Last month, Haruki Murakami's new travelogue, "If There Really Were a Time Machine," was published.
When it comes to this big person who has been a popular candidate for the Nobel Prize in Literature for 9 consecutive years, people often think of the famous book "When I Talk About Running, I Talk About Something". Writing and running are the two labels that the world has firmly attached to the village.
But very few people will position him as a "traveler".
In moss-covered Iceland, to visit the Greek island where "Norwegian Forest" begins, to Kumamoto during the rainy season, to visit natsume Soseki's former home... Counting this one, Murakami wrote 5 books for his travels. And if you open your fingers, he is 69 years old this year.
Photo by web
What does it mean to be 69?
The hair should be 80% silver, the teeth are also loose, when writing, I found that yesterday's events were not remembered clearly decades ago, and there were fewer and fewer people who could call "seniors".
Haruki Murakami does not have a better way to avoid aging than ordinary people, and can say "I always thought that people are slowly getting old, but in fact, they are not, people are getting old in an instant", and they must have a personal experience of "getting old".
But he was still walking. This 69-year-old man never follows the group, does not look at the attractions, does not do the raiders, cats and sheep are more interesting than the aurora, bad weather is more worth writing than your hotel...
Haruki Murakami's travel is not to evoke people's impulses and desires with a few beautiful pictures, but to truly feel the uniqueness of a place.
From the first time he embarked on the unknown path, the inspiration of the travel gene dives into his writing. It can be said that without travel, there would be no Haruki Murakami today.
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> "Escape" to Japan < writing novels
"In that isolated and exotic life, I simply wrote novels in silence." - Haruki Murakami
In 1969, the 18-year-old Murakami went on a lonely solo trip to Kumamoto Prefecture, a trip that has been deeply imprinted in his mind.
At that time, Murakami had just graduated from high school, and he was wandering aimlessly in Kumamoto. Walking down the street at night, a woman came up to say hello, and he was so frightened that he took the road and left.
Years later, he described how he felt at the time:
"Just by breathing in the air and looking at the scenery, I feel like I'm becoming an adult little by little."
However, it was only after 19 years that Murakami made his first trip abroad. This time, I stayed in distant Europe for 8 months.
At this time in Murakami, the trip was to escape.
He was growing famous, but Japan's booming bubble economy and constant tedious routines made him as anxious as a trapped beast. So Haruki Murakami fled Japan and "fled" to Greece to write novels.
Escape from the fixed everyday, familiar crowds, bad life, go somewhere else to breathe in the sweet air, take a breath...
It turns out that big writers will think the same as most of us.
It was an era without the Internet.
Booking a ticket to run to a travel agency, no Google, looking for a place can only ask people.
Staying in the Greek islands with low prices in Europe in the off-season, a small apartment in Rome leaking in winter, come to a new small city, stay in peace for ten days or a month, and then pack your bags and go to your next destination.
37 to 40 years old, Rome, Italy, France, Greece... Murakami wandered around Europe for three years, occasionally returning home, resting for a while, and then continuing on his journey.
Murakami, who went abroad for the first time, discovered a new and interesting life:
A map of Greece painted in the shape of a mushroom, a huge black cat in a movie theater that walks slowly past a silver screen, a driver who drives while drinking wine and eating cheese, an Italian post office that is always on vacation...
In Mykonos, Haruki Murakami records the most common bits and pieces of the place, but he pays the most attention to the harsh and changeable climate of the island in autumn and winter.
"The wind continued to blow, the rain fell frequently, and the whole island surrounded the island in winter"
"The month and a half of living here is actually all bad weather, and my novel is stained with a dull smell of rain and the fierce wind in the middle of the night"
——Excerpted from Haruki Murakami's Travels "Drums in the Distance"
In this seemingly poor and turbulent sojourn life, Murakami completed two great works, "Norwegian Forest" and "Dance. dance. Dance", fans have found many overlaps with Greco-Roman tours in these two novels.
▲ Stills from "Norwegian Forest"
At the same time, everyone found that compared with Murakami's novels, Murakami's travelogues are surprisingly easy to read.
Outside of the professional novelist who felt "thorough personal manual labor," Haruki Murakami, who was witty and funny, dared to say and do, and always observed things from a wonderfully observing point of view.
▲ In Japan, Murakami's travelogues are as popular as novels
Murakami, a taciturn man who prefers to be alone, has also rediscovered himself and begun to experiment with more ways of traveling.
After obtaining his driver's license at the age of 39, he couldn't wait to travel with photographer Matsumura Yuzo to Greece and Turkey.
In Turkey, they traveled 21 days along the border, passing through the Black Sea, the Soviet Union, Iran, Iraq, the Mediterranean, the Aegean Sea, and finally back to Rome.
▲Haruki Murakami and Yuzo Matsumura ▲
Many people followed his example and traveled to an unknown European country for several months.
Inexplicably, people fell in love with this kind of stumbling, cumbersome and vivid "Haruki Murakami trip" that relies on the kindness of local residents to find their way.
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> Travel with running and cat <
Haruki Murakami, a 40-year-old middle-aged man, has gradually become a tourist.
During his travels, he observes two aspects at every place he goes:
One is whether it is suitable for running, and the other is the appearance and temperament of the cats here.
These are also two things that are indispensable in the life of Haruki Murakami.
Haruki Murakami: Running is more important to me than the Nobel Prize▲
In Boston, where he spent three years, Murakami jogged along the banks of the Charles River every morning, watching the changing scenery of the riverbanks, and slowly running under his feet in spring, summer, autumn and winter.
"I can still recall the scenery along the way in order,
As I recall vividly,
The route I took on my first date with a lover. ”
▲Charles River bank▲
Murakami's love of cats has also been famous, and Suzumura and Seiji have written a book for him called "Haruki Murakami Cat".
Haruki Murakami, Hemingway, Mark Twain,
▲ The famous "infected cat virus" three musketeers ▲
（Photo by web）
On his travels, a variety of cats often attracted his attention, and some cities were often marked by cat qualities.
For example, icelandic cats have a very large number of cats, large size, bright coat color, and treat people intimately; Greek cats get along with the residents very friendly, walking on the road, sticky cats will come to their feet, play with people, it is really a paradise for cat lovers.
▲ Icelandic cats: It's time for dinner! ▲
Oh, and almost forgot his favorite jazz.
Murakami, who has been fascinated by jazz since he was 15 years old, even writes "according to the melody and rhythm of jazz". Before I finished college, I borrowed money to open a jazz café, for nothing else, just to listen to jazz all day long.
Murakami, of course, will pay special attention to jazz wherever he goes.
▲ On the streets of New York, check out the announcement of the jazz bar ▲
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> If there really is a time machine<
"What's in Laos?" That's probably a good question. But even if I were asked that, I wouldn't be able to answer. --Haruki Murakami
"If There Really Were a Time Machine",
It is Haruki Murakami's latest travelogue that records his travels in the last 10 years.
In fact, the book has another name,
The literal translation in Japanese is: "You say, what is laos?" 》
This is the question that a Vietnamese throws at him when Haruki Murakami is transferring planes at Hanoi airport.
Yeah, what the hell is in Laos? He couldn't help but think as he walked the streets of Laos filled with cheap goods, joined the crowd of alms, and respectfully knelt on the ground in the morning to give sticky rice to the monks.
Finally he said:
"If I want to say what I brought back from Laos, except for a few souvenirs, there are only a few memories of the situation."
But there was a smell in the landscape, there was a sound, there was a touch of skin. There is a special light there, a special wind blowing. The sounds of people's voices lingered in the headphones, and I could recall the trembling of my heart at that time. ”
The meaning of travel is an eternal problem that has never changed throughout the ages.
Even for the great writer with 32 years of travel experience, it is the same.
After entering the 60s, Murakami began to consciously revisit the old land.
Back to Mykonos, looking for the hut where he wrote the book "Norwegian Forest"; Kumamoto County, where he left home alone at the age of 18 and "experienced a long solo trip for the first time in his life"; Boston, USA, where he lived as a writer-in-residence at Princeton University...
▲ Murakami returns to the small apartment where he wrote "Norwegian Forest"
Revisiting Mykonos after 24 years, whether intentionally or unintentionally, is another off-season. The bad weather is still there, but the increase in hotels and tourists has made the island no longer as quiet as it once was.
People who are familiar with the old scene look at it, and their hearts are inevitably a little lonely.
In Kumamoto Prefecture, Murakami visited the 120-year-old Natsume Soseki House.
Listening to the gentle sound of rain in this house, I felt that "time seems to go back to one hundred and twenty years ago, and there is a wonderful and intimate feeling".
"What kind of mood did Mr. Soseki feel when he spent time alone in this study?"
At this moment, he remembered the impulsive and lonely trip he had taken as a teenager.
▲Former residence of Natsume Soseki.▲
"After some years,
Visit again as a traveler
A place where once lived as a resident,
It's a pretty good thing.
There, you've had years of life cut off,
It's like a long series of footprints on the beach after low tide, very clear. ”
Today, as an "elderly writer", Haruki Murakami's writing still reveals a sense of youth.
He was more interested in the special local animals than the dazzling scenery. When he went to iceland, which is now hot, he focused on the animals that had stopped evolving because of its isolation.
"Icelandic sheep without a tail, delicious to eat;
Compared with the population, the number of cats that are frighteningly large is not only larger, but also very intimate with people, which is completely different from the common cats in other places that are very wary of people and arrogant and cold;
Small in size, with a very long mane and a docile personality, Icelandic horses, although not suitable for horse racing, are very suitable for fun riding entertainment. ”
He even went out of his way to see the "Battle to Save the Lost Puffin" on one of Iceland's islands.
Walking the streets of Kumamoto Prefecture, which is popular because of Kumamoto Bear, you should also vividly complain: "It is more difficult to find a scenery without Kumamoto Bear... Imagining Kumamoto Prefecture without Kumamoto Can be more difficult than imagining a sushi restaurant without tuna and green mustard. ”
Living to the 69th year, Murakami lamented vigorously in the book:
"The world is so vast and boundless, and at the same time, it is a small place that can be reached on only two feet."
People grow old, not from the first wrinkles, the first white hair, but from the moment they give up on themselves.
If not at the age of 18, brave "run away from home";
If you don't start living at the age of 39, you start a sojourn life on a whim;
If you don't pick up your pen again after the age of 60 and travel around the world...
What will Murakami do today, and what will we be like today?
"Life is a one-way street, if there is a time machine,
What wish do you want to fulfill?"
If there really was a time machine, Murakami would have thought about it a long time ago.
A lover of jazz, he wanted to return to the New York Jazz Club in 1954 to listen to a live performance of Clifford Brown and Max Roach Quintet.
Writers, translators, runners, jazz lovers... Now, more and more people call him "the traveler".
"It's a long time, but it's worth the wait."
May the 69-year-old Murakami Jun return as a teenager.
▲ Life goes on, the cat is not stopped, Murakami and Orange Bookstore's signature cat "Bai Yujun"▲
References for this issue:
1. Sanlian Life Weekly "Haruki Murakami: This is the so-called travel, this is the so-called life"
http://www.myzaker.com
2. Readingtimesweb interview program "You Say, Murakami", "What do you say, what the hell is laos?" "What the hell is it? 》
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hmSfPQzsIt8
3. Douban Network, Murakami Haruki's travel book reviews
https://book.douban.com/
4. Masatoshi Miyamoto, "Haruki Murakami Brigade"
Click on the image to read it
∆ we were in hot Thailand and played alpine cloud surfing ∆ for a week
∆ this Douban 9.3 reality show surpasses "entertainment",
Just want to show you that life is not just about doing what is worth doing∆
∆ Ubon Ratchathani | a mysterious place that Laos once robbed,
Turn the candle into a grand ∆ of faith
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Author | Li Qiqi
The article is illustrated with | Originated from the web
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