Quirky, charming, learned, and lyrical.
Feature image credit: Penguin Books Australia
Japanese writer Haruki Murakami has produced a swag of beloved and critically acclaimed novels and short stories. Some of his best-known works include Kafka on the Shore, Norwegian Wood, and IQ84. Recently famed director Ryusuke Hamaguchi produced the film Drive My Car, based on stories in Murakami’s collection Men Without Women.
Novelist as a Vocation is the latest work by Murakami to be translated into English. Originally published in 2015, it consists of a series of non-fiction pieces (one is loath to simply label them “essays”) about writing, and in particular about his own career. Part memoire, part advice, part anti-advice, they explore such themes as characters, originality, and literary prizes.
His own career is somewhat unusual. He’s not a graduate of any MFA program, or literature degree, nor someone who spent most of his youth struggling to be recognised as a writer. This was a man seemingly content to run a jazz bar in Tokyo, until one day at the age of about 30, he suddenly decided he should write a novel. At no stage throughout this collection does he set himself up as a novelistic guru. But nor does he wallow in false-modesty or humble-bragging, self-aggrandisement, or self-deprecation. He is able to bring an emotional objectivity to any discussion of his own work, without losing a sense of intimacy with the reader:
“I have no idea if my work is any good, or if it is, to what degree … readers have to decide for themselves … Whatever limitations [my works] have are the result of my own deficiencies at the stage I wrote them, nothing more. That’s too bad, but nothing for me to be ashamed of.”
Novelist as a Vocation is not a tell-all memoire. Nor is it Murakami’s “How I Wrote Prize-Wining Novels and You Can Too”, although it contains small, charming, elements of both. This is rather a collection of musings. These are accessible, warm, and often surprising pieces of writing. Of most interest to readers of his work, they also stand alone as short-form non-fiction. He explores from both the point of view of the author, and that of the reader. Because like many writers, he is both himself. And ultimately he trusts in the reader.
“Forget all the chatter — we should trust in our felt experience above all else. For the author, and for [their] readers, that alone is the ultimate standard.”
Beautifully translated by his long-time collaborative translators Philip Gabriel and Ted Goossen, this book would be a great Christmas present for the bibliophile in your life.
Reviewed by Tracey Korsten
Twitter: @TraceyKorsten
This review is the opinion of the reviewer and not necessarily of Glam Adelaide.
Distributed by: Penguin Books Australia
Released: November 2022
RRP: $35.00
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