interview with murakami | the guardian review | the telegraph review | the new yorker review | the new canon review | the washington post review

• “All kinds of things are happening to me,” I begin. “Some I chose, some I didn’t. I don’t know how to tell one from the other anymore. What I mean is, it feels like everything’s been decided in advance—that I’m following a path somebody else has already mapped out for me. It doesn’t matter how much I think things over, how much effort I put into it. In fact, the harder I try, the more I lose my sense of who I am. It’s like my identity’s an orbit that I’ve strayed far away from, and that really hurts. But more than that, it scares me. Just thinking about it makes me flinch.”
• “But I’m already old, and may not live much longer. Mother’s already dead. Father’s already dead. Whether you’re smart or dumb, can read or can’t, whether you’ve got a shadow or not, once the time comes, everybody passes on.
• “But like you said, there might be examples,” Oshima continues, “of people becoming living spirits out of positive feelings of love. I just haven’t done much research into the matter, I’m afraid. Maybe it happens. Love can rebuild the world, they say, so everything’s possible when it comes to love.” “Have you ever been in love?” I ask. He stares at me, taken aback. “What do you think? I’m not a starfish or a pepper tree. I’m a living, breathing human being. Of course I’ve been in love.” “That isn’t what I mean,” I say, blushing. “I know,” he says, and smiles at me gently.
• “Chance is a scary thing, isn’t it?” Hoshino said. “It certainly is,” Nakata agreed.
• “I don’t know what it means to live.” She lets me go and looks up at me. She reaches out and touches my lips. “Look at the painting,” she says quietly. “Keep looking at the painting, just like I did.”
• “I forget my name,” the cat said. “I had one, I know I did, but somewhere along the line I didn’t need it anymore. So it’s slipped my mind.” “I know. It’s easy to forget things you don’t need anymore. Nakata’s exactly the same way,” the man said, scratching his head.
• “I guess not,” I say. “Sometimes I don’t understand it myself. Like, what the heck am I, anyway? Really, what am I?” I shake my head. “Well, I don’t know what I am, either.” “A classic identity crisis.” I nod. “But at least you know where to begin. Unlike me.” “I don’t care what you are. Whatever you are, I like you,” I tell him. I’ve never said this to anybody in my whole life, and the words make me blush.
• “I think it means,” I say, “that chance encounters are what keep us going. In simple terms.”
• “I want you to remember me,” Miss Saeki says, and looks right into my eyes. “If you remember me, then I don’t care if everyone else forgets.”
• “In ancient times people weren’t just male or female, but one of three types: male/male, male/female, or female/female. In other words, each person was made out of the components of two people. Everyone was happy with this arrangement and never really gave it much thought. But then God took a knife and cut everybody in half, right down the middle. So after that the world was divided just into male and female, the upshot being that people spend their time running around trying to locate their missing other half.” “Why did God do that?” “Divide people into two? You got me. God works in mysterious ways. There’s that whole wrath-of-God thing, all that excessive idealism and so on. My guess is it was punishment for something. Like in the Bible. Adam and Eve and the Fall and so forth.”
• “Interesting,” the cat said. “Not that I totally follow you. Cats can get by without names. We go by smell, shape, things of this nature. As long as we know these things, there’re no worries for us.” “Nakata understands completely. But you know, Mr. Otsuka, people don’t work that way. We need dates and names to remember all kinds of things.” The cat gave a snort. “Sounds like a pain to me.” “You’re absolutely right. There’s so much we have to remember, it is a pain.
• “It’s not that your mother didn’t love you,” the boy named Crow says from behind me. “She loved you very deeply. The first thing you have to do is believe that. That’s your starting point.” “But she abandoned me. She disappeared, leaving me alone where I shouldn’t be. I’m finally beginning to understand how much that hurt. How could she do that if she really loved me?” “That’s the reality of it. It did happen,” the boy named Crow says. “You were hurt badly, and those scars will be with you forever. I feel sorry for you, I really do. But think of it like this: It’s not too late to recover. You’re young, you’re tough. You’re adaptable. You can patch up your wounds, lift up your head, and move on. But for her that’s not an option. The only thing she’ll ever be is lost.
• “Just one thing,” she says, raising her head and looking me straight in the eye. “I want you to remember me. If you remember me, then I don’t care if everybody else forgets.”
• “Like there’s no past or future anymore.” “The pure present is an ungraspable advance of the past devouring the future. In truth, all sensation is already memory.” Hoshino looked up, mouth half open, and gazed at her face. “What’s that?” “Henri Bergson,” she replied, licking the semen from the tip of his penis. “Mame mo memelay.” “I’m sorry?” “Matter and Memory. You ever read it?”
• “Lost opportunities, lost possibilities, feelings we can never get back again. That’s part of what it means to be alive. But inside our heads—at least that’s where I imagine it—there’s a little room where we store those memories. A room like the stacks in this library. And to understand the workings of our own heart we have to keep on making new reference cards. We have to dust things off every once in a while, let in fresh air, change the water in the flower vases. In other words, you’ll live forever in your own private library.”
• “Memories warm you up from the inside. But they also tear you apart.”
• “Mr. Hoshino?” “What’s up?” “I have a question I’d like to ask.” “Fire away.” “Can nothingness increase?” Hoshino puzzled this one over for a while. “That’s a tough one,” he admitted. “If something returns to nothing it becomes zero, but even if you add zero to zero, it’s still zero.” “I don’t understand.” “I don’t get it either. Thinking about those kinds of things always gives me a headache.”
• “One more thing,” the tall one says. “Once you leave here, don’t ever look back until you reach your destination. Not even once, do you understand?” “This is important,” the brawny one adds. “Somehow you made it through back there,” the tall one says, “but this time it’s serious. Until you get to where you’re going, don’t ever look back.” “Ever,” the brawny one says. “I understand,” I tell them. I thank them again and say good-bye. The two of them come to attention and salute. I’ll never see them again. I know that. And they know that. And knowing this, we say farewell.
• “The world of the grotesque is the darkness within us. Well before Freud and Jung shined a light on the workings of the subconscious, this correlation between darkness and our subconscious, these two forms of darkness, was obvious to people. It wasn’t a metaphor, even. If you trace it back further, it wasn’t even a correlation. Until Edison invented the electric light, most of the world was totally covered in darkness. The physical darkness outside and the inner darkness of the soul were mixed together, with no boundary separating the two. They were directly linked. Like this.” Oshima brings his two hands together tightly.
• “There’s another world that parallels our own, and to a certain degree you’re able to step into that other world and come back safely. As long as you’re careful. But go past a certain point and you’ll lose the path out. It’s a labyrinth. Do you know where the idea of a labyrinth first came from?” I shake my head. “It was the ancient Mesopotamians. They pulled out animal intestines—sometimes human intestines, I expect—and used the shape to predict the future. They admired the complex shape of intestines. So the prototype for labyrinths is, in a word, guts. Which means that the principle for the labyrinth is inside you. And that correlates to the labyrinth outside.”
• “Whatever.” “Well, then, Mr. Okawa,” Nakata said, “as a token of our meeting each other, would you care for some dried sardines?” “Sounds good. One of my favorites, sardines.” Nakata took a saran-wrapped sardine from his bag and opened it up for Okawa. He always had a few sardines with him, just in case. Okawa gobbled down the sardine, stripping it from head to tail, then cleaned his face. “That hit the spot. Much obliged. I’d be happy to lick you somewhere, if you’d like.” “No, there’s no need to. Nakata’s grateful for the offer, but right now I don’t need to be licked anywhere, thanks all the same.
• “Yes, it is a long story. But it’s so long I don’t understand it myself. Once we get there, though, Nakata thinks we’ll understand.” “As usual, you gotta be there to get it?” “Yes, that’s right.” “Until we go there I won’t understand it.” “Yes. Until we go there I won’t understand it either.”
• And—no surprise—I get a massive hard-on. So rigid it makes me wonder how any part of your body could ever get so rock hard. Just then a thought hits me. Maybe—just maybe—this girl’s my sister. She’s about the right age. Her odd looks aren’t at all like the girl in the photo, but you can’t always count on that. Depending on how they’re taken people sometimes look totally different.
• But beyond any of those details of the real, there are dreams. And everyone’s living in them.
• But what disgusts me even more are people who have no imagination. The kind T. S. Eliot calls hollow men. People who fill up that lack of imagination with heartless bits of straw, not even aware of what they’re doing. Callous people who throw a lot of empty words at you, trying to force you to do what you don’t want to.
• He gently lays a hand over mine. “There are a lot of things that aren’t your fault. Or mine, either. Not the fault of prophecies, or curses, or DNA, or absurdity. Not the fault of Structuralism or the Third Industrial Revolution. We all die and disappear, but that’s because the mechanism of the world itself is built on destruction and loss. Our lives are just shadows of that guiding principle. Say the wind blows. It can be a strong, violent wind or a gentle breeze. But eventually every kind of wind dies out and disappears. Wind doesn’t have form. It’s just a movement of air. You should listen carefully, and then you’ll understand the metaphor.”
• I nod. “Tell me, when you’re alone do you sometimes think about your partner and feel sad?” “Of course,” he says. “It happens sometimes. When the moon turns blue, when birds fly south, when—” “Why of course?” I ask. “Anyone who falls in love is searching for the missing pieces of themselves. So anyone who’s in love gets sad when they think of their lover. It’s like stepping back inside a room you have fond memories of, one you haven’t seen in a long time. It’s just a natural feeling. You’re not the person who discovered that feeling, so don’t go trying to patent it, okay?” I lay my fork down and look up. “A fond, old, faraway room?” “Exactly,” Oshima says. He holds his fork straight up for emphasis. “Just a metaphor, of course.”
• I rest both palms on her back like I’m deciphering some sign there.
• I shake my head. “It hurts to think about it.” Oshima’s silent for a time as he gazes out at the forest, eyes narrowed. Birds are flitting from one branch to the next. His hands are clasped behind his head. “I know how you feel,” he finally says. “But this is something you have to figure out on your own. Nobody can help you. That’s what love’s all about, Kafka. You’re the one having those wonderful feelings, but you have to go it alone as you wander through the dark. Your mind and body have to bear it all. All by yourself.”
• I spread my hands out in front of me and take a good hard look at them. What am I always so tense about? Why this desperate struggle just to survive? I shake my head, turn from the window, clear my mind of thoughts of a hundred years away. I’ll just think about now.
• I try imagining myself in forty years, but it’s like trying to picture what lies beyond the universe.
• I want to say something, but when I’m with her words no longer function as they’re supposed to. Or maybe the meaning that ties them together has vanished? I stare at my hands and think of the dogwood outside the window, glinting in the moonlight. That’s where the blade that’s stabbing me in the heart is.
• I’m free, I think. I shut my eyes and think hard and deep about how free I am, but I can’t really understand what it means. All I know is I’m totally alone. All alone in an unfamiliar place, like some solitary explorer who’s lost his compass and his map. Is this what it means to be free? I don’t know, and I give up thinking about it.
• It doesn’t matter what form she takes—a living spirit, an illusion—but you have to see her, have to have her beside you. Your brain is so full of her it’s ready to burst, your body about to explode into pieces. Still, no matter how much you want her to be here, no matter how long you wait, she never appears. All you hear is the faint rustle of wind outside, birds softly cooing in the night. You hold your breath, staring off into the gloom. You listen to the wind, trying to read something into it, straining to catch a hint of what it might mean. But all that surrounds you are different shades of darkness. Finally, you give up, close your eyes, and fall asleep.
• Naturally I have zero friends. I’ve built a wall around me, never letting anybody inside and trying not to venture outside myself. Who could like somebody like that? They all keep an eye on me, from a distance. They might hate me, or even be afraid of me, but I’m just glad they didn’t bother me. Because I had tons of things to take care of, including spending a lot of my free time devouring books in the school library.
• No wonder you feel confused. One thing you don’t understand very well is whether women have sexual desire. Theoretically, of course they do. That much even you know. But when it comes to how this desire comes about, what it’s like—you’re lost. Your own sexual desire is a simple matter. But women’s desire, especially Miss Saeki’s, is a total mystery. When she held you did she feel the same physical ecstasy? Or is it something altogether different?
• Not just beautiful, though—the stars are like the trees in the forest, alive and breathing. And they’re watching me. What I’ve done up till now, what I’m going to do—they know it all. Nothing gets past their watchful eyes. As I sit there under the shining night sky, again a violent fear takes hold of me. My heart’s pounding a mile a minute, and I can barely breathe. All these millions of stars looking down on me, and I’ve never given them more than a passing thought before.
• One wrote to the other saying no matter what, he would visit when the chrysanthemums were in bloom.
• Oshima removes his glasses, wipes them with his handkerchief, and puts them back on. “That’s what’s called a ‘living spirit.’ I don’t know about in foreign countries, but that kind of thing appears a lot in Japanese literature. The Tale of Genji, for instance, is filled with living spirits. In the Heian period—or at least in its psychological realm—on occasion people could become living spirits and travel through space to carry out whatever desires they had. Have you read Genji?”
• Some men talk with stones, and some sleep with other men. Go figure.
• The amount of things he didn’t know about the world was infinite. The infinite, by definition, has no limits, and thinking about it gave him a mild migraine.
• The last thing you want is to let her leave like this. You want to hold her, and know what each and every movement of her body means. But you’re not there. You’re all alone, in a place cut off from everyone.
• The more you think about it, the more you hate being fifteen. You feel hopeless. If only you were twenty—no, even eighteen would be good, anything but fifteen—you could understand better what her words and actions mean. Then you could respond the right way. You’re in the middle of something wonderful, something so tremendous you may never experience it again. But you can’t really understand how wonderful it is. That makes you impatient. And that, in turn, leads to despair.
• The pillow and covers still show signs of Oshima having been there. Not him, really—more like his sleep.
• Time weighs down on you like an old, ambiguous dream. You keep on moving, trying to slip through it. But even if you go to the ends of the earth, you won’t be able to escape it. Still, you have to go there—to the edge of the world. There’s something you can’t do unless you get there.
• What I’m trying to say is, it must be tough on you not being able to read, but it’s not the end of the world. You might not be able to read, but there are things only you can do. That’s what you gotta focus on—your strengths. Like being able to talk with the stone.
• What is it inside me that makes up me? Is this what’s supposed to stand up to the void?
• Why does loving somebody mean you have to hurt them just as much? I mean, if that’s the way it goes, what’s the point of loving someone? Why the hell does it have to be like that?” I wait for an answer. I keep my mouth shut for a long time, but there’s no response, so I spin around. The boy named Crow is gone. From up above I hear the flap of wings. You’re totally confused.
• You finally fall asleep. And when you wake up, it’s true. You are part of a brand-new world.
• You sit at the edge of the world, I am in a crater that’s no more. Words without letters Standing in the shadow of the door. The moon shines down on a sleeping lizard, Little fish rain down from the sky. Outside the window there are soldiers, steeling themselves to die. (Refrain) Kafka sits in a chair by the shore, Thinking of the pendulum that moves the world, it seems. When your heart is closed, The shadow of the unmoving Sphinx, Becomes a knife that pierces your dreams. The drowning girl’s fingers Search for the entrance stone, and more. Lifting the hem of her azure dress, She gazes— at Kafka on the shore.