“I have often felt a sense of guilt towards
the world while listening to amazing music and having a good time alone. I thought it may be good to share such good
times with other people while chatting over a glass of wine or a cup of coffee.”
Haruki Murakami on Tokyo FM
People say that you should never meet your
heroes. Presumably that is because the
polished, or sexy, or cool image they present to the public is just an
image. Reality cannot match the image
you have of your hero. I decided
recently that not only should you never meet your heroes, in some cases you
shouldn’t hear them either.
I have been a big fan of Haruki Murakami’s
writing over many years. His books are mysterious,
deep, sexy and cool (at least in my mind).
So I was excited to hear that he was presenting a series of radio shows on
Tokyo FM – picking the records and chatting inbetween tracks. Would Murakami sound just like I imagined the
characters in his novels? Would he
carefully arrange his thoughts before answering any question, and give an
imaginative and succinct answer?
Sadly, he didn’t sound like one of the
characters from his books. He sounded
like a fairly ordinary old man who was overly excited by his collection of rare
vinyl. His voice was quite nasal – a
better voice for a writer than a radio dj.
His answers were sometimes imaginative, but also sometimes weird and a
bit inappropriate. He suddenly started
talking about sex and his female co-presenter, who sounded perhaps thirty years
younger than him, fell into an awkward silence.
In short, while his radio appearance was interesting, it was a little
disappointing too.
Maybe I can’t blame Murakami for my
disappointment. He didn’t seem like a
bad person, just an ordinary person. And
I suppose that’s what he is – a fairly ordinary old man, who happens to be very
good at writing. I’m sure if you meet
Ichiro Suzuki, he will be quite an ordinary middle-aged man who happens to be
good at baseball. He probably has a
nicer voice, though...
Vocabulary:
succinct – briefly and clearly expressed
vinyl – a material used to make records
nasal – of a voice, being dominated by
sounds coming from the nose rather than the throat
weird – strange and creepy
inappropriate – not proper or suitable in
the circumstances
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