Chapter 17 postscript

Still more than 20 years ago, I came up with the idea of ​​writing a novel with the theme of the station.Since I have only been writing novels for 19 years, I have had themes for novels in my mind before I became a writer. I wanted to write about the huge metropolitan stations, not the country "parking lots".Of course, all kinds of lives are intertwined there.In the sense of "variety of life", it is very similar to restaurants, theaters, and transportation institutions, but people who come and go to the station never stop there, they always pass by.The intertwined life is always on the move. Even the staff and tourists who commute to and from get off work every day cannot escape the fate of passing by.

Life itself is a passing process, and people live in a process of constant movement.Although it can be said that the station symbolizes life, the station has a unique travel feeling, a romantic color like standing at the door of the future, and a nostalgia for looking back on the past. More than 20 years ago, as a member of the working class, I had to rush from the remote suburbs to the hotel in Akasaka to go to work every day, and it took more than two hours each way.On the way to work, you have to pass through Shinjuku Station, an important transfer station for private railways and state-owned railways.

The Chuo Line train platform can be seen from the National Railway platform in Shinjuku.The platforms of the state-owned railways are full of commuters like me who have been rushing to the boring and depressing jobs for ten years, but the platforms of the Central Line are full of happy passengers, because they have changed from the busy daily life. Break free from the shackles of life, go mountaineering, go sightseeing.When I see them, I want to drop everything and get on the train going the opposite way to my workplace—an urge I have every morning. The reason why I was able to endure it all the time was because I didn't have the courage to devote myself to that impulse, not because of my sense of responsibility at work and concern for my family members who depend on my meager income for a living.

Standing on the platform of the state-run railway at Shinjuku Station, I always think of the following section in Hori Tatsuo's "Nahoko": At that time, suddenly a long train on the Chuo Line was wrapped in the gust of wind and rolled up countless fallen leaves on the platform, and sped away in front of Keisuke.Keisuke gradually realized that it was a train bound for Matsumoto.He and the traces of the long train whizzing by were hidden in the endlessly fluttering leaves, and his indescribably painful eyes watched the direction of the train.He pictured in his mind: After a few hours, this train will enter the Shinshu area and pass the sanatorium where Nahoko is at the same speed as before...

Unlike Tokyo Station, which is the "face" of Tokyo, and Ueno Station, which has a strong atmosphere in the Tohoku region and is like the "junction" between Tokyo and hometown, Shinjuku Station is more like a rope that combines everyday and extraordinary.Although it also exudes a local atmosphere, it is not as strong as Ueno. Although it has obvious urban characteristics and is also designated as the "face" of Tokyo, it is full of diversity.As a station, there is really nothing more colorful than it, no, there is really nothing more variegated than it.It is indeed "the place where romance lives".To put it bluntly, I always feel that Shinjuku Station should not be a drop-off station (such as Ueno Station), but should be the departure station.

Shinjuku Station is a station where people who are struggling to make ends meet are instantly freed from their daily shackles, or start their journey while still wearing those shackles.I always feel that in this kind of station, the tragedy of parting is more than the comedy of reunion.The reason why I want to write a novel with the theme of the station is because I want to depict the vivid drama of departure, not the scene of arrival; to depict the sorrow of parting, not the joy of reunion. People who set off from Shinjuku did not grow up in Tokyo, but yearned for the metropolis and went to Beijing with ideals, but were not accepted by Tokyo in the end, or returned home, or rushed to another horizon to seek a new life. people.What I want to describe is the romance of those people.Maybe it was because I was tired of the life of an office worker and couldn't see my future ideals.

The human dramas performed at Shinjuku Station every day are not the kind of non-daily fragments, but the very daily life of ordinary people.This station claims to have the largest throughput in Japan with an average of 1.25 million people per day (at the time of writing), and the most sold tickets are the starting price tickets within 10 kilometers. From this fact, we can see how close Shinjuku is to daily life. ! Because of this, I regard Shinjuku as the starting point for the extraordinary, and use it as a stage to depict extraordinary dramatic events based on the everyday.