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buddhafish 's review for:
Novelist as a Vocation
by Haruki Murakami
123rd book of 2022.
Naturally this is marketed as 'writing advice' more than anything else, but the title is Novelist as a Vocation, and therefore some of the later essays do lean more in that direction, though more on this later. Murakami remains in my head as the writer I fell in love with in my early 20s and devoured at university. On several occasions I remember sitting on the huge beanbag we had in my student house with a glass of rum and coke and reading his books cover-to-cover, like some Murakami character myself. These are, of course, very fond memories. Sadly, after not reading him for some time (I actually read his novels in order of publication, starting right at the beginning), I read the next one in my list, his newer beast, 1Q84, and almost hated it. I found myself seeing and criticising all the things I had seen Murakami criticised for in the past. I presumed my phase was over, doomed to forever remain as an 'early 20s' thing. I'm still yet to read his latest two novels.
And yet, when I saw this being advertised, I felt the rare itch of needing to buy a new book. On Sunday, I found myself in a new (I think) bookshop in the small English town of Arundel, with this new Murakami book on the shelf, and thought, actually more than Murakami and my desire to read it, I wanted to support the establishment. I almost never buy books at full price (or at all: most of my reading directions are controlled by what is available at my local library). Having studied Creative Writing for 4 years, and frequently writing and submitting short stories myself (with, so far, not masses amount of luck), I thought my old Murakami could help me. After all, his book on running once motivated me to buy expensive running shoes and start jogging when I lived away from home, a habit that didn't survive my return. The early essays do have Murakami's simple stoicism I once fell in love with. It reminded me of his old characters I used to read, their simple, selfish and humble way of life that for some reason felt relatable to me at university. I think Murakami is the perfect writer for our early 20s. For a man who isn't overly fond of the public eye, the essays are quite personal and reflect a lot about his writing life and his career. This would be my first point in a succinct review: this book is probably only worthwhile to an already established fan of Murakami. One essay is his reflections on schooling and in particular, Japanese schooling. The final essay is a walkthrough of his US breakout and success. Looking back, there isn't much hard 'advice', but really just Murakami musing pleasantly in his musing way. He has always been very similar to his characters, after all. Google 'Murakami Bingo' and you'll encounter his trademarks quickly enough.
So this is a book for fans. Anyone looking for real writing advice from him will possibly be disappointed. There's some good bits, some interesting bits too (by interesting I often mean, bits I don't necessarily agree with). In the beginning he talks about the type of person who has what it takes to be a writer and Murakami argues that those who are very/too clever, do not have what it takes. The novel, he argues, is a long way of working out what someone wants to say; therefore, someone smart can already formulate their ideas and have them ready to be presented: this defeats the need for a novel, according to Murakami. He also talks a lot about the unconscious in writing and how organic the process is, which was interesting (and slightly too late) as I wrote one of my MA essays on unconscious writing and Finnegans Wake. To Murakami, writing is just taking lots of random things out of a proverbial garage and assembling them into something magical.
Naturally this is marketed as 'writing advice' more than anything else, but the title is Novelist as a Vocation, and therefore some of the later essays do lean more in that direction, though more on this later. Murakami remains in my head as the writer I fell in love with in my early 20s and devoured at university. On several occasions I remember sitting on the huge beanbag we had in my student house with a glass of rum and coke and reading his books cover-to-cover, like some Murakami character myself. These are, of course, very fond memories. Sadly, after not reading him for some time (I actually read his novels in order of publication, starting right at the beginning), I read the next one in my list, his newer beast, 1Q84, and almost hated it. I found myself seeing and criticising all the things I had seen Murakami criticised for in the past. I presumed my phase was over, doomed to forever remain as an 'early 20s' thing. I'm still yet to read his latest two novels.
And yet, when I saw this being advertised, I felt the rare itch of needing to buy a new book. On Sunday, I found myself in a new (I think) bookshop in the small English town of Arundel, with this new Murakami book on the shelf, and thought, actually more than Murakami and my desire to read it, I wanted to support the establishment. I almost never buy books at full price (or at all: most of my reading directions are controlled by what is available at my local library). Having studied Creative Writing for 4 years, and frequently writing and submitting short stories myself (with, so far, not masses amount of luck), I thought my old Murakami could help me. After all, his book on running once motivated me to buy expensive running shoes and start jogging when I lived away from home, a habit that didn't survive my return. The early essays do have Murakami's simple stoicism I once fell in love with. It reminded me of his old characters I used to read, their simple, selfish and humble way of life that for some reason felt relatable to me at university. I think Murakami is the perfect writer for our early 20s. For a man who isn't overly fond of the public eye, the essays are quite personal and reflect a lot about his writing life and his career. This would be my first point in a succinct review: this book is probably only worthwhile to an already established fan of Murakami. One essay is his reflections on schooling and in particular, Japanese schooling. The final essay is a walkthrough of his US breakout and success. Looking back, there isn't much hard 'advice', but really just Murakami musing pleasantly in his musing way. He has always been very similar to his characters, after all. Google 'Murakami Bingo' and you'll encounter his trademarks quickly enough.
So this is a book for fans. Anyone looking for real writing advice from him will possibly be disappointed. There's some good bits, some interesting bits too (by interesting I often mean, bits I don't necessarily agree with). In the beginning he talks about the type of person who has what it takes to be a writer and Murakami argues that those who are very/too clever, do not have what it takes. The novel, he argues, is a long way of working out what someone wants to say; therefore, someone smart can already formulate their ideas and have them ready to be presented: this defeats the need for a novel, according to Murakami. He also talks a lot about the unconscious in writing and how organic the process is, which was interesting (and slightly too late) as I wrote one of my MA essays on unconscious writing and Finnegans Wake. To Murakami, writing is just taking lots of random things out of a proverbial garage and assembling them into something magical.