Indian woman out for a stroll. She’s in her sixties, I imagine, has elegant features, and is always
impeccably dressed. Strangely—though maybe it’s not so strange after all—she wears a different
outfit every day. One time she had on an elegant sari, another time an oversize sweatshirt with a
university’s name on it. If memory serves, I’ve never seen her wearing the same outfit twice. Waiting
to see what clothes she has on is one of the small pleasures of each early-morning run.
Another person I see every day is a large old Caucasian man who walks briskly with a big black
brace attached to his right leg. Perhaps this was the result of some serious injury. That black brace, as
far as I know, has been on for four months. What in the world happened to his leg? Whatever it is, it
doesn’t slow him down, and he walks at a good clip. He listens to music with some oversized
headphones and silently and quickly walks down the riverside path.
Yesterday I listened to the Rolling Stones’ Beggars Banquet as I ran. That funky “Hoo hoo” chorus
in “Sympathy for the Devil” is the perfect accompaniment to running. The day before that I listened to
Eric Clapton’s Reptile. I love these albums. There’s something about them that gets to me, and I never get
tired of listening to them—Reptile, especially. Nothing beats listening to Reptile on a brisk
morning run. It’s not too brash or contrived. It has this steady rhythm and entirely natural melody. My
mind gets quietly swept into the music, and my feet run in time to the beat. Sometimes, mixed in with
the music coming through my headphones, I hear someone calling out, “On your left!” And a racing
bike whips by, passing me on the left.
While I was running, some other thoughts on writing novels came to me. Sometimes people will ask
me this: “You live such a healthy life every day, Mr. Murakami, so don’t you think you’ll one day find
yourself unable to write novels anymore?” People don’t say this much when I’m abroad, but a lot of
people in Japan seem to hold the view that writing novels is an unhealthy activity, that novelists are
somewhat degenerate and have to live hazardous lives in order to write. There’s a widely held view
that by living an unhealthy lifestyle a writer can remove himself from the profane world and attain a
kind of purity that has artistic value. This idea has taken shape over a long period of time. Movies and TV
dramas perpetuate this stereotypical—or, to put a positive spin on it, legendary—figure of the artist.
Basically I agree with the view that writing novels is an unhealthy type of work. When we set off to
write a novel, when we use writing to create a story, like it or not a kind of toxin that lies deep down in
all humanity rises to the surface. All writers have to come face-to-face with this toxin and, aware of
the danger involved, discover a way to deal with it, because otherwise no creative activity in the real
sense can take place. (Please excuse the strange analogy: with a fugu fish, the tastiest part is the
portion near the poison—this might be something similar to what I’m getting at.) No matter how you
spin it, this isn’t a healthy activity.
So from the start, artistic activity contains elements that are unhealthy and antisocial. I’ll admit
this. This is why among writers and other artists there are quite a few whose real lives are decadent or
who pretend to be antisocial. I can understand this. Or, rather, I don’t necessarily deny this
phenomenon.
But those of us hoping to have long careers as professional writers have to develop an autoimmune