Novelist as a Vocation(49)

Compared to that, the actual people around me in everyday life can be a lot of trouble. Every time I write a new book some people like it, and others don’t. Even if they don’t clearly express their opinions and thoughts, I can usually read it in their faces. It’s only to be expected. Everybody has preferences. I can work as hard as I want, but as Rick Nelson said, you can’t please everyone. Seeing everybody’s individual reactions is, for the writer, pretty exhausting. Those are the times I simply take a stand and say, “You got to please yourself.” I’m able to keep these two stances distinct, which is a skill I’ve learned over long years of writing. Maybe it’s the wisdom I need in order to live.



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One thing that makes me very happy is that people of many different age groups seem to be reading my novels. I often get letters to the effect that “all three generations in my home are reading your works, Mr. Murakami.” The grandmother is reading them (perhaps one of my “young readers” from years past), the mother’s reading them, and so is her son and his younger sister…This kind of scenario seems pretty common. Hearing that really cheers me up. A copy of one book being passed around to several people in a family means that book really has a life of its own. Of course if each one bought their own copy, that would boost sales and make the publisher happy; but as the author of the book, honestly, I’m far happier if five people cherish the one copy.

Which reminds me of a phone call I got once from a former classmate. “My son, who’s in high school, has read all your books,” he told me, “and we often talk together about them. We normally don’t talk too much, but when it comes to your books we’re able to say a lot to each other.” He sounded happy when he said this. “Oh,” I thought, “so my books do have a small role to play in the world.” At least to help a parent and child communicate. That’s an achievement. I don’t have children myself, and if other people’s children enjoy reading my books, and that arouses a response in them, that means I’ve passed on something to the next generation, albeit in a modest way.

Realistically speaking, though, I have hardly any individual, direct relations with any of my readers. In Japan, I don’t make public appearances, first of all, and rarely appear before the media. I’ve never been on TV or radio, even once (though I’ve been caught on film a few times against my wishes).[*] I don’t do public book signings. People ask me why, and the reason is I’m a professional writer, what I can do best is write novels, and as much as I can I want to invest all my energy in that. Life is short, and I have only so much time and energy. I don’t want to use up time in something apart from my main occupation. Abroad, though, I do a public talk, a reading, or a book signing about once a year. I see this as my duty as a Japanese writer, something I have to do on occasion. I’ll delve into that topic more some other time.

I have, though, set up websites a few times. They were only online for a few weeks at a time, but I received countless emails from readers. And I made it a rule to look at each and every one. I might skim through the really long ones, but I did read every email sent to me.

And I wrote a reply to about one out of every ten. I would answer questions, give a bit of advice, give my reaction to the message, etc. The exchanges were of all sorts, from casual comments to fairly serious, formal replies. During that time (which might extend over several months) I work like mad to reply to the emails, hardly taking on any other work; yet it seems like most people who get a reply from me don’t believe I actually wrote it myself. They think someone else wrote it for me. There are many cases where replies to fan letters to celebrities are written by others hired for the job, so they must think I do the same. I made it clear on these websites that all replies are written directly by me, but it seems like most of the time people don’t take that at face value.

I hear that especially with young women: they’ll be really happy telling their boyfriend, “I got a reply from Haruki Murakami himself!” and their boyfriend will often put a damper on that, telling them, “Don’t be stupid. Murakami’s too busy to write each reply himself. He has someone else write them for him, and just says he writes them himself.” There really are a lot of suspicious people in the world, apparently (or maybe it’s that there are a lot of people who try to deceive others). But the truth is, I work very hard to answer these myself. I think I’m pretty fast at writing replies, but with the great number of emails I get, it’s a lot of work, believe me. But it is fun to do it, and I learn a lot.

And through that exchange of emails with actual readers, I’ve come to understand something: as a whole, people have a really solid grasp of my work. Sometimes I’ll find misinterpretations, or places where they’re overthinking things, and occasionally emails where (pardon me for saying so) I think they’ve got things a bit mixed up. Even my self-styled fervent fans will, depending on the work, like some and be critical of others. Some works they’ll respond to, others they’ll resist. The opinions I hear from them are all over the place. But when I take a step back and look at the whole picture they paint from a distance, I get the distinct sense that my readers really read my works deeply, and understand what they’re all about. There are small, differences, depending on the person, some of whom are more on target than others, but if you deduct those and average it all out, in the final analysis they wind up where they should be.