Year 2008. I am sitting in a lounge at Milan Malpensa airport, having just missed my British Airways flight to India. I did not know that the British immigration rules require a UK visa even for the purpose of changing flights in London. I did not have it and could not board the flight. I vow never to fly by British Airways again. I book the next flight – Alitalia – due for departure at 6 am, which means I will have to spend the night at the airport. Sleep is out of the question, so I need to find some way to pass the time. Fortunately, I have acquired a new habit. Before starting any journey, I choose a brand new author, select one of his books and read it on the way.
This time the book is Kafka on the Shore and the author is Haruki Murakami. I have no idea who he is. If he is boring, I am in for a long night.
The lounge begins emptying as the night wears on. I have a brief visit from the Carabinieri – the Italian police – who want to know why I am not boarding any flight. I tell my sad tale in manageable Italian. They roll their eyes at the mention of the British immigration rules. I take the cue to add some choice Italian words about how life is unfair and they seem quite satisfied, sympathetic even.
I get something to eat and settle myself in a comfortable place. The lounge is almost empty now, except for an Italian Mom with two kids. We exchange pleasantries and throughout the night guard each other’s valuables during toilet breaks. She has an easy task guarding my lifeless luggage while I have a tough one – trying to control two toddlers who seem to have energy of ten Cappuccinos, even though they are not old enough to drink even one.
I open the book. The first chapter says, ‘The Boy Named Crow’. I start reading.
For the next few chapters, I am very confused. I cannot place this author. Is this a mystery? A thriller? Or have I chosen the one genre that I don’t really like – horror? But Murakami gently brushes aside all these questions and soon I am engrossed in the magnificent tale of Kafka Tamura. The next details are hazy. My flight is announced, I mechanically do all the formalities and as soon as I settle down, I am back in my book. The next thing I know is that we are landing in Mumbai. I have not slept a wink and I don’t care about a further 4-5 hours drive from Mumbai to Pune. All I care about is Kafka Tamura. My logical mind forgets to question why fishes are raining from the sky or how is it that cats can speak.
I am under the spell of Murakami hypnosis.
That is how I would describe in one word the writing of Haruki Murakami – hypnotic. He can make even a simple act like preparing a spaghetti lunch absolutely mesmerizing. And keep in mind, this is a translation. I cannot imagine what reading Murakami must feel like in original Japanese. An out of body experience, perhaps. I have looked closely at his words. They are simple words. No flowery sentences, no grand comparisons. Still, they hold you captive. The beauty of Murakami’s sentences is that they are so simple that you always feel even you could write them. But if you try, they fall flat – and that’s when you realize how extraordinarily difficult this task must be.
After coming back to Pune, I tried to search for more Murakami books. In those days, he was not a popular author in India. When I did get his other books, it was a pleasant surprise to realize that the hypnosis was not a one book deal, rather it was a regular weapon in his writer’s arsenal.
Haruki Murakami is an elusive writer. He stays away from social media, rarely gives interviews, and is never seen at functions. Only one book gives a glimpse of his personal life. His small, 180-page memoir – What I Talk About When I Talk About Running. Murakami is a seasoned runner. He has run many marathons and some double-marathons. In this book, he draws analogies between his running and his writing. One significant point that emerges from the book is : writing is a difficult job and even a genius like Murakami has to work very hard, with full focus, everyday. The sentences that look so simple on paper have many hours of toil behind them.
Barring few exceptions, the protagonist in Murakami’s novels is the same – much like many Woody Allen movies with same neurotic central character – a man searching for answers who gets entangled in bizarre circumstances. Murakami thrives on nostalgic memories of Japan in the sixties, but his Japan is not the traditional one with strict codes and etiquette – remnants of the Samurai culture. Instead, you have rebellious youths, strange women, librarians explaining Schubert, and bartenders expounding on Beethoven. Add to it some surreal elements like mysterious labyrinths, deep wells, and cats – preferably the talking kind – and you have the essential backdrop of a Murakami novel. Murakami loves western music – Jazz, Classical, Pop. In some ways, he is an outsider in Japan, trying to find echoes of western culture while shunning much of the traditional Japanese one.
I could go on listing characteristics of Murakami novels but it would not amount to much. There is no way to describe the experience that his words create. That’s why I have stopped reading reviews of his books. And yes, I see the irony of saying this while writing a review on Murakami myself, but I get increasingly frustrated with articles trying to “explain” Murakami’s novels. Murakami novels are not Sherlock Holmes stories. They are to be experienced, not understood logically. And everyone’s experience is different. It’s a question of what is known as qualia – my experience of redness of an evening sky or taste of Chianti Classico will never match yours and we cannot communicate this experience to each other. All one can hope is you get an approximate idea of what is being described, with the caveat that you may not experience it that way yourself.
