Some years ago I met Tom in the fiction room and eventually we discovered that we both loved Murakami. We have had many conversations about books we love, but none so enthusiastic as the ones on Murakami. In all the anticipation for 1Q84, I asked Tom if he would like to join our blog series on Haruki Murakami. -Lisa
Here’s what Tom has to say:
The spring semester of my junior year of college was – without question – my worst. Within a stretch of about two weeks, Cancer forced itself into my family and Murder pointlessly ended the life of one of my dearest friends. Even now, the weeks and months that followed are blurry at best.
That summer, I discovered Murakami.
The nominal purpose of the summer was to conduct research for my thesis, but – whether it was clear to me or not at the time – the summer also served to remove me from a world that made no sense and whose foundations no longer seemed stable. Though I wasn’t aware of it, the financial crisis happened that summer, too.
I picked up Kafka on the Shore in a bookstore in D.C. – drawn by the back cover’s promise of talking cats, fish falling from the sky and prophecies. That summer, I needed – and more importantly, needed to believe in – all those things.
And, what Murakami gave me that summer was solace in chaos. Peace in grief. Life in absurdity. Constancy in change. Hope in loss.
I needed another world – perhaps where cats talk or soldiers never age – as an escape, and Kafka on the Shore – every time I read it on a subway or in a café – delivered.
It’s not very often – for me, at least – that books make me wholeheartedly want to live in the world that is described within them, but Murakami’s books did and still do that to me. They are stories where the journey is more important than the ending. And where the ending doesn’t always make sense. Where our questions – not the answers, necessarily – matter most.
But more important than my own personal experience with Murakami is how your experience will be. I envy everyone who has never picked him up before. I envy the discoveries that you’ll make and the characters that will speak to you – who maybe never spoke to me. I envy your first dive into a world where things are not as they seem – and where everything in this world, even for just a moment – seems possible, and dare I say, magical all over again.
Click here to see all of Haruki Murakmai’s books.
Click here to see other blog posts on Murakami.
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