Chapter 17 postscript

I rarely write about myself in fiction.So-called private novels do not suit my temperament.Using these materials in a fictional world, I think I can emphasize the things and feelings I want to express.I think this is the right path for fiction.I don't want to deny that private fiction has a place, but I think it is different from my own path. Even so, I have written two or three works similar to private novels, but the results still confirm the above views. However, it's not that Tsukuru doesn't want to look back at his own footprints.I am fifty-five years old.In the company, it is already retirement age.In fact, I read some short memories published in magazines by retired people in newspapers and other places, so I also thought of writing.Not to write a novel, but out of greetings to myself.

I have been persuaded two or three times so far to write something like this autobiography.But I was always not in the mood, the reason being that it was still too early, but once I turned fifty-five, my mood changed.At this time, the "Literary Spring and Autumn" agency persuaded me to start writing.I finally picked up the pen, but after the serialization ended, I turned it over and read it, and I was still not satisfied.Sorry this doesn't count as writing.I understand how ignorant the first half of my life was!It's really set in stone.In order to bind it into a book, I picked up the serialized manuscripts and looked at them, but in the end I just made some abridgements.

During the serialization process, the editorial department asked me to keep writing until I became a novelist.I refused.There are two reasons. First, because I have no ambition to engage in literary creation from the beginning, so I will not talk about the so-called further study of literature. Second, I have spent more than forty years in my life before writing novels for a living. One spring and autumn, the next twelve or three years are only a small part.I don't have many contacts in the literary world, so I can't write which writer I am familiar with, or know about a certain writer, which will make readers feel uninteresting.Moreover, it is too close to reality and extremely immature, so even if I really want to write it, I want to wait ten years later.If you don't live to that time, let's end without writing.

However, ending the book here will also make people feel that it has nothing to do with it.Therefore, as a part connected to the current life, I would like to simply add a little bit of future things. ——As mentioned earlier, my ambition is not to write novels.When I was around twenty years old, I had this kind of thought to some extent, which is something that everyone at that age would have, and it is not worth mentioning.Later, I was forced by life, and it was not like that anymore.I think supporting a family is hard work, and I work for the stability of my family.However, I like reading.

Probably in the 25th year of the Showa era (that is, 1950), "Asahi Weekly" held a general award-winning novel essay in the name of "Million People's Fiction".The first prize was 300,000 yuan, which was a considerable bonus at the time.What literature, what novels, has nothing to do with me, a person who has no ambitions.However, one day, I went to the encyclopedia dictionary because of business, and the entry "Xixiang Banknotes" came into view.I read casually, and a fantasy emerged from the explanation of this entry.I think that fantasy is like a novel.That said, I think it could be a novel.

At that time, I was an employee of the advertising department of the western branch of "Asahi Shimbun" in Kokura City, Kyushu, and my daily job was to draw original prints for advertisements.As has been written in this book, my broom business sideline has been discontinued, and I am struggling to support my family of eight because of inflation.If I won the third prize (a prize of 100,000 yuan)... this fantasy has also arisen.In order to escape the pain in life, I decided to try to write novels out of the fantasies that floated in my mind.When I decided to write, the deadline was only twenty days away.

At that time, before I had a fountain pen, I bought a pencil and a notebook with cheap paper, and began to write the first draft at home or at the newspaper office.When commuting to get off work, I always carry a notebook and pencil in my suit pocket.I can barely write one or two sheets of manuscript paper every day in the newspaper office, and sometimes I can only write five or six lines. I was not sure about my novel, so I invited a young colleague of the newspaper office who liked literature to sit outside where the light bulbs were piled up in the light factory, and read to him the article I was writing.The colleague said it was interesting at first, but because I took him out repeatedly, he soon became impatient.However, I became interested in it and escaped from the pain of reality.

One day, when I came home from the newspaper office, I lost my precious pencil from my pocket at the intersection.At that time, I was wearing military boots to and from the shortcut railway line. When I realized that I had lost my pen, I immediately went back to look for it, but I couldn't find it.The railway is covered with stones, and small pencils with thin shafts are mixed in it, so it is not easy to be found.While paying attention to the train going back and forth, I bent my waist, lay on the stone, and stared at my nearsighted eyes for an hour.I didn't give up until it got dark.Early the next morning, I got up and looked again, but I still couldn't find it.Pencils, I never bought them again.

Later, I used the 3B pencil from the newspaper, but its refill was too soft to write in a notebook, and I would get bald as soon as I used it, and I had to carry a knife.When copying on the manuscript paper, I wrote it with a damp pen at home.Because I have to get off work after work, I have to work late every night. The novel "Xixiang Money" won the third prize.Later I heard that it was okay to raise it a little bit more, but because the author is from the newspaper office, the editorial department decided that way.Although it was the third prize, it was published in "Asahi Weekly Supplement", and it was selected as a candidate for that issue.The bonus of 100,000 yuan was used for living expenses, but I don't remember where it was spent.

My first novel became a candidate for the Naoki Prize, which gave me ambition.At that time, I gave the magazine that published my novel to Mr. Takamaro Kigi, who edited Mita Literature, and he asked me what else I was going to write.I sent two manuscripts and both were published.Later, "A Biography" was awarded.I wrote the first draft of "A Biography" in the summer.We lived in six-story, four-and-a-half-story, and three-story employee residences in the former armory. My wife and five children slept under mosquito nets next to them.In the next room, elderly parents snore.I used a brown round fan to drive away mosquitoes while writing the manuscript.Sometimes, I went to the dark kitchen to drink water.

Before that, after my novel won an award in "Asahi Weekly", I was introduced by a staff member of the newspaper's corporate department, and I often went to Hono Ashidaira in Wakamatsu City.Hino travels between Tokyo and Wakamatsu by plane. Every time I go to Hino's house, it is always crowded with literature lovers from Kitakyushu.With all due respect, it was a bunch of people who were flattering people after running around.Therefore, I rarely get to talk to Hono.Moreover, those people always looked at me as a half-way monk, (maybe it was my illusion), so I alienated Hino.But Hono was very enthusiastic and recommended my novel to the publishing house. A long time later, I participated in the year-end of "Benyichunqiu" together with Hino, and Hino looked at me and gave advice: "You seem to have written too much these days, and it will be bad for your health if you don't control it!" Not long after that, Hino died in the workshop on a cold night. For this reason, compared with the local "Kyushu Literature", I became a colleague of "Santa Literature" by a wonderful opportunity, but it didn't take long.After Mu Mu left office, I was no longer a fan.After all, I am no more than an outsider wherever I am. One year after receiving the Akutagawa Prize, I was transferred to the Tokyo head office.After winning the award in "The Spring and Autumn Period of Literature and Art", my first published works were only "Warring States Tactics" and "Chrysanthemum Pillow".The job transfer was my repeated request, and the newspaper office kindly agreed. In Tokyo, I went to work alone for about half a year and lived with my father’s younger brother who appeared in this book. My uncle passed away a year ago, and my aunt is still alive.I had four cousins ​​at once. It was the 29th year of the Showa era (that is, 1954), and Tokyo had just begun to build apartments, and there were very few houses that were willing to rent out.After I got off work, I ran all over the housing company, and when they heard that there were eight people, they immediately refused.It was for this reason that the family members were not called from Kyushu for half a year.It was not easy for me to take a fancy to a three-room four-and-a-half-story house in Sekicho 1-chome, Nerima District. I went to Tokyo Station to pick up my family. My mother was very weak. She gasped for breath several times when she went up and down the overpass, and had to take a break before leaving.Her waist is also bent.Since then, vision has also begun to decline. Father was in good health, and when he went to the home of his dead brother, he thanked everyone for their help with tears in his eyes. My father is an optimist wherever he goes, while my mother's pessimistic personality has not changed until her death. "I'm a sufferer," I'd heard her say so often since I was a child.She is indeed unlucky.My mother came to Sekicho's house and died a year later, and she couldn't see anything before she died.Can't go out even one step.On the tatami, she tried to crawl with her hands, which was exactly the same as her grandmother.Nevertheless, she still did not put down the pipe and matches.When the time of death came, her mind was already confused, so she packed the big cigarette bag, and put the still burning match head on the dirty partition paper next to her pillow.When the father found out, he yelled: "It's on fire!" It is Boshe's dialect to say fire as Huvva.I was writing a manuscript at the side, and ran over quickly, only to see that a flame was already burning under the partition door.My mother was beside the fire, leisurely smoking a pipe.It's dangerous!Fortunately, only one partition was burned. Before my mother died, she snored all night.This is exactly the same as the grandmother on her deathbed.My mother used to say that "a daughter-in-law is like a mother-in-law", and it is true. My father died four years after my mother, at the age of eighty-nine.He and his mother did not have a good relationship until his death.Even so, after his mother's death, he seemed to be lonely, and his legs were failing, but he walked around in soft-soled shoes.My father died after we moved to Hamada-san.At that time, my eldest daughter was about to get married, but my father couldn't see it.In fact, even if he has strength, how much vision can he have?About half a year before his death, his pupils turned completely gray, which made people feel uncomfortable. Seicho Matsumoto

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