Halo teman-teman pecinta buku,
pengen kenal lebih dekat dengan penulis Norwegian Wood
yang telah diterbitkan oleh KPG?
Berikut biografi singkat, komentar tentang buku
Norwegian Wood, dan wawancara Roland Kelts dengan
Haruki Murakami.
Selamat Membaca...
Haruki Murakami lahir di Kyoto pada 1949 dan besar di
Kobe. Pada usia 18 tahun, ia masuk Universitas Waseda
jurusan seni drama Yunani, namun daripada berkuliah ia
lebih suka menghabiskan waktunya dengan membaca naskah
film di perpustakaan. Setelah novel pertamanya Kaze no
Uta o Kike (Hear the Wind Sing) terbit dan memperoleh
penghargaan Gunzo Prize (1979) untuk kategori penulis
baru. Pada 1981, Murakami menjual kafe jaz miliknya
dan memutuskan hidup dari menulis. Pada 1991, setelah
menelurkan Norwegian Wood, novelnya yang keempat, ia
hijrah ke Amerika dan menjadi peneliti di Universitas
Princeton. Di Universitas ini pula ia dicalonkan
menjadi Lektor Kepala. Pada 1993, ia mengajar di
Universitas William Howard Taft, sebelum kembali ke
Tokyo dua tahun kemudian. Hingga kini ia telah
menghasilkan lebih daripada 30 karya fiksi maupun
nonfiksi, dan menerima penghargaan, antara lain Noma
Literary Award, Tanizaki Price, dan Yomiuri Literary
Award.
Murakami pastilah sudah termasuk di antara novelis
terkemuka dunia yang masih hidup.
--Guartan.
Buku ini tak ayal lagi begitu seru, sarat dengan
pemberontakan mahasiswa, seks bebas, minuman keras,
dan lagu-lagu pop 1960-an. Novel ini juga
sungguh-sungguh memukau dan menggambarkan gejolak masa
remaja.
--Independent on Sunday.
Berhasil menggambarkan gelora cinta remaja. Kendati
penuh dengan saat-saat memilukan dan kesadaran banyak
tokohnya yang tampak bagai kamikaze, novel ini sering
kocak dan rinci dengan hal-hal yang serba ganjil.
Tenang-tenang menghanyutkan dan akhirnya mengharukan.
--Times Literary Supplement
Begitu indah dan halus Murakami menulis, sehingga apa
saja yang dia lukiskan kaya makna.
--Guardian.
CLOSE-UP WITH HARUKI MURAKAMI
Writer on the borderline
By ROLAND KELTS
Special to The Japan Times
Haruki Murakami is Japan's most important and
internationally acclaimed living writer. "Norwegian
Wood," his fourth novel, has sold more than 2 million
copies since it was published in 1987. His latest,
"Kafka on the Shore," has sold more than 200,000
copies since its publication in September, and has
topped the bestseller lists in Japan for more than two
months.
Murakami was born in Kyoto in 1949 and raised in
nearby Kobe. He moved to Tokyo to attend Waseda
University at 18, then lived in Europe and America
before returning to Japan in 1995. Since 1979, and his
first novel "Hear the Wind Sing," he has written more
than 30 works of fiction and nonfiction in his native
language and translated more than 30 titles from
English into Japanese. His own books have been
translated into 16 languages, with 10 now available in
English.
At 53, Murakami is dauntingly prolific and almost
aggressively healthy. He swims and runs daily, and has
run marathons in New York, Boston and Sapporo. He is
in bed by 9 p.m. and up at 4. "You need power to be a
good writer," he explains in a deep baritone that is
as comforting in timbre as it is precise in
expression.
Murakami's new story collection, "After the Quake,"
speaks intimately to readers in the post-Sept. 11
world. Its six fictions are linked by the Great
Hanshin Earthquake that struck Kobe and surrounding
areas in January 1995, and by the Aum Shinrikyo sarin
attacks in Tokyo that March. The book has a healing,
meditative power that prompted one U.S. reviewer to
call it "close to flawless," and another to identify
it as Murakami's "get-well card."
Murakami lives with his wife, Yoko, in Oiso, a beach
resort near Tokyo, but usually works out of a
city-center apartment. Recently, he has become more
active in making public appearances abroad. This fall
saw him busy with readings, interviews and
book-signings in New York and Germany, and he plans to
visit Britain next spring. Murakami is unusually
accessible to his fans, responding to them via e-mail
on his Web site ( www.kafkaontheshore.com ).
The first book in English about Murakami's life and
work, "Haruki Murakami and the Music of Words" by
Harvard professor and translator Jay Rubin, appeared
this summer. These days it seems Murakami is
everywhere, but he spared a recent morning for this
interview in his Tokyo apartment.
Why do you think your new book, "After the Quake," is
resonating so much with readers after Sept. 11?
When I wrote those stories, I was thinking about the
earthquake and the sarin gas attack by Aum Shinrikyo.
But I think the Sept. 11 attack is directly connected.
It was a huge catastrophe, but it was done by humans.
I think that's why American readers feel sympathy in
that book. If it was only about the earthquake, the
sympathy would be weaker, but that book is about the
violence in nature and the violence in human beings.
So, the book is very sad. The shock I felt when I
interviewed the victims of the sarin attack for
"Underground" [nonfiction; 2000] changed my life, my
entire point of view, and even my style of writing. I
didn't imagine that such a thing could happen. I was
doing those interviews for a full year, and I
interviewed about 60 people. I was living in the world
of life and death. People who were on the train that
day might have died. They smelled the gas.
What shocked you the most?
Details. The simple words of their lives. That's what
I think about when I write fiction these days: more
details and simpler words. In my younger days, I was
trying to write sophisticated prose and fantastic
stories. I think "Underground" was the turning point
in my writing. Another thing I think about now is
intolerance. We're really seeing a conflict between
closed systems and open systems in society. These
days, the closed-circuit systems are getting stronger
-- fundamentalists, cults or militaries. They are
getting very strong and it's getting dangerous. But
you can't be intolerant. You can't destroy closed
systems with arms. The system will survive. You could
kill all the al-Qaeda soldiers, but the system itself
would survive. They'll just move it somewhere else.
Why are closed systems getting stronger now?
The world is very chaotic today. You have to think
about so many things -- your stock options, the IT
industry, which computer you should buy, junk bonds.
You have 54 channels on DTV. You can know anything you
want from the Internet. It's so complicated, and you
feel lost. But if you enter a small, closed circuit,
you don't have to think about anything. The guru or
dictator will tell you what to do and think. It's
simple. So people like to enter those small, closed
systems -- just like the very intelligent people who
gather in Aum Shinrikyo. But once you enter that
system, you cannot escape. The door is closed.
Is the world becoming more violent?
Not exactly, but the nature of violence has changed
since the Cold War. During the Cold War, violence was
easy to find. It was static in form. But after the
collapse of the Berlin Wall, the forms of violence
began to vary, to change so easily. Sometimes we can't
recognize evil in nature. We become uneasy and
uncomfortable.
Nonetheless, you identify evil sources in your
fiction, like Worm in your story "Superfrog Saves
Tokyo."
Yes, but in the daily world, people point fingers at
other people: "It's the Arabs or the Chinese, etc."
Worm is a symbol of the evil inside us. It's not an
outer thing, like al-Qaeda or Aum or the Russians.
It's just the evil within.
But when the evil is outside us, do you support war to
fight it?
I'm a writer. I don't support any war. That's my
principle. I don't want to express my opinion about
actual politics, because if I do, I have to be
responsible for my decision. My priority is my books,
at least at this point. What I have to do is write the
narrative of this time. I can do that better than most
people can, so it's my profession and my duty. If I
write about "Superfrog" and the evil Worm, some people
say: "What is this 'worm'? Is this al-Qaeda or Saddam
Hussein?" And I say: "It's just Evil."
You once said that you'd been feeling insecure since
you were 20 years old.
Yes, that's what I've been trying to express in my
fiction. But I'm not a prophet or a Cassandra
predicting bad things. I'm just a fiction writer. I
express these things, but I'm always looking for a
solution.
Are you finding one now?
That's a tough question. I feel like I'm walking in a
deep forest, in the darkness of the underground. The
older I become, the more closely I can look at the
landscape of that world. I feel like I'm getting
closer to the core, the center, but I don't know if
I'm getting closer to a solution or not. I believe my
readers feel the same way. It's not just me; it's very
important for all of us. That's the purpose of
fiction.
To bring people closer together?
Yes, through sympathy or empathy. I answer my readers'
e-mails, you know. I read about 100 per day, and I
write 10 to 20 replies. I think it's necessary for me.
I'm not interested in professional criticism, pro or
con. I just don't care. But I think it's very
important for me to read the words from my actual
readers, the ones who pay their money to buy and read
my books. They are very important. Sometimes they
actually help me to think about the books I've
written.
Most of them write about what they like and don't like
very honestly. That helps. Very small things help me.
Some readers say they like this detail -- a very small
thing; just a piece of conversation, or the clothing a
character is wearing or the beer a character is
drinking. If you read 1,000 e-mails, you catch a
vibration from the readers out there.
That sounds almost spiritual.
Yes. In that sense, the Internet is a very important
and interesting thing. It's like direct democracy,
like they had in Athens. Everyone's together in the
forum, you know? Ten or 20 years ago, I had to look to
the media to see the readers. But we don't need media
anymore. We just make conversations with the readers,
directly. It could be dangerous, I guess. But if
you're smart and you take time, it helps.
Is "Kafka on the Shore," your latest novel in Japan,
comparable to your last long novel, "The Wind-Up Bird
Chronicle"?
I think that it's actually connected to "Hard-Boiled
Wonderland and the End of the World." I wanted to
write a sequel 15 years ago, but I gave up. But I feel
like "Kafka on the Shore" is connected to that book on
a deeper level. Two parallel stories combine in the
end. The structure is similar. And the theme of both
books is a story of two different worlds,
consciousness and unconsciousness. Most of us are
living in those two worlds, one foot in one or the
other, and all of us are living on the borderline.
That's my definition of human life. The title is about
the borderline of land and sea, living and dead.
What are you working on now?
I've been translating "The Catcher in the Rye" [to be
published in Japanese next spring]. Most people think
that book is about a child against society, but it's
not so simple. The book is really about a disease of
the mind. J.D. Salinger was writing about spiritual
damage. And now we know what has happened to Salinger,
and it's a tragedy. His book has inspired some
assassins -- the man who killed John Lennon, and the
man who tried to kill Ronald Reagan. It has some
connection to the darkness in people's minds, and that
is very important. It's a great book, but at the same
time, Salinger was very close to that closed-circuit
system in himself. He's in the open system as a
writer, but I think his book is ambivalent about the
two systems. I think that's one of the reasons it's so
powerful.
Your reputation in the West is quite different from
your reputation here. Why do you think that is?
One of the reasons is that "Norwegian Wood" sold a
couple of million copies here, and most critics don't
like bestselling writers. Without that novel, I'd be
in a more comfortable critical position in this
country. But, fortunately or unfortunately, it sold
like hot cakes here. That's my problem in Japan. But
in the West, fortunately or unfortunately, my books
sell very moderately. So readers there think of me as
a kind of cult writer. Before "Norwegian Wood," I used
to be a cult writer in Japan, too. That book destroyed
my reputation, but it's a reputation only in the media
here. My readers have been very loyal, and I think
they understand what I am trying to write.
They know you're sincere?
Yes. You know some musicians who, every time they make
a new CD, you go to the shop and buy it. The Red Hot
Chili Peppers, Radiohead, REM and Wilco are like that
for me. At some point you'll be disappointed, but most
times they don't disappoint you. I'm trusted by my
readers, and most times they won't be disappointed.
There's a lot of disappointment in Japan today.
Yes, but during the bubble economy, Japanese people
were very arrogant. I didn't like that at all. Now,
people are becoming more modest. I think that's a good
thing. We got poorer, but the arrogance disappeared to
some degree. Fiction writers like us are the
storytellers of the age. And we are writing about the
age we live in. Some people say there are good times
and bad times, but I don't know and I don't care.
Nobody really knows which time is good and which one
is bad. What we writers have to do is just observe and
recognize what is happening.
Roland Kelts is a Tokyo-based novelist from New York
The Japan Times: Dec. 1, 2002
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