something that needs fixing, whether or not it corresponds to their suggestions. In short, the flow of their reading has been blocked. It is my job, then, to eliminate that blockage, to unclog the pipe, as it were. How to do that is up to me, the author. Even if I feel “That section was perfectly written—there’s no need to change anything,” I still head back to my desk and work it out. After all, the idea that anything can be “perfectly written” is a clear fallacy.

What this story shows is that, no matter what you have written, it can be made better. We may feel that what we have turned out is excellent, even perfect, but the fact remains there is always room for improvement. That’s why I strive to set aside my pride and self-regard when rewriting, and cool the passions generated by the creative process.

A writer’s instinct and intuition derive less from logic and more from the level of determination brought to the task.

And as physical strength declines (I’m speaking in general terms here), there is a subtle decline in mental fitness, too. Mental agility and emotional flexibility are lost. Once when I was interviewed by a young writer I declared that “once a writer puts on fat, it’s all over.” This was a bit hyperbolic, and of course there are exceptions, but I do believe that for the most part it’s true. Whether it is actual physical fat or metaphoric fat. Most writers are able to compensate for this through improved writing technique or a more mature consciousness, but there is a limit to these as well. Recent research shows that aerobic exercise leads to a rapid increase in the number of neurons produced in the hippocampus in the brain. Aerobic exercise is sustained exercise such as swimming or jogging. However, if left as is, in twenty-eight hours these newly formed neurons will disappear without having served any purpose. It’s a real waste. But give these newly formed neurons some intellectual stimulation and they are activated—they connect with the network in the brain and become an organic part of the signal-transfer community.

Still, not grasping what it all means, I persist in my daily running routine. Thirty years is a long time. To continue one habit that long requires a great deal of effort. How have I been able to do it? It’s because I feel like the act of running represents, concretely and succinctly, some of the things I have to do in this life. I have that sort of general, yet very strong, sense. So even on days when I think I’m not feeling so great and don’t feel like running, I tell myself, “No matter what, this is something I have to do in my life,” and I go out and run without really ascribing a logical reason for it. That sentence has become a kind of mantra for me: No matter what, this is something I have to do in my life.

Novelists basically tell stories. And telling stories, to put it another way, means delving deep down into your unconscious. To descend to the darkest realms of the mind. The broader the scale of the story, the deeper the novelist has to descend. It’s like constructing a large building, where you need to dig down very deep for the foundation.

In most cases, the characters who appear in my novels naturally emerge from the flow of the story. Except for a few rare cases, I never decide ahead of time that I’ll present a certain type of character. As I write, a kind of axis emerges that makes it possible for the appearance of certain characters, and I go ahead and add one detail after another as I see fit, like iron scraps attach to a magnet. And in this way an overall picture of a person emerges.

Back then, I was more inclined toward the creation of a private world—one that was, if anything, harmonious—than creating large-scale narrative-driven books. I had to build my own neat little world as a shelter from the harsh realities of the larger world around me.

When I think about it, I realize that the novels I enjoy most are the ones with lots of fascinating supporting characters. The one that leaps to mind is Dostoevsky’s Demons. If you’ve read it, you know what I mean; there are plenty of oddball minor characters throughout the novel. It’s a long novel but holds my interest to the end. One colorful, weird character after another appears, the kind that makes you wonder, “Why this kind of person?” Dostoevsky must have been someone with a huge mental cabinet to work with. In Japanese literature the novels of Natsume Sōseki contain all kinds of appealing, colorful characters. Even the ones who only appear briefly are vividly portrayed and unique. A line they might utter, or an expression or action of theirs, will strangely linger in the mind. What impresses me about Sōseki’s novels is that there’s hardly ever any makeshift character, one that is there because the author decided he needed that sort of person to appear at that point.

for a long time I couldn’t give names to my characters. Nicknames like “Rat” or “J” were fine, because I just couldn’t give them actual names. Why not? I don’t know the answer. All I can say is that I felt embarrassed about assigning people names. I felt that somebody like me endowing others (even if they’re fictional characters I made up) with names seemed kind of phony. Maybe in the beginning I felt embarrassed, too, about the whole act itself of writing novels. It was like laying my naked heart out for everyone to see.

Of course it’s the writer who creates the characters; but characters who are—in a real sense—alive will eventually break free of the writer’s control and begin to act independently. I’m not the only one who feels this—many fiction writers acknowledge it. In fact, unless that phenomenon occurs, writing the novel becomes a strained, painful, and trying process. When a novel is on the right track, characters take on a life of their own, the story moves forward by itself, and a very happy situation evolves whereby the novelist just ends up writing down what he sees happening in front of him. And in some cases the character takes the novelist by the hand and leads him or her to an unexpected destination.

in a certain sense, while the novelist is creating a novel, he is simultaneously being created by the novel as well.

Thelonious Monk said something apropos of this: “I say, play your own way. Don’t play what the public wants. You play what you want and let the public pick up on what you’re doing—even if it does take them fifteen, twenty years.”

All I could conclude was that there are a certain number of people in the world who check which way the wind’s blowing and make casual, completely unfounded remarks.

Stories can exist as metaphors for reality, and people need to internalize new stories (and new systems of metaphor) in order to cope with an unfolding new reality. By successfully connecting these two systems, the system of actual society and the metaphoric system—by, to put it another way, allowing movement between the objective world and the subjective world so they mutually modify each other—people are able to accept an uncertain reality and maintain their sanity.