Lin Shaohua, China Reading News ( 2021-07-21 11 edition)
"The Way to Find the Whirlpool Cat", by Haruki Murakami, translated by Lin Shaohua, Shanghai Translation Publishing House, July 2020, first edition, 45.00 yuan;
"I Am a Cat", by Natsume Shushi, translated by Lin Shaohua, Qingdao Publishing House, May 2020, first edition, 55.00 yuan
Murakami's style is quite similar to that of Soseki: concise, humorous, witty. The protagonists also have similarities: they are mostly marginalized small intellectuals, and they all focus on describing their inner entanglements, bitterness and loneliness. Unexpectedly, I read it recently and found a connection between the two - both like cats and write about cats.
Among Japanese modern and contemporary writers, not many can enter the eyes of Haruki Murakami. Even for Yasunari Kawabata, Murakami has a lot of criticism, "I personally can't empathize with the shape of his novel world." As for Yukio Mishima and Osamu Dazai, it reads "like putting your foot in a shoe with the wrong number." But at least Natsume Shushi is an exception in his eyes, and he has been praised several times, saying that every sentence of Shushi is "out of his own pocket", and the style established by Shushi "has become a classic" and has been unshakable for more than a hundred years. I don't know if it is a coincidence or not, Murakami's style is quite similar to that of Soseki: concise, humorous, witty. The protagonists also have similarities: they are mostly marginalized small intellectuals, and they all focus on describing their inner entanglements, bitterness and loneliness.
Unexpectedly, reading recently, I found a connection between the two people - Murakami did not mention it - both like cats, both wrote about cats, let me expand on this.
There is a set of five essays in the "Murakami Asahido" series of essays, almost all of which mention cats. For example, "The Way to Find a Whirlpool Cat", which says that he also had a cat when he went to the college dormitory: one night when he was walking, a cat "meow" followed behind, and kept following the dormitory. "The brown tiger striped cat, with long fur and two plush cheeks, is very cute. The personality is quite stubborn, but he is very sympathetic to me, and the 'two' have lived for a long time since then. "The only problem was that Murakami was poor at the time. According to himself, the penniless state usually lasts for a week in a month. The owner has eaten this meal without eating, where will the cat eat it! So Murakami asked the girls in the class for help. "If I say that I am hungry because I have no money, the other party will ignore me: 'Deserved!' That's your own doing. And if you say, 'There is no money for the cats in the house to eat, most of them will sympathize, say 'No way', lend me a little money, anyway, the cat and the owner are poor and hungry, and sometimes the cat and the people are scrambling to grab the only little food.' ”
After marriage, he also had a cat and was also very poor. "It's not that I'm blind, I used to be quite poor. When we first got married, we didn't dare to live in the atmosphere of the room on the four walls of the house. There was not even a stove, and the cat was held to keep warm on cold nights. The cat is also cold, clinging to the person and not moving--quite a bit of solidarity. This was confirmed in a 2001 letter he wrote to Chinese readers at my request: "I was married as a college student. Since then, I have been working, busy with my livelihood all day, and hardly writing. Borrow money to run a small shop to make ends meet. There is no ambition, and when it comes to happy things, it is nothing more than listening to music every day and reading the books I like to read in my free time. I, my wife, plus a cat, 'three people' live together in peace. Oh, "two people" before marriage, "three people" after marriage to live - in Murakami's eyes, the cat is no longer a cat, but a family member and family who sits on an equal footing with himself and his wife. It also shows once again the role of music, books, and cats in his life.
For Murakami, cats and books are not only his "precious companions" in life, but also have an irreplaceable role in his creation. Murakami confessed in the original epilogue to the short story collection "Men Without Women": "Thank you for the many quiet willows, soft cats and beautiful women that I have had the privilege of encountering in my past life. Without that kind of encouragement, I wouldn't have been able to write such a book. "Oh, we have a lot of people in China who like cats — cats are all soft — quiet willows are everywhere, beautiful women abound, so why don't you write a book?" Since Murakami wrote "Men Without Women", can't you, the "shoveler", write a book "Women Without Men"? On such occasions, politeness is unnecessary. The above is about the cat in Murakami's essay and in the afterword -- there is a cat. In addition, there are fictional cats in the novel- fictional cats, imaginary cats. For example, the "sardines" in "The Adventure of finding sheep" need to "pluck the ears once a day with a cotton ball stick dipped in olive oil", the "Cotton Valley Rise" in "Strange Bird Walk" feels similar to the brother of the protagonist's wife and the tip of the tail is a little curved, and "Kafka by the Sea" does not say anything. Of course, everyone is familiar with the "seagulls" in "Norwegian Forest". Remember the passage from chapter 10: Jun Watanabe read the letter from Naoko's sick friend Reiko Ishida and sat motionless on the eaves, "Looking at the garden that is already full of spring." There is an ancient cherry blossom in the garden, and the flowers are almost in full bloom. The breeze is gentle, the light and shadow are dappled, and the colors are unusually dark. A few moments later, the 'seagull' came from nowhere, 'clicked' on the floor of the cornice a few times, and then stretched out next to me and slept happily. ”
Not only cats, but also other animals often appear in Murakami's works: sheep, dogs, horses, kangaroos, bears, elephants, unicorns, as well as crows, wringing hairsprings, and so on. The reason for this is that animals cannot speak. "Although I have a certain self, I cannot translate it into language – I have great sympathy for such a being." Another reason is that Murakami believes that animals can sometimes convey many things and all kinds of ideas with the help of animals.
Let's talk about Natsume Shushi, the cat of the Shushi family. Shushi's family has three cats. The cat in "I Am a Cat" is the first, gray and black, with tabby stripes. When I was a kitten, I took the initiative to run into the door of the gargle house. At first, he was not welcomed, but he was thrown out by Lady Shushi (a maid in the novel) many times, and finally he was able to stay because of Shushi's speech. Gargleshi was lying on the tatami mat in the study reading the newspaper, the cat climbed on his back, Gargle climbed up to write, and the cat was lying on his lap. In this way, Shushi moved his mind and wrote "I Am a Cat", which was greatly praised, and Shushi became famous. Even the teachers at the University of Tokyo stopped working as a writer and went to the Asahi Shimbun newspaper as an exclusive writer. It may be said that the cat brought blessings to the gargle (blessed cat?). ), bringing a turning point in life. Without this cat, there might have been no Shushi's famous work "I Am a Cat", there would have been no Shushi's literary creation in the following decade, and of course, there would have been no Natsume Shushi, who was praised by Lu Xun as "the matchless person in the world".
Speaking of which, perhaps someone wants to ask, even among writers, there seem to be more people who like dogs than cats, but why doesn't anyone write "I am a dog"? As an answer, I wonder if there are three reasons for this. First of all, cats have a daily nature. If you don't say "I am a cat" but say "I am a tiger", "I am a white bone spirit" or "I am a cow devil", you may scare the girl into crying, where will you buy books; secondly, the cat has a personality, and murakami said that there is a strong "certain self". Proud, reserved, elegant, cunning. Be close to people and keep your distance, rely on people to support yourself and be pretentious. Dogs also have daily life, but the dog's "self" is not strong, and it cannot become a "nother" like a cat. Only in this way can there be "dog legs", "running dogs", and "dogs fighting human strength". Moreover, if you say "I am a dog", it is inevitable that you will be masochistic and not fun.
Back to the point, Murakami and Soseki not only like cats, but even have similarities or some connection to their depictions of cats. Murakami has had many cats. Among them was a cat named Muse. Although the name is beautiful, the habit is quite strange: murakami must hold its two paws when giving birth. And look at Murakami's description: "Every time the pain came and I was about to give birth, he would 'meow' and lazily twist my arms, and look at my face with eyes as if he were telling me something." Helplessly, I said 'good, good' to hold the cat's paw. The cat also immediately squeezed back with a meat ball. "During the birth of the cub," I held it from behind and held it in two paws. From time to time, the cat turned back to stare at me with a veined look, as if to say, 'Please don't ask you anything.'" ...... It takes about two and a half hours from the initial pain to the last one. During that time, I had to hold the cat's claw and look at it all the time. "Look at Natsume's cat again." The cat in "I Am a Cat" stole two beers, of course, drunk, what kind of drunk cat is it? Shushi wrote: "The body gradually warms, the eyelids become heavier, the ears are warm, I want to sing fast, I want to meow and dance." The master la mi ting la single immortal, all while playing! I can't wait to scratch the old man of Kaneda, I can't wait to bite Mrs. Kaneda's nose, and so on. Finally, I wanted to stand up shakily, and when I stood up, I wanted to stagger and walk. It feels so good! Also wanted to go outside and have a walk. When I got outside, I wanted to say 'Good evening Sister Moon'! The pleasure of the commission is unbearable. "Oh, the cat is drunk and wants to bite Mrs. Kaneda's nose." What about when you're not drunk? Actually more powerful! "I heard that a while ago Japan fought a big battle with Tsarist Russia. My generation is a Japanese cat, of course, biased toward Japan. I even thought to myself, if possible, when the organization mixed into a cat brigade to scratch the Russian soldiers. ”
Of course, scratching the Russian soldier is pure wishful thinking, but what he usually does is not necessarily authentic, such as sneaking into the bedroom to peek at the hostess sleeping: "The lady threw the nursing child more than a foot away, opened her mouth, snored, and the pillow was not pillowed." As far as people are concerned, if you ask what is the most ugly, I think there is nothing more indecent than sleeping with your mouth open. I waited for the cats, and I have never been so humiliated in my life. At the end of the day, the mouth is a tool for pronunciation, and the nose is meant to breathe air... If nothing else, how dangerous it would be if rat droppings fell from the ceiling! "Seeing this, the cat lovers and shovelers should be careful: don't let the cat into the bedroom, the ugliness of the house must not be publicized!" To be honest, in order to translate "I Am a Cat", I had to have a cat if I didn't like cats very much. It also prefers to go into the bedroom. Once I went to the bathroom in the middle of the night and came back, in the moonlight, but I saw it lying impartially in the middle of my bed, completely empty. Lying on the bed, let others sleep soundly, let alone cats! From now on, before going to bed, you must trick it into the kitchen and shut it up. Whether the back paws kick the door or the front paws scratch the door, ignore it. In this comparison, the description of the two seems to be the same thing at all. Oh, Murakami's cat "stared at me with a veined and affectionate look", and Shushi's cat either wanted to "scratch the old man of Kaneda" or "organize a mixed cat brigade to scratch the Russian soldiers". A warm pulse, a fierce momentum, a lazy crooked in the arms of a man, and a person who actually said that the master was disgraced. What is the connection between the two and what is similar! No, there is still a little bit of careful consideration, that is, anthropomorphism, funny, fun, humor! Yes, humor — as mentioned earlier — can be said to be a closeness or stylistic connection between the two men's linguistic styles.
Source: China Reading Daily