Haruki Murakami failed here, the most persistent Nobel Prize runner-up, what is his charm?

The 2017 Nobel Prize in Literature was announced today (5th), and the Japanese-British writer Kazuo Ishiguro won the award. What is not surprising is that Japanese writer Haruki Murakami once again failed to make the list. As a veteran player who has been running with him for several years, Haruki Murakami seems to no longer need the honor of the Nobel Prize. His crown has been forged long ago. Today, Brother Hua will take you to look at the life story of this world-class writer.

Jazz bar owner

In 1975, a jazz bar named "Peter Cat" opened on the basement floor of the south exit of Kokubunji Station. Its hostess is Murakami Yoko, and the boss is Haruki Murakami, who was still in school at the time. The reason why it is called "Peter Cat" may be because Haruki Murakami really has a cat named Peter; and the reason why it is a jazz bar is because its owner is a pure jazz fan. The capital for opening a store is 5 million yen. 2.5 million was saved by the couple working odd jobs, and the rest was borrowed from the bank.

Haruki Murakami in his youth

Although Haruki Murakami was in college at that time, he rarely attended lectures. He spent his time reading books and going to bars. Since he was married, he felt the need to find a job. Because he majored in drama, he initially submitted his resume to the media, especially TV stations, but before the other party heard any news, he lost interest. What he liked was freedom and self-sufficiency, so it was natural for him to open a jazz bar instead.

In Haruki Murakami’s view: “LP records are really a good thing. For us, playing LP records makes all activities and the different lives around us feel tenderly connected. I never thought about when LP records would become obsolete. "His job in the store was to take care of it and play various jazz records according to the customers' requirements.

At that time, Haruki Murakami was a student in the Drama Department (ie drama major) of the First Faculty of Literature of Waseda University. Marrying as a student was uncommon in Japan at the time, and after getting married, he and his wife Yoko stayed at the house of his father-in-law (who ran a bedding store in Sengoku, Bunkyo-ku). No wonder he had to find a way to make some money. However, it is also a kind of enjoyment to find someone like Haruki Murakami who is sentimental and follows one's own wishes in life. In Japan, Haruki Murakami has always been a "model wife", a man who loves his wife and knows how to love her. He said that the essence of a long-term marriage lies in compromise. "Even if your spouse doesn't compromise, you must compromise."

Haruki Murakami and Yoko Murakami

The birth of a new literary standard-bearer

It was in his jazz bar that Haruki Murakami began writing novels. In 1978, he had graduated from Waseda University, and the bar had moved from Kokubunji to Senda in Shibuya Ward. He was nearly thirty at that time. In Haruki Murakami's article "This Decade", he used a simple sentence to make the source of "Murakami-ryu" extremely clear: "On a good day, I would lie down and drink some beer, and suddenly I would have the urge to write. I had the urge to order something, so I bought manuscript paper and a fountain pen and started writing. That was when I was twenty-nine years old."

Compared with Murakami Haruki's later novel, "Listen to the Wind." "Yin" is pitifully short. In fact, it was the "simplicity" in the writing style of "Listen to the Wind Sing" that enabled Haruki Murakami to stand out in the selection of the "New Group Portrait Award" in 1979. Such a simple work allows people to see new possibilities in Japanese literature.

Jury member Yoshiyuki Junnosuke of the award said: "There is a pair of introverted eyes under the refreshing and light feeling...Each line is not a waste of pen and ink, but each line has a subtle meaning." Another Jury member Saiichi Marutani commented: "In short, the talent is very remarkable. What is particularly outstanding is that the flow of the novel is not sluggish at all."

In addition to the refined writing style, "Listen to the Wind Sings" It also established another unique style for Haruki Murakami's novels, which is to use the "end of the world" as the starting point to see the world. Therefore, a subconscious self that can be talked with is created in "me" and connects the world. the other side (unreality).

Because of his "middle age", his love for writing and his confidence in himself, Haruki Murakami decided to really become a writer. In 1981, the couple sold out the bar and moved to Funabashi City, Chiba Prefecture.

After Murakami decided to become a full-time writer, he closed the bar, and now the place has been completely closed

Daily cleaning

From the year he decided to make a living from writing, Haruki Murakami began a regular life. I sleep until I wake up naturally every morning, usually getting up at four in the morning. Make yourself a cup of coffee, bake half a scone or croissant, then sit down in front of your computer and work right away without procrastinating. He believed it was important to put pen to paper immediately. He doesn't listen to music while he writes, which lasts five or six hours, and around seven o'clock he bakes himself a piece of cheese toast. It usually involves revising and writing 2,000 words of new content, and ends at nine in the morning.

Then go for a run of about ten kilometers for an hour. His most famous "running project" is not to participate in a marathon or a triathlon, but to be nominated for the Nobel Prize for Literature in 2009. Since then, he has been shortlisted for nine consecutive years, but has never officially won the award. The famous "runner" in history does not hinder his brilliance.

After decades of running, my daily running route is determined in advance. He will choose different sportswear and running shoes according to different seasons and temperatures.

Someone once specifically counted Haruki Murakami’s sneakers and concluded that they are all high-quality products. In 2009, he published a collection of essays "About Running, What I'm Actually Saying...". The content has nothing to do with running, but is about writing.

After finishing the run, I translated. “I translated as much as I could while listening to music. If I didn’t want to finish it, I would stop writing. Unlike novels, there is no set workload and it is purely based on personal preference.” In the afternoon. Finished around two o'clock. Then read, listen to music, take a walk, buy records, watch movies, cook side dishes, and pass the time as you like.

The meal is very simple. "Drink a little white wine or beer, and then eat some sashimi and cold tofu. When you feel full, you put down your chopsticks and stop eating. This situation often happens. Once you develop it, If you have the habit of moving your body, you will know that these are probably enough for today. I think it is just a formalistic superstition to say that without rice and miso soup. When I know that my body only needs these, I will do it immediately. I won’t eat it anymore.”

One hundred percent Kansai species

Before he became famous in “Listen to the Wind Sing”, Haruki Murakami had always been an ordinary Japanese—young. At that time, he was an ordinary shopkeeper, and when he was young, he was an ordinary Japanese boy. Like all Kansai people, he had a strong regional color. Like all children who grew up in the 1960s, he became a Westernized boy influenced by European and American culture.

On January 12, 1949, Haruki Murakami was born in Fushimi Ward, Kyoto City. His father, Murakami Chiaki, was a Chinese teacher and later inherited his grandfather's profession and became a monk. Shortly after his birth, his family moved to Sukawa, Nishinomiya City, Hyogo Prefecture. He was born and raised in Kansai. His grandfather was a monk in Kyoto, and his mother was the daughter of a merchant in the shipyard. In his own words, he "can be said to be 100% Kansai."

At the age of six, he entered Nishinomiya Municipal Kosoen Elementary School. Although he comes from a very ordinary family, his father's status as a Chinese language teacher has given Haruki Murakami many opportunities to get close to books since he was a child. His father liked books and allowed him to buy his favorite books on credit from nearby bookstores (of course, comics and weekly magazines were not allowed, only serious books). "It's really nice to be able to buy books that I like. This allowed me to become a young man who reads like that."

Haruki Murakami as a student

Haruki Murakami I attended Ashiya Municipal Seido Junior High School. At that time, he began to come into contact with European and American literature. At that time, Haruki Murakami's family asked the bookstore to send a copy of "The Complete Works of World Literature" by Kawade Shobo and a copy of "World Literature" by Chuo Koron Publishing House every month. He read one volume after another, thus bidding farewell to his middle school days. “The initial opportunity or environment basically determines a person’s preferences,” Haruki Murakami explains why his reading scope is still limited to foreign literature.

He was such a child who had no good impression of school. He read English books and listened to English songs. After graduating from high school, he worked as a ronin (re-examination candidate) for a year and was admitted to Waseda University in the second year. The Drama Department of the 1st Department of Literature.

Haruki Murakami is the only son in the family. Since he grew up in an environment without brothers and sisters, Haruki Murakami has been able to enjoy the happiness of being alone since he was a child. He likes to read, listen to music and play with cats at home alone.

Music and travel enthusiast

Although music is just a hobby, it has always been Haruki Murakami’s companion while growing up. Haruki Murakami once said: "I can't imagine life without music." In Haruki Murakami's novels, you can find the names of music and musicians who were popular in the American music scene from the 1960s to the 1970s. Such as the Beach Boys who appeared in "Hear the Wind Sing", Bob Dylan, The Beatles, The Doors, John Coltrane, Glenn Gould, etc., from classical, jazz, rock, folk to pop songs , in fact, in this very different background music, there are many characters appearing, intertwined in time and space, connected with the past world that can never be recalled, leaving only traces.

Behind his aura as a writer, Haruki Murakami’s other identity is that of a traveler. It can even be said that Murakami Haruki's writing is inseparable from travel - he once spent three years traveling overseas, just to stay away from Japan and complete his classic works "Norwegian Wood" and "Dance!" dance! dance! 》.

The first time he left Japan was in 1983, when he was 34 years old and went to Greece to participate in the Athens Marathon. The next year he went to the United States for the first time.

Haruki Murakami while running

When he was a visiting professor at Princeton University, he wrote "Chronicles of a Clockwork Bird" using an Apple computer. In the following years, he visited Italy, Greece, Turkey, Mongolia, the Soviet Union, Iran, Iraq, etc. many times, and briefly stayed in Mykonos, Greece, Sicily, Italy, etc. to complete his career. creation and translation. He also spent three days on an uninhabited desert island with his fellow photographer Matsumura Eizo.

The two books "Drums in the Distance" and "Rainy Summer" are the travel articles that Haruki Murakami inadvertently accumulated while he was living and writing in Europe; these two books were written during the Norwegian Forest period. The travel book written by Haruki Murakami is also the other two travel books with the theme of tourism after "Border, Nearby".

For Haruki Murakami, traveling is not so much an event as it is a feeling of freedom: “It is freedom from the standpoint of myself and leaving a role. The freedom of freedom is also the freedom of breaking away from myself established in time.

This feeling of freedom is contained in the heaviness of the shoulder bag carried on my shoulders. "

Escape from Japan

There is a lot of information about China in Haruki Murakami's novels. "I am from Kobe, there are many Chinese there, and some of my classmates are Chinese. People, I have always been surrounded by Chinese people, and 'Chinese' is very natural to me. In addition, my father was drafted to mainland China during the war; he was drafted as a soldier when he was in college, and his life changed a lot because of that war. Although my father never mentioned the war when he was a child, he often talked about Chinese customs and customs. To me, ‘China’ is not an actual existence, but a very important symbol. I am also very surprised, why do the characters appear in the novel not Koreans but Chinese? I haven't thought about this myself; I just wrote down my memory images. ”

He doesn’t like Japan. He says Japan is too restrictive, so he always travels around the world. Since the second half of 2006, Haruki Murakami has been invited by the University of Hawaii to serve as a visiting professor to teach literature courses. . His ultimate goal is to write a masterpiece like the Russian writer Dostoevsky's "The Brothers Karamazov" - "1Q84". After that, he spent another three years writing "No." The Colorful Tsukuru Tazaki and His Years of Pilgrimage" Four years later, his latest work was "The Case of the Knight Commander"

He was running away from his family, so they never appeared in his novels. . He is lonely, but he is not lonely. He lives in his novels, drinking beer and eating side dishes with his characters. "I first made a dish of green onions with plums and bonito flakes; Mix kelp and shrimp with cold vinegar; finely grate white radish with mustard to add spiciness to the fish balls; then stir-fry shredded potatoes with olive oil, garlic and a little spicy sausage. Finally, slice the gherkins and make an instant pickle. There are also the boiled mutton vegetables and tofu left over from yesterday. The seasoning uses a lot of ginger. So we drank dark beer and ate the side dishes I made. When the beer is gone, let’s drink champagne..."

The fog of death in the clear world of commodities

In Haruki Murakami’s works, cigarettes and alcohol appear almost every time , almost all male protagonists smoke, and there are also many female characters who smoke. The different brands of cigarettes and different smoking situations are noteworthy in Murakami Haruki's works. Compared with cigarettes, the appearance of alcohol is even more important. , with beer appearing most often, others such as whiskey, wine and various cocktails can also be seen from time to time.

Haruki Murakami is a guy who pays attention to food in his novels, essays and essays. , scattered with the names of various foods. He often took the trouble to write down the protagonist's three meals a day and occasional take-out snacks like a dedicated waiter transcribing the menu - cucumber lettuce salad, Sandwiches, pasta, donuts, beer, orange juice, coffee... As long as you have read more than two novels by Haruki Murakami, you will probably be familiar with these foods. Even if you haven't eaten them, at least they are in his books. I have read it here.

Zhu Tianxin explains the reason why Murakami Haruki’s novels are so popular in Japan based on the “textualization of the commodity world” because they were once called “department store advertisements”. In his works, he never hesitates to use pen and ink to describe the trademarks and even quantities of objects that he may come into contact with in life. For example: he looked at it for 10 seconds; there was 3 centimeters of whiskey left at the bottom of the glass; she turned her face sideways and remained still for 5 seconds. Untouched; the record is extremely gorgeous. I bought it 16 years ago in 1967 and never tire of listening to it.

However, the era and current situation in which the story takes place are very vague. At the end of the world or in a cold wonderland. There is no real scene, only the fog of confusion. Readers can feel the humidity of the fog coming towards them, and they can also see death happening at any time in the seemingly clean fog, because " "Death is not the opposite of life, but exists as a part of life."

Finding an exit in the desolate silence

Murakami Haruki's novels can be used as music guides, shopping guides, and drinking guides , Japanese food recipes, what is lacking is sex and passion. "Women have small breasts and there are traces of swimsuits on their shoulders..." Haruki Murakami's books often have the smell of summer, but they are rarely passionate and sweaty. Most of them are hot and sweaty. It's all laziness. Maybe as Haruki Murakami said in "Dance! Dance! Dance!", sexual desire is like a waterfall and will eventually fall into a deep pool. It is a kind of writing about all human behaviors, objective and calm, with very little sensual rendering, so it actually shows a kind of purity, far away from pornography

For Haruki Murakami and his characters. , the truth of life and the purity of life are always issues, no matter which novel he writes, he is always brought to these issues at once. All his characters live in an ordinary material world and lead ordinary lives. . But everyone seems to have a serious dilemma hidden behind the ordinary mask. This dilemma is always embodied in constant recall, constant search, constant possession and constant loss.

Murakami Haruki's novels have no pop elements - if they do, they are his own creations. He was quietly counting the things around him, spreading all the trivial details on the paper. It looks like it is indifferent to the world, but in fact it is as sensitive and fragile as an extremely thin porcelain embryo.

The reason for being detailed is because of idleness, and the reason for being spread out is because of emptiness - even the indulgence of lust is not cared about, so there is nothing left to fight against the world.

The appeal of his novels may not come from a certain character, a certain plot, or a certain novel, but from the entire literary world he created, which accurately symbolizes and corresponds to the basic spirit and life of contemporary urban youth. state. Through the characters of Haruki Murakami, readers can see the survival difficulties and wounds of life that all human beings face. It is this kind of correspondence that evokes the deep inner resonance, which continuously moves readers and makes them feel pain, emptiness and even despair. The right gray in his novels is exactly the kind of decadence, absurdity, and despair that is closely related to everyone in modern cities.

Material abundance and contentment, without panic, only in this way can one look calm and calm. I think of the lonely women in Wen Tingyun's works. Even if no one loves her, she still takes the trouble to dress up, arrange flowers and look in the mirror, in order to retain the last treasure. In the ever-changing world, these things are fleeting, and if they are lost, they will never be there again.

Through the gray, Haruki Murakami has been looking for an exit in his novels. So are we who are attracted by his novels.