| Haruki Murakami |
I saw Hard-Boiled Wonderland and The End of The World while I was browsing in San Francisco bookstores for a paperback to take on a plane. The cover was good, the blurbs commendable, but what really caught my attention was the list of the book’s components: “a split-brained data processor, a deranged scientist, his shockingly undemure granddaughter, Lauren Bacall, Bob Dylan . . .” Bob Dylan? I bought the book.
Hard-Boiled turned out to be both a great read and a good book. It employs one of the most elegant literary devices I’ve read, without being at all self-conscious or pointless. The book was also very cool, like a Thomas Pynchon book is cool. But most of all, it was the book’s Westernness that surprised me. And not only me. Man, you should see the reviews I read while preparing for the interview: “Nippon number-crunches,” “A delectable little sushi of a book,” “East meets West in this narrative noodle,” “No kimonos in sight . . . ” I’ll spare you the rest.
I read more of his books—the two volume Norwegian Wood (1987: over four million passed the checkout in Japan alone), A Wild Sheep Chase (English translation published in 1989),Dance Dance Dance (this year’s follow-up) and The Elephant Vanishes (a short story collection)—and strange things happened. I’m stranded in the middle of a blizzard with only a Murakami for company. I’m on my hands and knees in Japantown looking for the English student editions only published in Japan. And then, finally, before playing a Boston concert I’d only arranged in order to do the interview, I find myself talking to Murakami over lunch in his apartment.
What we miss reading these books in translation is the shock of the Americanness in his language: and that’s something some of us will probably never know. However, Murakami claims he likes the translations better, so we shouldn’t feel bad. We should just read them.