How I fell for the Haruki Murakami magic: My eternal love story

Murakami books are addictive, at least for the people who love them. That can translate into a lot of sleepless nights when you start reading him, as each book is unputdownable. The famed Japanese writer is known to evoke extreme reactions so you can either love him or hate him. No prizes for guessing which side I’m on.

Like they say, it takes two to tango. With Murakami and me, it was just that. I loved him and he never disappointed! From 2004 till 2023, the love affair has endured and promises to go on forever. I won’t deny that there have been episodes of angst, as is bound to happen in most long-term relationships, like of late when there was nothing forthcoming from the man with the magic fingers and equally magical narratives.

The first year was tough and the following years even tougher but patience is key when it comes to this genius and after a long wait of so many years, finally he’s back in the groove again! Thursday, April 13 was a big day for die-hard fans like me (I know, I know..I always say a journalist has to be objective but somehow when it comes to him, it’s kind of flown out of the window) with his first book in six years, finally being published. 

Murakami’s latest work, The City and Its Uncertain Walls hit shelves in Japan a few days back. My cup of joy overflows and yet the paths of love are not easy to tread on, especially if they are as labyrinthine and vast and abysmal as he takes us on. So readers in English, like me, will have to wait for some more time before the translated work is available.

Which brings me back to the first time I encountered his genius and how all the previous flirtations with brilliant names like Italo Calvino, Milan Kundera, Ian McEwan, Tim Krabbe, Kazuo Ishiguro, Raymond Chandler and the English classics and popular American thrillers, just faded into oblivion.

My most favourite book of his and the first I read was Norwegian Wood that sold almost a million copies outside Japan where it was first published. In it a character says, “If you only read the books that everyone else is reading, you can only think what everyone else is thinking.” A statement that holds true for every Murakami book that you may read which will take you to unknown worlds where reality is interspersed with fantasy and finally makes you find magic in the mundane. 

The first time I laid my eyes on a Murakami book was the year 2004. I was ambling by a friend’s desk at the newspaper in Delhi, where I worked, reporting on city happenings, which meant our days and nights were crumpled into one and very often we would talk about books and writers over endless cups of coffee before we ended our graveyard shifts.

He suggested I start with reading either of the two Murakami books as appetisers, warning me at the same time about the love-hate relationship readers had with Murakami. So, what would it be--Norwegian Wood or Sputnik Sweetheart? I chose the former.

Norwegian Wood is all about love, loss, burgeoning sexuality that is set in the Tokyo of the 1960s during a period of student unrest against the established order. The title of the book comes from a very famous Beatles song, and this is a pattern in most Murakami books; there is plenty of music in all his work. Of course, his love for music stems from the fact that he himself owned a jazz bar for a good many years before he turned to full-time writing.

I didn’t stop for the next hour or so until I finished the book. It was a page-turner, marvellous, poignant, and I found it almost miraculous that a writer could stir such emotions in a reader, all by the power of his words. I laughed, cried, went into depression and became elated—all at the same time and the best part was, it was written with extreme simplicity. And yet, he gets inside your head to churn out the most complex thoughts.

I was smitten.

Another character in his path breaking novel, 1Q84, says, “Please remember: things are not what they seem.” And that really encapsulates his themes; that a book is not to be judged by its cover and neither a human being to be taken for what he or she may come across as. He dives deep into the human psyche, using magic realism to make his characters go on a journey of discovery using a multitude of metaphors for the existential crisis we all encounter everyday. Deceptively simple yet lost in worlds that we could never go to or imagine existed if he hadn’t created them.

He is the master of a unique brand of surrealism and can seem strange or weird to people who like conventional narratives.

As a writer, he doesn’t experiment much and prefers to stick to his brand of storytelling that finds the extraordinary in the mundane. He also says in a self-deprecating manner that his books are for people who are confused. In an interview with the Guardian, the 67-year-old writer who has won numerous awards and whose works have been translated to roughly 50 languages, having sold millions of copies outside Japan, says, “I was so popular in the 1990s in Russia, at the time they were changing from the Soviet Union – there was big confusion, and people in confusion like my books. In Germany, when the Berlin Wall fell down, there was confusion – and people liked my books.”

Clearly the current times of confusion and angst will perhaps find him more readers, that too, from the younger generation who are slowly discovering that he can be very addictive and almost a sweet spot for the woke culture they represent.

The third book of his I chose to read was the very fat, almost 600 pager, (though I have an aversion to fat books, here too I broke the rules, all for true love) The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle, that is science fiction, psychological fiction and yet explicitly political too.

This was during the devastating Mumbai floods of 2005 when I happened to be in the city on a work trip that stretched to quite a few weeks. Holed up in a hotel room, all I did was think of the book every single waking moment, finishing my chores, getting to work and back and finally savouring the moments when I would hold it close to me…and …read.

The memory of it, is..ah, precious.

Slowly, one by one, I devoured all of his books and the only thing that happened was that I was left wanting more; more of that adrenaline rush, more of those words that seems to only cast a spell and in my case, made me a bit of a loner, as his books were definitely more interesting than any company one could keep.

Murakami’s books are all memorable like the quotes they are peppered with such as the one in the book, Kafka on the Shore: “Memories are what warm you up from the inside. But they're also what tear you apart.”

True? 

You decide, and while you’re at it, grab one of his copies. The memory of it will always keep you warm, just like it does for me.

(Disclaimer: The views of the writer do not represent the views of WION or ZMCL. Nor does WION or ZMCL endorse the views of the writer.) 

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