The first ‘Haruki Murakami Festival’ in Manila: Delving deep into Murakami’s worlds

Ni Jovelyn Javier

“Murakami’s work is contemporary art because it has so many interpretations.”  

Ito ang pagsasalarawan ni The Japan Foundation – Manila’s Assistant Director, Tetsuya Koide kay renowned writer Haruki Murakami, na kamakailan lang ay ipinagdiwang ng mga “Harukists” ang mga obra nito sa pamamagitan ng paglulunsad ng The Japan Foundation – Manila (JFM) sa kauna-unahang “Haruki Murakami Festival” na tumakbo ng pitong araw.

Nauna na itong idinaos sa Seoul, Singapore, at Tokyo.

A journey in life in a magical-realist world

Ayon kay Alona Guevarra (Ateneo) sa talk nito na Murakamiesque: Understanding the Fiction of Murakami Haruki, “The Murakami hero – to succeed, one must bend social justice (despite the system not changing) but is firm on changing himself.”

Madalas ang mga karakter nito ay “set between the banal and the fantastic” o “between the material and the frivolous” na naghahanap ng kanilang pagkakakilanlan sa pamamagitan ng “sealing over the lack” o “living with the lack.” At ang mga tema ay tumatalakay sa “critic of the urban living” at “exploration of the dark side.”

Dagdag pa ng propesor na nagsimulang basahin si Murakami noong 1995, “The consumption of pop culture ironically serves as Murakami’s grip on pragmatic reality, as well as the Bubble Economy, on how he offers resistance to his novels, champions the everyday man, and problematize the middle class experience.”

Ani Guevarra, para kay Murakami ay may three-pronged evaluation na kailangan ang mga manunulat – imagination, intelligence, at focus.

Murakami: Running and Writing

“No one ever taught me how to write, and I’ve never made a study of writing techniques. So how did I learn to write? From listening to music. And what’s the most important thing in writing? It’s rhythm. I’m a jazz lover, so that’s how I set down a rhythm. No one’s going to read what you write unless it’s got rhythm. It has to have an inner rhythmic feel that propels the reader forward.” – Haruki Murakami.

Bahagi ito ng The Three R’s of Murakami: Rhythm, Routine, and Running talk ni poet-essayist at Rappler correspondent, Frank Cimatu, na nakilala si Murakami sa short story na “A Shinagawa Monkey” na unang inilathala sa The New Yorker magazine.

Ani Cimatu, istrikto si Murakami sa kanyang routine – nagsisimula siyang magsulat nang alas-kwatro ng umaga sa loob ng lima hanggang anim na oras, tumatakbo ng 10 kilometro pagkatapos magsulat, at natutulog kapag alas-nuwebe na ng gabi.

Dagdag naman ni Achilles Mina, editor-runner, “Running is his insurance that he will continue writing great novels, and he’s always competing with his old self when he’s running while listening to rock music.”

Bagaman maagang namulat si Murakami sa jazz nang siya ay 15-taong-gulang, napagtanto na lang niya na gusto niyang magsulat sa edad na 29 habang pinapanood si Dave Hilton ng Yakult Swallows na tumatakbo sa pagitan ng 2^nd at ^3rd base sa isang baseball match noong 1978, at 33 naman siya nang nagsimula siyang tumakbo.

Foremost appeal to Filipino readers and internationally

“Play on the dreamword. Like Kurt Vonnegut. He gives you this psychological puzzle and lets you drown in them. Compared to Western literature, he never ties loose ends by the end. It’s almost like a hole,” ang paglalarawan pa ni Mina sa worlwide appeal ng mga nobela ni Murakami.

Bilang isang Pinoy na mambabasa, para kay Guevarra, “He offers a different experience, different model, a new way of looking at reality, or at looking at myself on a personal level.”

“We read him and consume him because we see ourselves,” ang saad ni Julz Riddle (Ateneo) ukol dito. At ayon pa sa isang Chongguk University professor, “readers develop empathy to the Japanese of their age through Murakami.”  

Isa rin sa mga interesanteng istilo ni Murakami ang naiibang tingin sa mga kababaihan. Ayon kay Mary Thomas (Ateneo), “Women read Murakami to find alternative ways of being a woman. And the woman is always important to the man in his stories, a part of his being.”