Haruki Murakami and the blind crows －村上春樹と目の見えないカラスたち－

When Haruki Murakami was asked if he wanted the Nobel Prize, he answered, “No.  I don’t want prizes.  That means you’re finished.”

Last week I wrote about why he hasn’t been awarded the Nobel Prize.  Maybe another reason is his combative attitude towards literary critics, and the people who award prizes.

He has suffered a lot of criticism from famous Japanese writers and critics, such as Kenzaburo Oe.  They often complain that Murakami’s style isn’t Japanese enough.

I think you can find Murakami’s answer to these critics in one of his early short stories.  In “The rise and fall of Sharpie Cakes”, the main character enters a competition to make a new kind of cake for a company called “Sharpie Cakes”.  But the judges want the cake to be similar to a long tradition of cakes going back to the eighth century.  The main character tries to make a new cake which will be popular with young people, and submits it to the competition.

Does the Sharpie Cake company represent the long tradition of Japanese literature?  And the cakes his character makes are really Murakami’s novels and stories?  Then the judges of the competition, the “Sharpie Crows, are really the Japanese literary critics?

If that is true, then here is what Murakami thinks of his literary critics.

An edited extract from “The rise and fall of Sharpie Cakes”, by Haruki Murakami:

I followed the president of Sharpie Cakes down the hall, up an elevator to the sixth floor, and then down the hall to an iron door.  He opened the heavy door.

“The Sharpie Crows live in here.  They are a special family of birds.  For centuries they have eaten nothing but Sharpie Cakes to stay alive.”

There were over 100 crows in the room.  They were far larger than ordinary crows.  And they had no eyes, I realised.  Where there eyes should have been, there was a layer of white fat.  Their bodies were swollen and fat.  When they saw us come in, the birds started crying.  They seemed to be crying, “Sharpies!  Sharpies!”

From a box on his hand the president scattered Sharpie Cakes on the floor.  All the birds rushed over to eat the cakes.  In their rush to get to the cakes, they pecked at each others’ feet and eyes.  No wonder they had lost their eyes!

Next, the president threw them a different kind of cake.  As soon as the birds realised that the cakes were not true Sharpie Cakes, they spat them out and cried angrily.

“You see,” said the president.  They will only eat true Sharpie Cakes.

“Sharpies!  Sharpies!  Sharpies!”

“Now let’s try it with your new cakes,” said the president.  “If they eat them, you win.  If not, you lose.”

The president threw my new cakes on the floor.  Some of the birds ate my cakes.  Others didn’t, and cried, “Sharpies!  Sharpies!”

Others, unable to reach my cakes, started attacking the birds that were eating.  Blood flew everywhere.  One crow attacked the stomach of another crow which had eaten my cake and ripped it out of its stomach.

This was all happening over some ridiculous sweets!

I left in disgust.  I hated to leave the 2 million yen prize money.  But I was not going to live the rest of my long life connected with these damn crows!  From now on I would make and eat the sweets that I wanted.

Vocabulary:

combative – aggressive; ready to fight

a judge – of a competition, someone who decides the winner

to submit something – of a competition, to give your work to the organisers to be considered

a hall – a corridor; a narrow passage

swollen – expanded beyond normal size

to peck – of a bird, to sharply hit with the beak (a bird’s mouth)

The three reasons why Haruki Murakami hasn’t won the Nobel Prize －なぜ村上春樹はノーベル賞をもらっていないの？その３つの理由－

A student asked me recently why I thought that Haruki Murakami hadn’t won the Nobel Prize.  It was of course another writer with a Japanese heritage, Kazuo Ishiguro, who won it this year.

By the way, I love both Ishiguro and Murakami’s work.  Either of them would be a worthy winner.  But Murakami’s hardcore fans gather together each year to await the announcement of the winner.  And each year they are disappointed.  So it is interesting to consider why he never wins.

First, I think we must look at the whiskey, jazz and sex.  Every Murakami novel has a lot of whiskey, jazz and sex.  I really like two of these things!

But are these the kind of topics which win a writer the Nobel Prize?

When Yasunari Kawabata won the prize, the committee said it was “for his narrative mastery, which with great sensibility expresses the essence of the Japanese mind.”

[In other words, he writes good stories and we haven’t had a Japanese winner yet.]

When Kenzaburo Oe won the prize, the committee said he “with poetic force creates an imagined world, where life and myth condense to form a disconcerting picture of the human predicament today.”

[In other words, he writes dark stories very well.]

And when Murakami wins the award, will the committee say it is because “he writes about whiskey and jazz and sex, and all members of the committee like at least two of these things.”

These just don’t seem like the kind of topics the committee would pick.  But then I’m sure they could find a way of wording it that sounded more worthy of a Nobel Prize.  “With poetic mastery of metaphor and narrative, he blends whiskey, jazz and sex into a dark picture of the distressed state of men struggling to find themselves in Japanese society today.”

Or something like that.

But are Murakami’s stories really so dominated by whiskey, jazz and sex?  Doesn’t he tackle great themes like fate, the darkness always threatening to break into our lives, etc.?  Here’s an extract of his latest novel so that you can judge for yourself:

[I was sitting alone and drinking whiskey and listening to jazz.  Then I met a kind of weird magic woman.  So I *** and she ***, and there was a lot of ***.

Then I drank some more whiskey and listened to jazz.]

I had to edit out some of the sex, but you get the idea.

Okay, I’m only joking.  I really do hope that Murakami wins the Nobel Prize someday.  I’m going now, to drink whiskey and listen to folk music.

Vocabulary:

a heritage – a background or tradition

a hardcore fan – a super fan; one of the most dedicated in a group of fans

the essence of something – the heart of something; the most important part of something, which makes it what it is

(a) myth – (a) legend; a traditional story, often involving the supernatural

to condense – to become more dense (smaller but containing a lot of material)

disconcerting – worrying; unsettling

a predicament – a difficult or unpleasant situation

(a) metaphor – a description of one thing as another thing, which is not literally true

distressed – experiencing difficulty

to dominate (passive, to be dominated) - to take the most important place, pushing other things aside

to tackle something – to attempt to deal with something or beat something

It’s because I’m short, I know －僕の背が低いからだろ、知ってるさ－

Producer: 7A

Singer: “What number is this, John?”

Producer, annoyed: 7A!

Singer: Okay, don’t get excited.  It’s because I’m short, I know.”

[from the Monkees, introduction to “Daydream Believer”]

When I first went to university, I remember being amazed by how tall most of the other students were.  At my secondary school, most of the students came from an ordinary background, rather than a wealthy one.  But at university, a much higher proportion of the students came from a wealthy background.

And somehow these richer students were very tall!  You could really see several inches of height difference between them and my friends from back home.  I suppose it must have been because of having a better diet from an early age.

Appearances can be deceptive, of course.  But these tall people seemed to have more advantages than just money.  They spoke confidently in groups, sure that others would listen.  They were picked first by sports teams, running a little bit faster and jumping a little bit higher than the short students.

Wouldn’t life be easier as a tall person?  Don’t we say when we respect someone, “I look up to him?”

The manager of the Scottish men’s football team seems to agree.  After failing to qualify for the World Cup, he gave this excuse: “Genetically we are behind.  In the last campaign we were the second smallest, apart from Spain... Genetically we have to work at things.  Maybe we get big men and women together and see what we can do.”

So the short people get the blame again!

Of course, Spain, Brazil, Portugal, Argentina and Uruguay – most of the best teams in the world - have shorter teams than Scotland.  And Messi and Maradona – two of the best players ever - are only 170cm tall and 165 cm tall.  So the manager’s excuse doesn’t make much sense.

Short people of the world, be proud.  While the tall footballers were just using their strength to win, you were learning to win through skill.  When the tall university students were talking confidently, sure that others would listen, you were learning to think.  And to write blogs.

Vocabulary:

annoyed – slightly angry; irritated

secondary school – In Britain, the school pupils go to after primary school (elementary school), usually from about age 12 to age 18

a higher proportion – a larger percentage

an inch – 2.54cm

“Appearances can be deceptive.” – a proverb, meaning that things are not always the way they look

to qualify – for a sports tournament, to be allowed to compete at the main tournament after doing well in pre-tournament competition

genetically – in a way that relates to genes (different genes can decide a person’s hair colour, skin colour etc.)

to work at things – to try to change or improve things

On starting and finishing ideas, writing and study －アイデア、作文、勉強を始める事と終える事について－

“A marriage is always made up of two people who are prepared to swear that only the other one snores.”

“Some humans would do anything to see if it was possible to do it.  If you put a large switch in some cave somewhere, with a sign on it saying ‘End of the World Switch.  PLEASE DO NOT TOUCH!’, the paint wouldn’t  even have time to dry.”

“Pets are always a help in times of stress.  And in times of starvation, too, of course.”

All from Terry Pratchett

An author, whose books I often used to read when I was a teenager, died a couple of years ago.  Terry Pratchett wrote an amazingly long series of books set in a fantasy world called the Discworld.  He was a very funny writer, as you can see from a few of his quotes above.

I must have read about 25 of his novels.  But at the time of his death, he had completed 70 novels.  And he had 10 more unfinished novels in his computer hard drive.

I didn’t stop reading his books because I had ceased to find them funny.  I just couldn’t keep up.  He was writing faster than I could continue reading, and so I gave up.

I really admire Terry’s sense of humour.  But I also really admire his ability to get things finished.  He had an incredible work-ethic.  He even replied to every fan letter he received, which must have been lots.  Actually, it was probably a big mistake to tell people that he always replied to every fan letter.  All sorts of crazy people must have written, knowing that they would get a response.

I envy Terry’s ability to finish things because I am the kind of person who only likes to start things.  I get extremely enthusiastic for any new project I start.  Then I quickly slip to being only mildly interested, then rather bored or frustrated.  To get rid of my boredom or frustration, I just start something new, and am completely enthusiastic again, for a while.

I used to be ashamed to let anyone see my Japanese language study books.  The reason was that I had a huge pile of them, and I hadn’t read any of them to the end.  I started out with a phrase-book.  Then, after learning a few phrases, I got bored.  So I bought a grammar textbook.  I was convinced that this was the brilliant new way forward, until I became frustrated with reading it.  So I switched to a book of kanji.  I loved that kanji book, until...  You get the idea.

It must be nice to be a person who can see an idea through to the end.  If I were that kind of person then three-quarters of the way through my blog entries, I wouldn’t start thinking, “How nice would a cup of tea be right now?”  One of these days I’m going to learn to fini

Vocabulary:

to swear something – to make a solemn promise that something is true

to snore – to make a loud noise when sleeping because of partly blocked breathing

starvation – a lack of food leading to death

to cease – to stop

to keep up – to match the progress of; to follow without falling behind

a work-ethic – an attitude of hard work