Ilana's Journal Week 47: My Month in Kyoto: Possessed by Haruki Murakami [ Edited ]

[IlanaSimons]

Three summers ago, the Japanese novelist Haruki Murakami was my favorite mind, and I read everything he’d written.  I didn’t have much going on in my life--which happens to be the main theme in most of Murakami’s books.  Characters have nothing to do, so stand around and make spaghetti.  Then, without a map, events bloom in their lives.

Mesmerized with Murakami and wanting to write dynamic fiction like his, I flew to Tokyo, where Murakami lives part-time.  I wanted to see his office, and if lucky see inside it, and then just sit in some room, drunk on plum wine, writing a novel for a month.  My first night in Tokyo, I stayed in a cheap hostel in a red light district.  The room was so small, I went to bed lonely, with my head on my suitcase.  The next morning, I rented a bike. 

I had Murakami’s office address and a map.  It was nearly 100 degrees when I set out on my bike, and I was depressed to see how few people in Tokyo speak English.  I biked for two hours with a vague sense of where I was going, and when I got lost, no policemen understood me enough to help.  When I stopped somewhere to eat, I felt really empty, because I had biked many hours in one direction, didn’t know where I was, and didn’t think I’d have the energy to bike back to the hostel.  Finally (I don’t know how; I remember going down one steep hill and then right back up), I was at the office address.  “Does Murakami work here?” I asked the doorman.  Murakami writes absurdist stories, so this moment felt as if it had been born in one of his books: The doorman was the first person of the day who spoke English: “Haruki Murakami?  Sure.  Go on up to the fifth floor.”

When I knocked, sweaty and nervous, I made up the lie that I was a journalist.  The woman who opened the door introduced herself as his secretary, Yoko (that’s the same name of his wife but this was not his wife), and told me Murakami was in Boston that month.  I walked a few steps into the room.  His desk, sturdy and angled like an architect’s, with a can of pens at the top, looked out onto a window.  You can sort of see genius, but you can’t take it away from its home.

Within a few days, Tokyo—this massive city without much spoken English—sank me into nothingness, and I took a bus to Kyoto, Murakami’s birth town.  I rented a small house in this beautiful community embedded in the mountains.  I spent the rest of the month living my fantasy: drinking in a single room, writing all day, hiking in the late afternoon.  I would read Murakami’s novels as stand-ins for friends and cook alone on a little stovetop.  I left after I’d finished the draft of a novel.

I wonder if anyone else here has been so interested in an author that her life colors your own.  I was possessed in the way that the critic Georges Poulet says that readers can be possessed by great authors.  Poulet relied on a image like kidnapping when he described what reading is like: “When I am absorbed in reading, a second self takes over, a self which thinks and feels for me.”  Poulet meant that the author’s values help redefine the reader’s.

My interest in certain authors has often had practical consequences.  An author’s birth place can help me plan summer trips.  Scenes from novels can help me decide what foods to try, or determine my drink of choice.  Some authors have become friends for months, because I’ve shut out real company to plow through that writer’s works.

Are there any authors you’ve attached to like this?  Has a writer galvanized your energy in ways that last past the time in which you close the covers?  An author can be a person who comforts you in a country in which no one else speaks your language, so to speak.

-Ilana
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Message Edited by IlanaSimons on 05-18-2008 10:06 AM

[Timbuktu1]

Ilana, you are THE most amazing woman! You really LIVE! I'm in awe.

Yes, I soak up authors almost through my skin and feel possessed for a period of time. I find myself, as I go through the sequence of great books, altering my perceptions and thoughts to those of the author I'm reading at the time. Of course Plato is always on my shoulder, partly because his voice echoes through every other book I've read since. When I was reading Locke I felt a great sense of determination to preserve my "rights". Don't tread on me, was my mantra. Locke is seen as a politcal writer but of course I saw him as writing about psychological and interpersonal boundaries as well.

Reading Portrait of the Artist made me feel the claustrophobia and isolation that Joyce experienced to such a point that I had to put the book down for awhile. The labyrinth of turn of the century Ireland became my own life. I kept feeling trapped, looking for the exit. Whew, I was glad when I was done with that book!

A book that had a huge impact on me when it came out, was Russell Baker's Growing Up. I had small children then and read it almost as a manual in child rearing, which I think might well have been misguided. I read it several times, I was so interested and effected by his mother's efforts to raise her son.

So many books have planted images in my mind that come to me at appropriate moments, almost as though they are real memories. There was a scene in The Woman's Room where she smells her sleeping children. When they grow up that becomes a lost bliss. So true!

The scene in The World According to Garp where he's roasting red peppers and hears a screeching car. He runs out with murder in his heart to catch the driver... the threat to his children's lives and safety. In the end the real threat to his children was himself...too true!

But unlike you, I don't think I've ever found one author that I wanted to spend so much time with. I feel relieved when I'm finished with a particularly powerful book. I want to inhabit my own life again. I think it frightens me a bit when someone else's voice or influence becomes so powerful.


BTW, my daughter is leaving for Japan on June 20 and I've been very nervous about it as I'm afraid the experience will be something like Lost in Translation. Everyone tells me how wonderful Japan is but, reading your description... it sounds exactly like the movie!
I've been considering buying a ticket myself, my daughter is only l7 and has never been on an airplane or out of the country but she is obsessed with all things Japanese. She wants to be a graphic novelist/filmaker. She is going with a group. What would Russell Baker's mom do????? Of course he had plenty of problems in his life. Sigh....

[IlanaSimons]

Thanks for the response, Timbuktu.  I relate to a lot in here.  Some authors, like Locke, reorganize our world by defining new terms. Locke defines a sense of our "rights," and Plato define a sense of "Truth." They reshape the world by giving us theories to live by. 

Then other authors define our sensual world--one author attuned you to the smell of a child's bedroom.

Nice post.

About Japan: I'm so excited that your daughter's going.  It will be mindblowing at 17.  I went in my 30's (much easier).  I think that as long as you trust the group she's going with, it'll be a terrific chapter in her life.  If she weren't going with the group, I'd say--yes--buy a ticket for yourself right now!  It's nice that she's into the graphic novel tradition there.  She sounds like a bright girl.

And thanks for your kindness about my life.  I actually live a hermitted life, with the occassional effort at adventure.

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Timbuktu1 wrote:
Ilana, you are THE most amazing woman! You really LIVE! I'm in awe.

Yes, I soak up authors almost through my skin and feel possessed for a period of time. I find myself, as I go through the sequence of great books, altering my perceptions and thoughts to those of the author I'm reading at the time. Of course Plato is always on my shoulder, partly because his voice echoes through every other book I've read since. When I was reading Locke I felt a great sense of determination to preserve my "rights". Don't tread on me, was my mantra. Locke is seen as a politcal writer but of course I saw him as writing about psychological and interpersonal boundaries as well.

Reading Portrait of the Artist made me feel the claustrophobia and isolation that Joyce experienced to such a point that I had to put the book down for awhile. The labyrinth of turn of the century Ireland became my own life. I kept feeling trapped, looking for the exit. Whew, I was glad when I was done with that book!

A book that had a huge impact on me when it came out, was Russell Baker's Growing Up. I had small children then and read it almost as a manual in child rearing, which I think might well have been misguided. I read it several times, I was so interested and effected by his mother's efforts to raise her son.

So many books have planted images in my mind that come to me at appropriate moments, almost as though they are real memories. There was a scene in The Woman's Room where she smells her sleeping children. When they grow up that becomes a lost bliss. So true!

The scene in The World According to Garp where he's roasting red peppers and hears a screeching car. He runs out with murder in his heart to catch the driver... the threat to his children's lives and safety. In the end the real threat to his children was himself...too true!

But unlike you, I don't think I've ever found one author that I wanted to spend so much time with. I feel relieved when I'm finished with a particularly powerful book. I want to inhabit my own life again. I think it frightens me a bit when someone else's voice or influence becomes so powerful.


BTW, my daughter is leaving for Japan on June 20 and I've been very nervous about it as I'm afraid the experience will be something like Lost in Translation. Everyone tells me how wonderful Japan is but, reading your description... it sounds exactly like the movie!
I've been considering buying a ticket myself, my daughter is only l7 and has never been on an airplane or out of the country but she is obsessed with all things Japanese. She wants to be a graphic novelist/filmaker. She is going with a group. What would Russell Baker's mom do????? Of course he had plenty of problems in his life. Sigh....

---

Message Edited by IlanaSimons on 05-18-2008 12:28 PM

[KathyS]

You're one gutsy woman, Ilana.  I still haven't figured out why you're not wearing red! 

I'll dream up something to write, at the end of the week.  I'll give myself - you - and everyone, a rest.

K.

[Everyman]

And here I consider a trip on the ferry across to the mainland to be a major travel event!

I would no more jaunt over to Japan for any reason, let alone to meet an author, than I would qualify for the Olympic marathon (and since I can get out of breath going up the stairs too fast, you can see how likely that is!) But it's neat reading about your trip. I love reading travel books -- I'm a great armchair traveler (I can be happily trekking thru the Khyber Pass or fording the Oxus one moment and the next making a nice cup of my favorite tea in my nice modern kitchen and while it brews using my nice modern bathroom with indoor plumbing and all the mod cons the next.)

Mary Kingsley, Peter Fleming, John Cochrane, Shackleton, Osa and Martin Johnson (whose Camera Trails in Africa when I encountered it about age twelve dramatically expanded my universe of travel/adventure reading from the fictional -- John Buchan, H. Rider Haggard, Rudyard Kipling, etc. -- to the real) are all the travel I need. And when I long for something a bit more contemporary, our library has an excellent selection of Rick Steves's wonderful guidebooks and VCRs to enjoy.

But this is off the topic you asked, just a digression your post inspired, so off I go to address the specific question of the week.

[Everyman]

Are there authors I'm attached to the way you were (are?) attached to Haruki Murakami?

No. There are authors whose writing I greatly enjoy, and whose minds I admire, but there are none I am so strongly attached to that I would make an effort to meet them, let alone to the degree you did. I tend not even to bother to join in the author discussions here, and I have never been to a book signing or reading, even though there have been a number accessible to me with authors whose work I enjoy.

Although I recognize that any book is, of course, the product of a particular mind (or in a few cases of more than one mind), and I have enjoyed some biographies or autobiographies of authors, I tend to be centered on the books themselves rather than on the authors. Perhaps this is in part because most of the serious reading I do is of authors long dead who I have no chance of meeting in this life, but even for living authors I enjoy, I have minimal interest in actually sitting down and talking with them.

If there is any author I would be attached to the way you are to Haruki Murakami, it would be Arthur Ransome, were he still alive. But even in his case, I would have a significant concern that as a person he would disappoint me, which would spoil his books for me. I prefer to know the man through his books rather than take the chance that as a person he would be dull and pedestrian, since I know that I would after that be unable to re-read the books with the same enjoyment I do now.

[Everyman]

Did you ever manage to meet Haruki Murakami? If so, did he live up to your expectations?

Didn't you have any fear that he would turn out not to be anything like what you thought?

I have a good friend who was a great admirer of a certain contemporary poet, whose name I will protect. She was delighted to learn that he was leading a two week writing class at a summer program, and instantly signed up for it. But actually meeting him was a great disappointment. She had found his poems beautiful and inspiring, but in person he was unpleasant, sarcastic to his students, lazy as a teacher (made assignments then didn't bother to read them), extremely egotistical and self-centered, and generally a rather nasty individual. It ruined his poems for her, because she could never read them again without seeing the crabbed and mean spirited person behind them.

[IlanaSimons]

I second the spirit of this post. 

I wouldn't even want to share a coffee with Murakami, because I don't think we'd have much to say to each other.  I wanted to live in his city (I think I subconsciously knew he was in Boston) and tap his spirit in his absence.  I didn't talk anyone that month.  I think it's fun to go on isolated hunts for artistic thrill.  (I did the same hunt, in Paris, for Harry Mathews.  We did have one glass of wine in the States, but we didn't have much to say.)

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Everyman wrote:
Did you ever manage to meet Haruki Murakami? If so, did he live up to your expectations?

Didn't you have any fear that he would turn out not to be anything like what you thought?

I have a good friend who was a great admirer of a certain contemporary poet, whose name I will protect. She was delighted to learn that he was leading a two week writing class at a summer program, and instantly signed up for it. But actually meeting him was a great disappointment. She had found his poems beautiful and inspiring, but in person he was unpleasant, sarcastic to his students, lazy as a teacher (made assignments then didn't bother to read them), extremely egotistical and self-centered, and generally a rather nasty individual. It ruined his poems for her, because she could never read them again without seeing the crabbed and mean spirited person behind them.

---

[IlanaSimons]

but: digressions appreciated.

Everyman wrote:

...But this is off the topic you asked, just a digression your post inspired, so off I go to address the specific question of the week.

[Sunltcloud]

Ilana,

 I have tried to travel in Georgia O’Keeffe’s footsteps. Have gone, on two occasions, the last time last summer, to New Mexico. I stayed at the Ghost Ranch in Abiqui for a week, painted, sat in the library, took photographs, read all I could about her, took tours, fell in love with the Joshua Tree and the Red Hills, and ended the trip with a week in Santa Fee and the re-opening of the Georgia O’Keeffe museum. It was a great trip though difficult to get to some of the places, and of course everything is so commercialized and some things, like visiting her little house, have to be planned way in advance. I think there is even a lottery.

Most of my trips are planned with an artist in mind. I have traveled to Philadelphia for a Van Gogh exhibit after reading about him extensively for months, sinking my mind into his mind, trying to understand him. Three years ago I visited Bob Marley’s birthplace, Nine Miles, in Jamaica. I sat on his “single bed,” and was so moved that I almost cried. I had researched his life for months before I visited, and I still shudder when I think of the all-night outdoor reggae concert I attended in Montego Bay. I also traveled to Kochel in Bavaria where the painter Franz Marc and his wife are buried and where they spent much time. I stayed in a hotel that has a Franz Marc art gallery, and (tacky, tacky, tacky) bought the 125. birthday cup, depicting his tower of blue horses. Most of my time there was spent in museums and outdoors, pondering his use of color.

I have two trips planned, long-term, one to several places where Rainer Maria Rilke, the poet, has lived, and another one to follow C.G.Jung and Hermann Hesse through the south of Germany and to Switzerland. I have big binders filled with information, travel brochures from various towns, printouts of the authors’ favorite hangouts, museums, have read many of their books.

And yes, I have given up “real time company” in favor of being with my “subject.” I also travel, not to meet people, but to collect memories of places I have read about in books or have seen painted on canvas.

My present “preoccupation” is the Mother Bear Project and has to do with my foremost hero, Nelson Mandela. I had intended to Fly to South Africa for my 70th birthday this fall but don’t have the finances just right now. So, the trip is postponed until next year, but for this birthday I plan to have knitted 100 teddy bears for HIV/Aids orphans in South Africa. This is a little different from my other projects that involve an artist, a writer, a hero, because for the first time I can use all my sources to “imagine” his “spirit.” I knit the Bears, I take their pictures, and I blog about the experience. It is like a very intense mini-trip with googling of all things South African, including names, plants, animals, places, and history. And eight to ten hours of knitting each day. I have of course read his biography, have listened to him speak in person, have followed his story most of my life, but for now I have bought two books that are about his love for children. 1.” Nelson Mandela’s Favorite African Folktales” and 2. “Letters to Madiba” voices of South African children.  These two books propel me forward. Today I am working on Bear number 64 as you can see at http://purlingantonia.blogspot.com

I don’t think I would want to meet any of my heroes in person. The first time I traveled to Taos, New Mexico, I had intended to meet Georgia O’Keeffe. I knew she would be a difficult person to get a hold of and I had no idea what I would say to her. She died a week before I left for my trip. I think it was better that I never met her. Her art has never left me and I have no need to downplay any negative aspects of her life, because the real Georgia O’Keeffe has remained a mystery. I will never forget my personal experiences at Ghost Ranch, sitting in the midst of such awesome nature.

[IlanaSimons]

Sunltcloud,

You are amazing.  This post is bursting with life.

[Timbuktu1]

Just a thought...

My all-time favorite station is Book-TV on C-span 2. They took it away from me recently. If anyone still gets it... it's amazing. 48 hours of non-fiction authors. I have never been disappointed in the authors. Just the opposite. With all of the nonsense on tv it was such a delight to listen to someone who really knew and and was passionate about something. Authors, from what I've seen, know how to speak as well as write. I particularly loved the "In Depth" interviews. Three hours, once a month with an author, usually at home. I loved seeing the desk, the room, the library, where the books were written. Hey, maybe you'll be on one Ilana! I think I just talked myself into springing for digital TV!

[IlanaSimons]

I also love Book TV and have been thrilled that I get it for free, too.  What just happened to cut off your reception?

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Timbuktu1 wrote:
Just a thought...

My all-time favorite station is Book-TV on C-span 2. They took it away from me recently. If anyone still gets it... it's amazing. 48 hours of non-fiction authors. I have never been disappointed in the authors. Just the opposite. With all of the nonsense on tv it was such a delight to listen to someone who really knew and and was passionate about something. Authors, from what I've seen, know how to speak as well as write. I particularly loved the "In Depth" interviews. Three hours, once a month with an author, usually at home. I loved seeing the desk, the room, the library, where the books were written. Hey, maybe you'll be on one Ilana! I think I just talked myself into springing for digital TV!

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[Timbuktu1]

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IlanaSimons wrote:

I also love Book TV and have been thrilled that I get it for free, too.  What just happened to cut off your reception?

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Timbuktu1 wrote:
Just a thought...

My all-time favorite station is Book-TV on C-span 2. They took it away from me recently. If anyone still gets it... it's amazing. 48 hours of non-fiction authors. I have never been disappointed in the authors. Just the opposite. With all of the nonsense on tv it was such a delight to listen to someone who really knew and and was passionate about something. Authors, from what I've seen, know how to speak as well as write. I particularly loved the "In Depth" interviews. Three hours, once a month with an author, usually at home. I loved seeing the desk, the room, the library, where the books were written. Hey, maybe you'll be on one Ilana! I think I just talked myself into springing for digital TV!

---

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I'm not sure what happened, I suppose they want more money. The Travel Channel just disappeared a couple of days ago too! Maybe it will encourage me to stop watching TV about books and travel and actually read more and travel myself!

[IlanaSimons]

Oh no--now you've got me scared.  I get Book TV and The Food Channel for free.  Am addicted to both.  I was loving Bravo too, until it got scrambled last week.

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Timbuktu1 wrote:

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I'm not sure what happened, I suppose they want more money. The Travel Channel just disappeared a couple of days ago too! Maybe it will encourage me to stop watching TV about books and travel and actually read more and travel myself!

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[Timbuktu1]

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IlanaSimons wrote:

Oh no--now you've got me scared.  I get Book TV and The Food Channel for free.  Am addicted to both.  I was loving Bravo too, until it got scrambled last week.

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Timbuktu1 wrote:

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I'm not sure what happened, I suppose they want more money. The Travel Channel just disappeared a couple of days ago too! Maybe it will encourage me to stop watching TV about books and travel and actually read more and travel myself!

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Free? That's amazing. Maybe it is a ploy in order to get you addicted. We lost Bravo, Showtime and HBO too. Now that I think about it, they do know what they're doing. The only loss that really hurt and had me calling the cable company was Book-TV. To top it off they send me the schedule every week... our computer server is the same as our cable company. Wow, I'm just connecting the dots. I had thought the universe was random. There may or may not be a G-d but our lives are definitely being determined by a higher intelligence!

BTW, I don't know anyone who ISN'T addicted to the Food channel.

[holyboy]

What an odd coincidence.

I decided to look in on your discussion this morning and I saw your subject concerning Haruki Murakami, an author I had, until recently, no interest in reading. Yet someone in a  writing class told me a piece of my writing reminded me of his, so I decided yesterday to head on over to the local B&N to pick up some of his work.  I had decided today to begin The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle this afternoon after I get my writing pages done (yes, I am procrastinating right now). I thought it odd that I'd look in on your discussion first (I've not even posted here before) and find a subject so close to where I am in literature right now.

[IlanaSimons]

Holyboy, Welcome!  If someone told you you write like Murakami, celebrate.  I say.  Other books of his I loved: Dance, Dance, Dance and the short stories of The Elephant Vanishes.

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holyboy wrote:

What an odd coincidence.

I decided to look in on your discussion this morning and I saw your subject concerning Haruki Murakami, an author I had, until recently, no interest in reading. Yet someone in a  writing class told me a piece of my writing reminded me of his, so I decided yesterday to head on over to the local B&N to pick up some of his work.  I had decided today to begin The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle this afternoon after I get my writing pages done (yes, I am procrastinating right now). I thought it odd that I'd look in on your discussion first (I've not even posted here before) and find a subject so close to where I am in literature right now.

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[holyboy]

Timbuktu1 wrote:

BTW, my daughter is leaving for Japan on June 20 and I've been very nervous about it as I'm afraid the experience will be something like Lost in Translation. Everyone tells me how wonderful Japan is but, reading your description... it sounds exactly like the movie!
I've been considering buying a ticket myself, my daughter is only l7 and has never been on an airplane or out of the country but she is obsessed with all things Japanese.

Timbuktu1,

About 10 years ago, the government sent me on several trips to Tokyo and Kyoto. I found Sophia Coppola's Lost in Translation a very apt description of what the traveler feels when first encountering Tokyo--it was not at all what I expected. She nailed it though.

Tokyo is a bit more "foreigner friendly." Most of the street and subway signs are also in English, so you can get around. But once you're out of Tokyo, good luck. I'm sure your daughter will get along just fine, especially since she's in a group.

[holyboy]

Thanks for the welcome Ilana, and thanks for starting this blog/discussion.

I also picked up The Elephant Vanishes. Maybe I'll begin with that.

I'm also fascinated by writer's settings, like your description of Murakami's office. Sometimes it's interesting to visit the places they write about as well. I have a planned trip on my life agenda: some Bloomsday I'm going over to Dublin to retrace Ulysses.

I've not travelled specificallly to visit an author's environs, but when I've travelled, writers I've read often come to mind: for instance, in Shanghai I recalled reading Malraux's Mans Fate and while in Prague the bookstore in the old town reminded me that Prague was the city of Kafka.