Chapter 5 "boring" writer

One day Japanese banknotes are likely to have a photo of Haruki Murakami printed on them. This is no joke at all, because the character on Japanese thousand-yen banknotes is Natsume Soseki, and Murakami Haruki is actually Japan's most important person after Natsume Soseki. Writers, not only the 40-year-old generation and the Japanese after them all have to read Haruki Murakami, but also like writers after Natsume Soseki have to go through Soseki, young writers after Haruki Murakami (even if they are only a few years younger than him) also read Haruki Murakami. To experience Haruki Murakami, that is, Haruki Murakami's works is a road that must be passed. Japan quietly and deeply resonates with Haruki Murakami's "I" and changes together.

Haruki Murakami is the most discussed writer in Japan. His "God's Children All Dance", a work related to the real society, let everyone find that Haruki Murakami had a realistic understanding that some writers did not have at the beginning. !Of course, because Haruki Murakami had written "The Subway Incident" before, the change of Haruki Murakami was not abrupt. He believed that the works of "God" themselves were carrying some strange aura of ghosts and monsters, and wanted to move towards the light. Moving forward, Haruki Murakami himself took a new quiet but awe-inspiring step.

Haruki Murakami's description of the "society" after the Hanshin earthquake made some literary critics feel relieved, but in the end everyone agreed that the changes to Haruki Murakami were as gratifying as the "new ending" for the children of God, just as In 1755, after the earthquake that hit Lisbon, Portugal, the thinking of European intellectuals also changed. For example, Voltaire, the French Enlightenment philosopher and writer, strongly advocated that "it is no longer just to lament the misery of the world, but to pay attention to the present." Labor on the subject of our work", and "In any case, we must till our fields", which enlightened the literary and ideological circles.

Haruki Murakami, who was born in Hanshin, besides "Song of Listening to the Wind" (the only work of Haruki Murakami that was adapted to the screen) that wrote the special culture of Ashiya City shared with director Kazuki Omori, Haruki Murakami himself and his relatives and friends Of course, he also experienced the earthquake. This earthquake concretized the "dark" part hidden in Haruki Murakami's heart that he never wanted to express. Haruki Murakami captured the earthquake as a spiritual and inner problem. In the novels written because of the earthquake, Voltaire made the characters in the works travel in the real world, while Haruki Murakami made the characters’ hearts travel. Therefore, in Haruki Murakami’s works, the good and evil in the real world It is not the problem, but the shape and change of the heart is the problem; another feature of the novel "God's Children Are Dancing" is that Murakami's language is completely a kind of prose, that is, a prose novel, not a loose writing by Haruki Murakami. , but another way of expression, which is more difficult for traditional critics to predict. This kind of intentional or unintentional resistance to the literary "system" is actually a typical Haruki Murakami practice, and Haruki Murakami's unique contemporary pain Still immortal, still alive.

The debate about whether Haruki Murakami's works are literary works does not exist in Japan at all. Haruki Murakami is undoubtedly the most powerful and qualified writer in contemporary Japan, and the most important existence that has changed modern Japanese literature.What Haruki Murakami is most worthy of special mention is his willingness to write and challenge.Since his debut, no writer has expanded and deepened his world of works like Haruki Murakami. His deepening and broadening process is also the process of acquiring new fields for Japanese literature. Therefore, the importance of Haruki Murakami will not be diminished. Yu Natsume Soseki; another contemporary Japanese writer who can be compared or mentioned with Haruki Murakami is Ryu Murakami. Some literary critics even pointed out that "after the two Murakamis, there is no novelist in Japan".

Compared with Ryu Murakami, Haruki Murakami's literary and even national character is stronger; Haruki Murakami is a writer who makes the Japanese crazy. As long as Haruki Murakami publishes a book, there are more than 200,000 copies at every turn, and Japanese people under the age of 40 I grew up watching Haruki Murakami. The protagonists in Haruki Murakami's novels are all "I" in the first person. This is very special in the history of Japanese literature and is also a feature of Haruki Murakami's works. This "I" makes Japan It resonates directly, female readers fall in love with a man like "me", and male readers want to be a man like "me".

Haruki Murakami's "I" has always been not actively participating in society, living a cool life, not having to feel unreasonable guilt, and never needing to represent things other than himself, which is a complete "minority position" .This model and values ​​have been popular in Japan and even Asia so far. Reading Haruki Murakami's works makes people feel that they can continue to live, as if they have found a different-dimensional space where they can breathe easily. If there is any pain, just pounce on it. This space can be liberated. More than 20 years ago, when Haruki Murakami’s works were born, it happened to be the end of the student movement, and the era before Haruki Murakami was an era of young people’s participation and dedication. It has become an era where there is nothing to care about and participate in. Japanese people in their 40s are now living quietly in the campus with nothing to do in the late 1970s when Haruki Murakami's "I" was born in the early days. Don't think about everything too heavy" The appearance of "I" had a strong impact on them. The atmosphere of the West Coast of the United States in the 1970s was affirmed and positively described in literary works for the first time, and Japanese traditions were blown away without a trace. Such novels were unprecedented at the time. of.

Not only for readers, Murakami is fresh and sympathetic, but also full of inspiration for many writers and future writers; like Yoko Ogawa, a 38-year-old female writer who won the Akutagawa Award in 1992, said that she read Haruki Murakami's Works are determined to be a writer. Haruki Murakami is an inevitable path for people or writers of his generation; because the writing of Japanese writers before Haruki Murakami has a very complete theme, but Haruki Murakami is no theme.It is possible to write a novel without a theme, which is a revelation of Haruki Murakami breaking the existing literary "system".

As Haruki Murakami wrote in 1982, it was Haruki Murakami’s earliest novel with a real backbone and worldview. Now I can’t help but feel a bit stale when I read it. The reason is that many Japanese writers have imitated it; although Haruki Murakami He is imitated, but Haruki Murakami is by no means like most wunderkind writers who fall into the trap of "copying themselves" and "imitating themselves". He will keep renovating. Of course, anyone can say that Haruki Murakami is a "boring" writer. This is the reason for the existence of Haruki Murakami. The theme that his works want to convey is actually "boring", so it is considered to have no theme, because of this "boring" It also ensures the freshness of his works in terms of style. This kind of boring coexistence with freshness and newness is actually the so-called "contemporary nature" and the purport of Haruki Murakami's literature, because contemporary is actually defined by "boring". Fittingly, Haruki Murakami is playing on the theme of "boring" in a way that makes reading his book feel like drinking beer, but at the same time hints at an idea that isn't too problematic.

Haruki Murakami writes freely without being constrained by the traditional framework of pure literature, and perhaps he didn't win the Akutagawa Award, which he didn't care about at all, but he did capture the feeling of people living in urban civilization, and has the ability to go beyond the literary world and directly to readers The power to speak out. If you don’t win the Akutagawa Award, you will have a low evaluation in the literary world. This is the thinking of the literary world. The Japanese literary world regrets that Haruki Murakami was not included. On the other hand, readers of Haruki Murakami's "I" who have been accustomed to not caring about the changes of the times for 20 years are now beginning to adapt to the changes in "I".

What will happen to "I" in the future?Haruki Murakami still consistently said that "everything has been explained in the novel", and he refused anyone's request to explain his works.