Novelist as a Vocation
Haruki Murakami & Philip Gabriel & Ted Goossen
FOREWORD
I’m not exactly sure when I began writing the series of essays collected in this volume, but I think it was around 2010.
One thing I need to mention is that this book was published in Japan in 2015, so there is a seven-year time lag between that and the present 2022 English translation. I’d like you to be aware of this. During these past seven years we’ve experienced all kinds of crucial events, including the Corona pandemic, and wars breaking out around the world. These circumstances have forced us to make some significant changes in our lives. These essays, though, do not reflect those changes, or the individual changes I’ve experienced myself. They are simply my thoughts and feelings as of 2015.
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For a long time I’ve been wanting to say something about my writing novels, and being a novelist for so long; so in between other work I started, bit by bit, jotting down my thoughts, and organizing them by topic. I didn’t write these essays, then, at the request of a publisher, but, rather, on my own initiative, something I wrote for my own sake.
The first several chapters I wrote in my usual style—like how I’m writing here—but when I reread them the flow of the writing seemed stiff and kind of shrill, and it just didn’t sit well with me. So I tried writing as if I were directly talking to people, and that way it felt easier to write (speak) more smoothly and honestly; and decided to consolidate the whole thing as if I were writing a speech. I pictured myself speaking in a small hall to maybe thirty or forty people, and rewrote the essays in the more intimate tone you’d expect in that kind of setting. Though I never actually had the opportunity to read these essays as talks in front of anyone.
Why not? First of all, I feel a bit embarrassed about talking about myself, and about the process of me writing novels, so directly and openly. I have a pretty strong desire not to try to explain my novels to others. Talking about my own works always comes off sounding kind of apologetic, or boastful, or as if I’m trying to justify myself. Even if I don’t want to sound that way, it still leaves that impression.
Well, I imagine that someday I might have the chance to talk about this in public, but it might be a little early for it now. Maybe when I’m a bit older. Thinking this, I tossed the pages I’d written into a drawer. From time to time I’d take them out and rework parts of the manuscript. The situation surrounding me—my personal circumstances, societal circumstances—was gradually changing, as was my way of thinking and feeling about things. In that sense the version I wrote in the beginning and the final version here are very different in feeling and tone. Still, my fundamental stance and way of thinking have hardly changed at all. It almost makes me feel like I’ve been saying the same things from the time I debuted down to today. When I read what I said over thirty years ago I’m surprised, thinking, “Wow, it’s almost exactly what I’m saying now!”
So I think what’s collected here are things I’ve been writing and saying over and over (though the form may have gradually changed over time). Many readers might think, “Hey, haven’t I read that somewhere before?” and if you’re one of them I ask your indulgence. Another motivation for publishing these “records of undelivered speeches” was a desire to systematically gather all the things I’ve said in different places. I’d be pleased if readers would take these as a comprehensive look (at the present time) of my views on writing novels.
The first half of this book was serialized in the magazine Monkey Business. Motoyuki Shibata started this new magazine in 2008 (which was to be a new type of more intimate literary journal) and asked me if I’d write something for it. I agreed, and gave him a short story, one I’d just happened to have finished, and a thought occurred to me and I told him, “You know, I have these personal speeches I’ve written. If you have space, could you serialize them?”
That’s how the first six chapters came to be serialized in each monthly issue of Monkey Business. An easy task, since all I had to do was turn over for every issue something I already had lying dormant in my drawer. In all there are eleven chapters, the first six, as I’ve said, serialized in the magazine, the last five written especially for this book.
I imagine this book will be taken as autobiographical essays, but they weren’t originally written with that in mind. What I was after was to write, in the most concrete and practical way, about the path I’ve followed as a novelist, and the ideas and thoughts I’ve had in the process. That said, writing novels is nothing less than expressing yourself, so talking about the process of writing means you inevitably have to talk about yourself.
Truthfully, I have no idea if this book could serve as a guidebook or introduction to help those hoping to write novels. What I mean is, I’m the kind of person with a very individual way of thinking, and I don’t know how far you can generalize about or apply my way of writing and living. I know hardly any other writers, so I don’t know how they write, and I can’t make comparisons. For me, this is the only way I can write, so that’s how I do it. I’m certainly not advocating this as the best way to write novels. You might be able to apply some things in my methods, but others might not work so well. It goes without saying, but if you take a hundred novelists you’ll find a hundred different ways of writing novels. I hope that each of you grasps that and comes to your own conclusions about any applications.