It’s September: Murakami Fest is upon us! Year 12 of the fest, to be precise.

Here are previous entries:

Year One: Boobs, The Wind, Baseball, Lederhosen, Eels, Monkeys, and Doves
Year Two: Hotel Lobby Oysters, Condoms, Spinning Around and Around, 街・町, The Town and Its Uncertain Wall, A Short Piece on the Elephant that Crushes Heineken Cans
Year Three: “The Town and Its Uncertain Wall” – Words and Weirs, The Library, Old Dreams, Saying Goodbye, Lastly
Year Four: More Drawers, Phone Calls, Metaphors, Eight-year-olds, dude, Ushikawa, Last Line
Year Five: Jurassic Sapporo, Gerry Mulligan, All Growns Up, Dance, Mountain Climbing
Year Six: Sex With Fat Women, Coffee With the Colonel, The Librarian, Old Man, Watermelons
Year Seven: Warmth, Rebirth, Wasteland, Hard-ons, Seventeen, Embrace
Year Eight: Pigeon, Edits, Magazines, Awkwardness, Back Issues
Year Nine: Water, Snæfellsnes, Cannonball, Distant Drumming
Year Ten: Vermonters, Wandering and Belonging, Peter Cat, Sushi Counter, Murakami Fucks First
Year Eleven: Embers, Escape, Window Seats, The End of the World

This year I’m looking at bits and pieces of 遠い太鼓 (Tōi taiko, Distant Drums), Murakami’s memoir of traveling in Europe.

(Brief aside: For years I thought the title was inspired by Gunter Grass’s The Tin Drum, but apparently it is not.)

The book is excellent, some of Murakami’s strongest writing, and I wonder why more of it hasn’t been translated. If he was motivated by money, I’m sure Murakami would publish it, and American publishers would encourage him to publish it, because he’s reached the point where anything with his name on it will sell. So my only guess is that he’s not confident with the writing, much like he was with his first couple novels for a long time.

I’ve looked at small sections in previous years, but I think I may use the next few years of the Fest as an annual motivation to get me through the book. I started reading it back when I was on the JET Program, but something threw me off pace. So I’m starting it up again, and taking more notes this time.

The first section of the book is an introduction written after the trip is complete, looking back at both the trip and the writing process. Murakami was in Europe from ages 37-40. He calls 40 a 節目 (fushime, turning point), noting that a 精神的な組み替え (seishinteki na kumikae, emotional recombination) occurs, after which you can’t go back — you have to go forward.

It feels like Murakami’s midlife crisis of sorts. If he goes past a certain point without having completed some unstated goal, that it would be a waste to him. So he leaves Japan. Spoiler alert: He writes Norwegian Wood while he’s on this trip, the book that launched him into the mainstream. Oh, he also translates a bunch of stuff, writes a ton of short stories and nonfiction for magazines, and lives an amazing life in the Mediterranean. It’s easy to call Murakami privileged, but you can’t ever accuse him of not putting the words on the damn page. He’s a workhorse.

The introduction is compelling because it gives Murakami the opportunity to write to his strengths: the passage of time, the elusiveness of memory, the challenge of pinpointing an objective reality—really the core of the human experience.

Here’s the section that generates the title of the book:

Of course, people go on getting older no matter where they are. Whether they’re in Japan or in Europe, it’s the same thing. That’s what getting older is all about. To put it another way, we maintain some semblance of sanity precisely because we’re able to absorb ourselves in the everyday and go on getting older. At this point—having turned 40—that’s something I believe. But at the time, I thought differently.

It feels very strange to be back in Japan now, sitting here at my desk thinking about those three years. When I look back, I get a mysterious sense of absence. The feel of empty space. A sense of floating, or being within a flow. My recollection of those three years drifts around in the gap produced by levitation and gravity. Those years are lost, in a certain sense. But in another sense, they have a tight grip on the reality within me. I feel the distinct clip of the memories somewhere on my body. The long arm of the memories has reached out from somewhere amongst the darkness of unreality and grabbed the real me. I want to express to someone what that feeling means. But I don’t have the corresponding words to do so. Perhaps like some feelings it can only be expressed as a metaphorical whole.

*

I was turning 40. That was one thing that compelled me to go on a long trip. But it wasn’t just that. There were a number of other reasons I wanted to get away from Japan. That included several positive reasons and several negative reasons. Practical reasons and metaphorical reasons. But I don’t want to get into them now. Because at this point, I honestly don’t care about them at all. They are neither here nor there to me, and likely neither here nor there to the reader as well. No matter what kind of realistic reasons compelled me to travel, the long trip washed away the original reason that generated it. At least in effect.

That is, one day, suddenly, I had to go on a long trip.

To me, that feels like the ideal reason to go on a trip. It’s simple and persuasive. And it doesn’t overgeneralize anything.

One day I woke up, and when I listened carefully, I could hear the sound of drums somewhere far in the distance. The sound of the drums came to me from somewhere far away, from some time long ago. Ever so faintly. And as I listened to them, I felt I had to go on a long trip.

That should be enough, no? I heard distant drums. At this point, that feels like the only honest reason that compelled me to travel. (15-16)

もちろん、どこにいようと、人はだらだらと歳を取ってしまうものだ。日本にいようが、ヨーロッパにいようが、どこでも同じだ。歳を取るというのはそういうことだからだ。そして逆の言い方をすれば、日常にかまけてだらだらと歳を取ることができるからこそ、人はまだなんとか正気を保っていられるのだ。僕も今では—四十になった今では—そう思う。でもその時には、それとは別な考え方をしていた。

今こうして日本に帰ってきて、机の前に座ってその三年間のことを考えていると、とても不思議な気分になる。ふりかえってみると、そこには奇妙な欠落感がある。質感のある空白。ある種の浮遊感、あるいは流動感。その三年間の記憶は、浮遊力と重力の作り出す狭間を流されるように彷徨っている。その年月はある意味では失われている。でもある意味では、それは僕の中の現実にしっかりとしがみついている。僕はその記憶のクリップをはっきりと体のどこかに感じ続けている。記憶の長い手が、非現実の暗闇のどこかから伸びて、現実の僕を摑んでいるのだ。僕はその質感の意味を誰かに伝えたいと思う。でも僕はそれに相当する言葉を持たない。それはある種のこころ持ちがそうであるように、おそらく比喩的な総体としてしか示せないものなのだ。

*

四十になろうとしていたこと。それは僕を長い旅に駆り立てたもののひとつである。でもそれだけではない。日本を離れようと思ったのには、その他にもいくつかの理由があった。そこにはいくつかのポジティヴな理由があり、いくつかのネガティヴな理由があった。いくつかのプラクティカルな理由があり、いくつかのメタフォリカルな理由があった。でも今はもうそれについては触れたくない。今となっては、それは本当にどうでもいいことになってしまっているからだ。僕にとってもどうでもいいことだし、おそらく読者にとってもどうでもいいことだろうと思う。たとえどのような現実的な理由が僕を旅行に駆り立てたにせよ、その長い旅はそれを発生せしめたそもそもの理由なんかどこかに押し流してしまったのだ。結果的に言えば。

そう、ある日突然、僕はどうしても長い旅に出たくなったのだ。

それは旅に出る理由としては理想的であるように僕には思える。シンプルで、説得力を持っている。そして何事をもジェネラライズしてはいない。

ある朝目が覚めて、ふと耳を澄ませると、何処か遠くから太鼓の音が聞こえてきたのだ。ずっと遠くの場所から、ずっと遠くの時間から、その太鼓の音は響いてきた。とても微かに。そしてその音を聞いているうちに、僕はどうしても長い旅に出たくなったのだ。

それでいいではないか。遠い太鼓が聞こえたのだ。今となっては、それが僕を旅行に駆り立てた唯一のまっとうな理由であるように思える。 (15-16)