What I Talk About When I Talk About Running by Haruki Murakami

October 3, 2008 by william alberque  Send to a Friend

When I read a Murakami novel, I never quite know what will happen. His imagination – unpredictable, strange, wondrous – is his best quality. The narrative voice he uses is strange – awkward, insecure, almost bumbling – and somehow intensely engaging, drawing the reader in. The situations usually start with the familiar, the normal – even when set in that alien world known as Japan – and then, rapidly, crosses into worlds of fantastical strangeness, before dumping the reader back in reality. Through all of his works – fiction, non-fiction, short stories, novellas and long-form novels – I have never quite known what to think of the author behind these works, but I’ve suspected a mercurial, brilliant, outgoing fantasist. So, I was quite surprised to learn that this is not the case.

Murakami’s latest all-to-brief offering is called What I Talk About When I Talk About Running, named for a book of short stories by Raymond Carver, What We Talk About When We Talk About Love.* It’s a fast book, patched together from a series of autobiographical sketches, each built around a race he’s about to run. More than that, it’s an amazing, if brief, study – a sketch – a nocturne – of a self-portrait, a removal of the author’s mask, a distillation of who Murakami is, why he writes, and, more importantly, how he creates these enthralling stories.

The shock for me, though, came in understanding what a normal guy he seems to be. A bit of an outsider, sure, but happily married. Went to college, worked in a record store, opened a bar, got tired of that, wrote his first novel (in 1979, at the age of 30), and became a literary success. Felt unhealthy, smoked too much, gained too much weight, so, naturally, became a runner. Of course. He had already learned that writing was an intense discipline, a supreme effort of willpower to create and move the characters from the beginning, though the story, to the end. Running, then, was no problem at all. A pair of shoes, a walkman (or not), and the desire to set a goal, understand how to reach the goal, and exercise the willpower to reach it.

Murakami takes us through a series of competitive runs – marathons, triathlons, and an ultra-marathon, that he’s participated in (never won, nor come close) and tells us about his preparations, how he thinks they influence his writing, and vice versa. What would, in other hands, seem mindlessly self-indulgent, here seems a vital, precise, brilliant and understated guide to life and doing whatever it is you want to do. Self-help from someone who would never describe himself as a success. Advice on how to meet people from a shy guy. One of the greatest living authors telling us how he loves running along the Charles River and seeing pretty women running by while listening to his favorite jazz records.

I wouldn’t recommend you start with this book to fall in love with Murakami’s writing. But if you’ve been bitten, if you’ve read anything else by him, and are intrigued, this is an immensely satisfying and generous book. A kind, patient, somehow-inadequate-yet-intensely-wonderful self-portrait – a self-portrait painted by someone who cannot paint. But, man, can he write…

* Last year, I reviewed After Dark for BYT.

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