the forbidden wonderland of murakami

0:00The shadow is something that reminds you to not lose yourself and to not lose yourself into work, losing your passion and creativity, losing your emotions, right? There's a very important passage in Hard-Boiled Wonderland where the shadow talks to the buddy. They are in the city, I guess, and he visits the shadow, and he's like — because that was written during the economic bubble in Japan — and he's like, you know, the people living in all these busy towns only work, and they don't have anything on their mind, they don't have any emotions, they only have stress, and they need, you know, the stress is like their fuel to go on

0:47and live. But who are we if we don't have any creativity or emotions inside our— That's right.
I was wondering if it seems in some ways that the hard-boiled style is not Japanese at all.
Actually, I'm not interested in writing a hard-boiled mystery at all. So I just wanted to use that structure. So I'm using a hard-boiled mystery structure. I'm using a science fiction structure. I'm using a love story structure. I'm just interested in those structures and

1:39talking about the hard-boiled style, mystery style, and I'm interested in the fact that they are very individualist, you know, they are loners, 'cause it's not easy to live in Japan as a loner. Yes. And I'm a loner, you know, I'm an individualist. You are now experiencing the Nectar of Time. Welcome to another episode of Nectar of Time. I'm your host, Tamir Barzilai, and today we're going into the Murakami

2:27rabbit hole. Today's episode is a special episode because, as many of you know, I'm a huge Haruki Murakami fan. I own every single first print and first edition Haruki Murakami book published in the US, both on paperback and hardcover. This is a very exciting episode for me. I get to speak with someone who's just as passionate, if not more passionate, about Murakami's work and really dive into why we're so passionate about it. Today's guest is a true Murakamian. Salih Yayar is a student, or shall I say citizen, of the many worlds and universes of Haruki Murakami's literature. Salih has created some of the most popular digital channels for spreading the gospel of

3:15Haruki Murakami online. He creates documentaries on YouTube, runs a book club, and even has his own podcast called Convo on the Shore. His passion is infectious, and his style is intellectual and elegant. On today's episode, Salih shares his perspective on the hidden wisdom contained in Murakami's perplexing labyrinths and how we can take those ideas and integrate them and use them in our own lives to enhance our own perspectives. And if you're not familiar with Haruki Murakami, I hope with this episode you'll get just a glimpse into the epic universe that holds so many beautiful truths and horizons and vistas of life. Thank you, and please enjoy the Nectar of

4:04Time. Salih, welcome to Nectar of Time.
Thank you very much.
We haven't known each other for too long. This is sort of our first conversation, but I feel like I know a little bit about you just from all of the videos that you've posted and your YouTube channel and everything. Where are you calling from right now today?
First of all, thanks for having me. Thanks for hanging out. I'm from Germany, actually. So it's 5:30 p.m. right now, and quite exciting to talk to you. Well, I do have a few questions today, and I do usually have these episodes anchored around a specific theme, and I guess the problem with Murakami is there's too many

4:53potential themes to isolate, which is why you have an entire channel dedicated to Murakami, because you could basically just talk about this endlessly. I mean, there's so many areas to explore, people to explore, archetypes, psychology, whatever you want — whichever topic, you could find an interesting topic there. I think for this episode today, what interested me the most to talk about was something that is a published book by — and I mentioned this to you in the chat — but by Matthew, I think his name is Matthew Carl Strecher. And he wrote this book called The Forbidden Worlds of Haruki Murakami. And this is someone who has studied

5:42Murakami and actually met Murakami at his university where he was studying. I can't remember if that was in the '80s or the '90s, but he's sort of been around. He's met all the translators, like Jay Rubin and Philip Gabriel and Alfred Birnbaum and all the names, right? So he came up with this book to discuss the reality and the unreality — he wouldn't call it that, but the real world and the metaphysical world of Haruki Murakami's books, and sort of why he's taking us there. Like, what's the point of, you know, whichever protagonist is sitting in the well and, you know, going through the walls, whichever book you want, what is the point of that? And

6:32what does that do for us as a reader? Does it have a greater message? And I think that's a pretty interesting topic to discuss. I don't know that we need to jump into that right away, but I do want to touch on that on this show today, at least the surface level, because obviously the guy wrote an entire book on it. So obviously that could be a really long podcast. But before we get into that, now that I've sort of set the theme, and I hope you're okay with that, I would love to know how you got into Haruki Murakami, because everyone has their story of how they got into Murakami, and I'd love to know yours. So, Salih, if you want to take it away.
Sure. Sure. So I got into Murakami around seven years ago. That was in April

7:222018.
And, you know, I've always been an avid reader, but the books that I read before were always centering around sci-fi or movies, you know, nothing comparable to Murakami. And my main issue at that time was that I was quite stressed, I didn't feel good, and that was also when I just passed the magical 30. I guess that's the main issue with almost every—
What year did you say this was?
2018. Seven years ago.
2018. Okay.
Yeah. Yeah. 2018.
Now, I restarted my life at that point. So I started a new job half a year ago, and which was quite — I always say it was

8:11an escape, because the thing that I did before didn't make me happy at all. You know, I've been traveling around a lot, but it was always, you know, for the purpose of business. It was nothing like, you know, traveling around and seeing places. Always rushing from one place to another. And I had a lot of difficulties to focus on something I really like. I always had these kinds of hobbies, like video editing, photography, and, you know, traveling. But I didn't have any chance to live it, right?
And then for my 30th birthday, I got this voucher from my family for the local bookstore, and I said, "Okay, you started to research things. Now you can also

8:59start to, you know, get into something different." And I just went into this bookstore. It was a very, very shiny spring day. Really beautiful, just like you can imagine in a film. And they displayed Killing Commendatore quite heavily in the store, right? So I just went in. The name sounded familiar to me, but I didn't have any background, right? So I just opened the book right in the store, went through the first pages, and I was like, "This guy is exactly doing what I would like to do right now." He has, you know, he just escaped from the city, went to the countryside and starts painting, and some very strange things are happening. And yeah, took the book and finished it in three or

9:46four days, I guess. And yeah, that was the point that got me hooked, and, you know, I purchased every other book I could get into my hands, and yeah, that was the initial start. Wow. So Killing Commendatore was the first one.
Yep. Which sounds quite random to others if I talk to them, because everyone started earlier than me. And, you know, Killing Commendatore is one of those,
I guess, quite underrated works, but it did something to me, right?
Yeah. It definitely did not get a good review from critics.
Yeah.
When it came out, but I personally found it to be incredible. I mean, it's—

10:34I know you have those memes online where it's like "the masculine urge to go do this or that." This is like the masculine urge to just leave your life and go live in a mansion and paint. Yeah,
but yeah, there's something about Killing Commendatore specifically that hits on all of the regular hallmarks of Murakami, right? It's almost like a composite of all of his cool concepts. Like, you have the well, you have the freshly made ears, you have the, you know, the entire metaphysical world. That was an interesting one. But what

11:20made you — what drew you into it? Because it's one thing to read a metaphysical book, magical realism book. There's a lot of those out there, right? What about Murakami really hit you that made it special? Because this is really important to articulate. There's some authors that just do a little bit extra for you, right? And Murakami is one of those authors. So,
yeah,
can you pinpoint it? Are you even able to pinpoint it, or are you still figuring that out?
I can try. You know, I have a lot of thoughts about it. I think for me the most important point was that things can happen in your life, right? But maybe it's easier to cope with them if you form them into metaphors. So if you have something menacing in your life, just imagine this

12:09is a small Commendatore sitting in the corner, tries to threaten you, but actually it's not real. You see it, but you don't need to take it too serious, right? And the way he just throws things into the reality and doesn't create a whole new world, but you're still in the reality — I think that's something that makes it quite easy to understand and to cope with.
So it's that infusion into sort of the regular life.
Yeah.
That makes it special.
Yeah. You know, just imagine if you watch stuff like Star Wars or Lord of the Rings, which create a whole new universe, you always have this barrier

12:57in front of you, because you can't enter this world. But if you have something like this, like the magical realism, which just has the regular environment that you are used to, it makes it easier to imagine. That's the thing that stuck with me.
Yeah. Interesting. Yeah, for me it wasn't Killing Commendatore, but it was actually Hard-Boiled Wonderland. It was my first book.
Beautiful.
Which is kind of a heavy one to start with, and it's so non-normal Murakami. I feel like obviously we got The City and Its Uncertain Walls, which, by the way, I'm currently reading, so we can't do any spoilers on that one, but I've read all

13:45the other books. But that universe, we didn't get since — when did he write it? Like '89 or something he wrote Hard-Boiled?
'85, I think.
'85.
Yeah.
Boom. And that was the last time we got that flavor of Murakami, right?
Yeah.
So, and when I was reading up on Murakami, apparently this was an interview ten years back, but he was asked what is his favorite novel that he wrote, and it was Hard-Boiled Wonderland, was his favorite, that he said.
And so I always thought, okay, well, I'm starting with the guy's favorite one. And I ended up coming across it because during COVID, so in 2020 — so

14:33I'm pretty new to Murakami as well. And I have some friends that read it in high school, and I'm like, I'm so jealous that they got to read it in high school. I wish I read this in high school. But I was in a book club, and I joined the book club because of COVID, 'cause there's nothing else to do, and I would only read — sort of similar to you, I was really involved in business,
and reading non-fiction books all the time. So I'd go to my bookstore, and I'd be picking up all of the psychology books and the business books and the self-help books and everything to optimize and, you know, grow and whatever,
which I've talked about on this podcast before. That's great, but you're

15:20missing out on an entire other side of the world that exists, right? If you're just optimizing all the time, you're going to become really efficient, and you're going to have no personality, right? So I joined this book club, and it was books that I would never pick myself, ever. And I thought that was good, like, I can expose myself to new ideas and new concepts. And then someone mentioned Murakami, and I'm like, who is this Murakami? And then I follow — do you know Neil Strauss? He wrote The Game. He's a journalist for Rolling Stone magazine. But anyways, he's this pretty prolific modern writer and journalist, and he had this book club for COVID also

16:08online, and the book that he chose was Hard-Boiled Wonderland. And so I made a recommendation to my group, and I said, "Hey guys, you guys mentioned Murakami is good. Have you guys read this one?" They said, "No, we haven't read this one before. Let's check it out." So we all read that together, and, Salih, I remember finishing that book. I did it on audio, so it doesn't count as reading per se, but I listened to it, and it took me maybe two weeks. When I started it, the first chapter was like, what on earth is this? Like, what? What am I reading?

16:56And then, if you remember the opening scene in Hard-Boiled Wonderland, he's just in that elevator that's like a never-ending elevator, going to the scientist or professor or whatever.
And then anyways, fast forward a couple weeks later, I finished reading it on a walk, on a really long walk. And I remember just at the end of the walk, I took my headphones out, and I'm like, "What the hell just happened?" And at that moment, I had never in my life experienced something like that. That was the first time that I felt those feelings and emotions and just sheer wonder after reading a book. And I read many, many good books growing up, but this one, just as an adult, took things to

17:48another level. And yeah, that's what set me on the journey. So I think probably similar to you. It sounds like you really just got seduced by it.
Yeah, totally. And may I ask you how your feeling was exactly when you finished it? Did you feel sad or melancholic or something in between? Because when I finished it, I was a little bit sad, to be honest. What were you sad about?
When the shadow talks to the protagonist, and
I don't remember it very clearly, but it was this hard goodbye, which made me really, really sad, and I read it in winter. So I think that's when the depression kicked in. But

18:34yeah,
I don't know.
Yeah. I wonder if I can see here. I mean, we can't really spoil it too long, but I'm trying to see if I can, 'cause the last chapter, I think, is—
Well, I got it. I got it here, but I need to translate it from German in my head. So,
yeah, there's some interesting stuff, like, you know, at the end — spoiler alert, you know, skip ahead, probably. I'll put a little timestamp here for people,
but there's this line, I think, when — 'cause the shadow is talking to him, right?
Yeah.
And he says, "I have discovered the reason

19:21the town exists." "I don't want to know." He says, "Because I already know. You yourself created this town. You made everything here. The wall, the river, the woods, the library, the gate, everything. Even this pool, I've known all along." "Then why did you not tell me sooner?" "Because you would have only left me here like this. Because your rightful world is there, outside."
Yeah.
"My shadow sits down in the snow and shakes his head from side to side. 'But you won't listen, will you?' 'I have responsibilities,' I say. 'I cannot forsake the people and places and things I have created. I know I do you a terrible wrong. And yes, perhaps I wrong myself, too. But I must see out

20:08the consequences of my own doings. This is my world. The wall is here to hold me in. The river flows through me. The smoke is me burning. I must know why.'" Yeah, that's heavy. Yeah, that really made me sad. You know, also when he says, you know, "I'm staring at the point where my shadow vanished, but I don't see anything." I was like, I wish you all the best. I kind of like you, but, you know, that's what the shadow said. And I was like, man, he's talking about so many things here. Identity, self-confidence, imagination. Yeah.
Yeah. Yeah, it's a deep book. That's what was really incredible

20:57about it. It's not — you know, Murakami also sometimes gets some flak and some criticism for — which I think is very misguided. People get fixated on, "Oh, he writes women so shallowly, and he's too fixated on sex," and this and that. But I think they're just being, I don't know, unnecessarily picky about things that don't really matter. For me, there's a lot of weird sex scenes in Hard-Boiled Wonderland, actually. But who cares? That's part of life. And we know that the reason these women are sort of written in a shallow way is

21:47because they're not actually women, are they? These are Jungian animas, essentially, that are popping up in his dreams as essentially conduits of messages. It's like in Greek mythology, you have a god that appears to send you a message, like Athena in the Odyssey, for example. She appears to Telemachus in a disguise in order to send him a message to say, "Hey, you need to go find your father, Odysseus." And I find that the women in Murakami's books have the same purpose, right? Their purpose is to go send the protagonist a message to either discover something outside or inside of himself. Most of the time it's inside of himself. But I'm curious about

22:34your thoughts on that.
Yeah, I think he has the stamp — no matter how he writes women, he will always be labeled as sexist, or — doesn't matter. In some parts I can agree. For example, in 1Q84 there are some unnecessary passages, but that's fine. Still, Aomame is a very strong character, and still, it's coming out of his pencil, right? So he can write good characters.
And you always need to differ: is he telling the story from the perspective of a man, maybe of a young man, like in Norwegian Wood? Are these the thoughts of a young man,
or is it told from the perspective of a grown man, or from a woman herself? Now, I—

23:24you really need to differ. I would never say that he is sexist, because the characters in his books are always very rich and strong, and they have the backgrounds, and they don't need certain passages to be strong or to stick inside your mind for a long time. If you can differ, you can still enjoy his books for a very long time, right? So in 1Q84 there are some difficult passages, but most of the parts are totally, I would say, unproblematic, right? Yeah, I would agree. Yeah, you can find problems if you want to look for problems, and if you go with the benefit

24:12of the doubt, which is what I usually go with — which my book club used to hate me, because I would always go in with benefit of the doubt for every author that we read, because I read books with such awe. I'm like, "Wow, I don't even know how you came up with this stuff." I'm just impressed that you were able to put a book together. I find it very difficult to critique novels, even novels that maybe I don't really like, because I just know the effort that has gone into it, and I'm like, okay, even if I don't maybe necessarily — it's not my taste,
it's difficult for me to rate a book, honestly, less than three stars out of five.
Same. Same.
Yeah.
I'm like, dude, maybe this is probably really good. Maybe I just don't get

24:58it, but it seems really good. Yeah. So I guess moving on. And before — yeah, 'cause there's a lot more deeper topics, so we can get deeper, but I just want to bring it back for a second, back to your YouTube channel. So for those that don't know — well, you probably would have known with the intro, but just to get a bit more deeper into it — Salih creates these mini documentaries and videos on YouTube highlighting Murakami stories. I think you also run a Facebook group for Murakami as well.
Yeah, I just support the group as an admin, but it's not my own

25:45group. Yeah. Okay, gotcha. But at the very least, you're involved with these Facebook groups. I'm a part of two or three Murakami Facebook groups. There's also a Murakami subreddit that I follow.
There. You've added to this ecosystem of Murakamians, if you will. And I'm just wondering, why does this exist? Why are we all looking for this? We can go read the books. Why do we want more? I'm curious about feedback that you've received, and also what made you compelled to create a channel and make these long-form — some of these documentaries are almost an hour long. So what compelled you

26:33to do that, and what do you feel compels all of these other people to participate in all of this?
You know, from my own perspective, I've always been a very visual guy, right? I need to visualize things. And when I read all these books and all these descriptions and metaphors you mentioned, or if he describes a certain character, I was like, man, I need to see this. I need to see this somehow. And I Googled some things, and I found some, you know, sketches and drawings and graphics. I was like, that's not enough. It's beautiful, but it's not enough for me, right? And I was wondering, so why are there so few movies about him? You know, almost every novelist has some sort of novels that got filmed,

27:22right? But
in Murakami's world, it's always short stories that get a movie release, but, you know, the very major projects are just books, which is beautiful, because I think if we only rely on movies, which can't capture everything that a book captures, we're lost, right? We need books. But still, you know, this universe he has created amazed me in a, let's say, very specific way. And I've always been into films and filming myself and filming stuff and travels. And I said, why not combine this? Because when I read a book, I'm always like, I need to do something with it. Either I need to talk to someone about it, but, you know, I don't have

28:10many Murakami fans around me, so just online, but not in the real world. And I was like, I need to do something with it. Why not try to capture the essence of one book? And this is how this just started. You know, I went through all my hard drives and looked up, you know, what I filmed in the past years, combined with some stock footage, with some graphics and music, and that's how the thing started. And if I talk to other people, they're always like, yeah, all these descriptions in the book, which are very, very detailed and, you know, rich in colors, rich in words — I need to visualize them. And that's the thing, I guess, which drives us to see and to watch all these

28:59things.
Right. And so I guess you also touched on the fact that there's not too many people in your regular day-to-day that you can discuss Murakami with. So I guess that
is the reason why these groups exist online, that they just need to be discussed, because they're so mysterious and
wonderful and confusing.
Yeah, exactly. That's it. You know, in Germany, a very common genre in Germany is crime, Scandinavian crime or German crime books, or love stories. But Murakami also has a very huge fan base here in Germany, but it's spread all over the country.
And the city that I'm living in is a

29:46very book-loving city. We have many libraries here, bookstores.
Where are you?
It's around one hour from Dortmund, between Dortmund and Hannover, so West Germany. The city's name is Gütersloh, which is a very beautiful city. I love to live here. But, you know, Murakami is still a niche, right? I guess that's the thing, why you connect to people online, because you need to let all these thoughts out, right? Yeah. There's something about it that you need to share and discuss and appreciate, especially — it's sort of like, and Murakami is still alive

30:35too, you know, and it's really cool to know, what's happening next? Is there any more? Is The City and Its Uncertain Walls the last novel?
Somehow I don't think it is, 'cause he hasn't necessarily said that it is. I mean, do you know if it is or not? So he hasn't announced anything, but he is more present than ever before, right? So he's attending a lot of, let's say, events right now and does a lot of readings, and maybe, you know, there's something in the tank, I guess.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Well, it's all his running. Dude's in great shape.
Yeah.
And what is he, 76?
Yep. 76.

31:21Yeah. So, yeah, at 76 you can be still quite young, right? Like a lot of 76-year-olds running for president.
Yeah.
You know, so I think he's still got a lot of juice in him. And the Japanese, you know, are just notoriously in great shape, and
you know, good diet, and
blah blah blah. It's my goal. I would really like to go interview Murakami. If I can interview Murakami
in person,
that would be pretty epic. So yeah, I think maybe I'm going to — my goal for 2026. I don't think it's going to happen this year, and I'm too small for now, but I was able to get some pretty cool high-profile

32:09guests, actually. I haven't released those episodes yet,
so we'll see what happens. But that would be epic. But I wonder if he would do it in English, because he can speak English.
Yeah.
But he doesn't do many interviews in English. They're very rare.
Very, very rare. Yeah. He's—
Yeah. Have you heard those BBC ones?
Yes.
Those are so cool.
Yeah. Listen to them. Yeah. Yeah. It's—
Yeah.
I could listen to this guy for hours. Right. So,
Mhm.
But that's the thing. He is very reclusive, and he chooses very wisely. So,
yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
There were also some interviews in Germany only released in text form, right? So

32:58Mhm.
But maybe one day we have the chance to talk to him.
Would be so, so cool.
If I get an invite, I'll call you up.
Yeah, definitely.
We'll set up the travel plans. But, you know, here's my question for you, because this is the question that I would ask him. Okay,
Murakami got married very young,
right? And in that era it was not that young. In that era it's pretty normal, right? 'Cause I think he was maybe 23, 24 when he got married.
Or maybe even earlier.
Yeah,
possibly earlier. We know he did his jazz club, and him and his wife ran the jazz club together. They had a couple of them, or a bar, jazz club, whatever you want to call it.
And that he didn't actually start writing until he was 30 years old, or

33:45that was his first flash of inspiration, at the baseball game, right? And for those that are not aware of this — obviously this is a very in-depth podcast today, but for those that are not aware — Haruki Murakami did not write his first novel, or novella in that case, until he was 30 years old, and he got inspiration as a flash of — I don't know, it was just a flash that came to him while he was watching a baseball match of his favorite team. And that team ended up — they were one of the worst teams to end up winning the league that season. And so all these serendipitous things happened. He submitted this manuscript and then forgot about it for six months,

34:33and then he was told that he won an award for it. And the whole thing is very, very cool, and that's an entire other conversation, but that's just for the listeners that maybe are being introduced to Murakami here for the first time. Very fascinating character, and never give up. You don't need to be writing at 15 years old in order to write. Sometimes we also don't know what to write until later in life. Some might argue 30 is too early even to start writing. So,
true.
Yeah.
And I'm curious, actually, before I get into it, do you write at all? What I did in the past was I was writing movie reviews for an online magazine. And I started to write a novel last year, but

35:24it's quite difficult. You know, I always have thoughts in my mind, but bringing them on paper is a different thing. Right.
Right. And sometimes I don't write for a month or two, you know, always some words, something that, you know, if something pops up in my mind, I just write it down. But I guess it will be a very long process, but I'm not pushing myself anyway, so it's fine. Do you write?
Yeah. Well, that's interesting that it's in there. It's somewhere in there, and you never know when it's going to come up. Yeah, I do write. I have a couple short stories, one in particular where I think it's pretty ready to publish, and I sort of—

36:11I send this out to everyone when they ask me what I write,
what I write about.
But it's difficult to release just one short story. I feel like I need to have a few that I'm really confident in
and then release those together. But I just think now writing is gonna become such a — it was already a niche, rare skill in the digital era, or the fast information era, where writing — it's like, I don't know, just make a video, be a YouTuber or something, you know what I mean? It was already sort of on the decline, and now with AI, I feel everyone's very intimidated by it,

37:00because you can write a pretty awesome short story right now with AI, and it's only going to get better.
But I think it's going to be like,
okay, well, we've been able to create
fast manufactured clothes for a while. It just made the handmade tailored clothing a lot more expensive and a lot more luxurious. Before, everyone went to a tailor to get a suit,
right?
Now everyone just goes to H&M or Zara or whatever to get their suit. So I think it's going to be like that, where, yeah, the vast majority of content is going to be AI-generated, but then every once in a while you're going to want to read that handmade, human-made stuff, and that's going to be a delicacy for the

37:48mind. So I think I would love to participate in that in the future, but writing is just a lifelong endeavor. I don't know. I'm 30 right now. Maybe I'm not going to publish anything till I'm 40. I don't know, until I have the confidence. It's hard to say. Maybe the really good idea is not going to come. But I do want to write, and it just depends, I think, on the idea. I don't want to force it either, if that makes sense.
Yeah. You just got to trust the process. If it comes, it comes, and, you know, if you force it, it won't be the same as you planned.
And yeah.
Yeah. And I always say the writing for me — I've written a few things privately, and when I write, it's like an exorcism. I'm trying to remove

38:37something from my body, and that's not a daily thing for me. That's maybe every few months I get that urge to take it out. And you also need to find the time.
Yeah.
But that was a little bit of a tangent. I want to go back, because I originally said I wanted to ask you the question that I was gonna ask Murakami, right? And so he marries young, he has this business. Him and his wife seem pretty close. Now, we don't know a lot about his wife. We don't know a lot about his love life. Yeah, when you read his books — at least for me, when I read his books, it feels sometimes to me that he's

39:26living vicariously through his characters, and he's living different timelines
in his life that could potentially exist through his books. For example, a lot of times he writes about a disgruntled marriage. He writes about a marriage that isn't actually going very well, and he needs to explore himself through other women in order to then come back to his wife. Okay, we saw this in Killing Commendatore. We saw this in The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle. And we see it also to some degree even in the Rat Trilogy,
where, you know, he wants Kiki, but he also wants to explore these other women.

40:16And specifically in Dance Dance Dance, the girl that works at the hotel, I forget her name,
but he's finding Kiki, but he's also — and to me it's like he wants to have a woman in the real world as a partner, and he also wants to have a partner in the unreal world. And both of those partners have almost equal significance. So I would simply ask him, I'm like, how much of these characters is you?
Yeah.
Right? How much of this is you living vicariously? And I feel like I might offend him, potentially, with that question, to question, you know, his

41:08happiness and his satisfaction in his marriage. But it begs the question, and I'm curious about your thoughts on all this.
I think he's a multiverse guy. Yeah, I can relate to this question, because I asked this myself as well, especially in South of the Border, West of the Sun.
Yeah, that's another one.
Yeah, he pushes it to the limit there, because he is almost, you know, so close to leave his wife. He betrays her. And I always thought, or I asked myself, is this a common thing in Japan? But turns out it's not, right? So it's a more common thing in his books, living this double

41:56life, let it be in the real world or in another universe. And he married young. That's the point. I guess he tries to relive his youth, maybe times he's missed. It's possible, right? But it could also be that he's creating all these characters just to, you know, give a little bit more essence into the story. It's very hard. It's very hard to differ, right? Because, for example, Tengo in 1Q84 also has several relationships, and also a relationship in transcendence, right? So he's having sex

42:44without touching anybody, right?
And Aomame gets pregnant without touching her,
and it was like—
Right.
What is this, right? So,
which also happened in Killing Commendatore.
Yes. Yeah. I guess you can ask him this question, and he's not getting offended at all, because there is a conversation between him and Mieko Kawakami, and she asked very specific questions about female characters in his books, and his reaction was quite relaxed. It was almost like, "Oh, I never thought about this. Oh, it's possible. Yeah, could be. I just write it down. Oh, what did I write there? I can't remember. What happened in 1Q84? Oh, okay." He's very aloof. He's very aloof like

43:33that. And I don't really like it. I need more answers.
I need more clarity from Haruki.
Yeah, there's— So, that's interesting to know that you have those same curiosities about him. I think we should know. We're not entitled to know,
but I think we should know. But I also understand that some of this is very private. I do think when you're writing from the soul, there's a lot of it that you're sharing with the world that maybe you don't want to get into the actual source code of where this is originating from. You're like, "Hey, this is enough that I'm sharing this with you. Enjoy it, but don't ask me too many personal questions about it." 'Cause

44:21he is a personal guy. But maybe I just find it odd that — while I haven't finished The City and Its Uncertain Walls, I know what it's about, and it's basically about young love that is from high school, and the guy's in his 70s writing about a young love in high school. I'm just thinking, why is he writing about that? You know, I get the argument — this is the argument of when he won the Jerusalem Prize and he gave the speech when he went to Israel, and he's making a political statement about the eggshell and the wall, and

45:10okay, maybe The City and Its Uncertain Walls is — again, I haven't finished it, but maybe it's another reference to resistance or something,
but I don't really buy it. I don't really buy it, to be honest. No, it's a mix. It's a mix. You know, he started this story in the '80s as well, which was a short story back in the days, I guess, right? You heard about it, and he just, you know, he expanded the universe a bit, because when he wrote this, it was during COVID, and there were the imaginary walls when you were locked up at home and couldn't leave the house, and also the war in the Ukraine started at the same time, or a year later,
right?
It's a mix, I guess. And he's also focusing a lot more on death in this book. So you can see that he has

46:00become older, right? And this is just — there's a lot of coincidence in his books, right? And the main issue with the Western audience, which we are — we are very used to get explanations for everything, right? So there are not many books or films that are open-ended for us. Like, you're watching a Christopher Nolan film. So many weird things happen in this film, but still you get a logical explanation at the end,
and we're used to it. We need something like this.
But if you just take a look at, let's say, Japanese or Asian films or content or books, it's normal that these things happen, and they don't ask for any

46:49explanation. They take it for granted, and that's maybe the main issue that we have, that we need to overexplain things. You know, I always catch myself — I need to understand why is this happening. But still, I made up my mind, I guess. Okay, this is Murakami. You won't get an explanation. Sometimes you get it, sometimes you don't. But I think that's the main issue that most readers have, and that distracts many readers from Murakami. I know many people — I talked to many people who said, "I read like five or six books. I don't like him." And I was like, "Okay, then why you kept reading him? Didn't you know that after two or three books?" "Yeah, but I wanted to understand him." Okay, interesting. Yeah, I guess for people who read a lot of books, then

47:36that's not a big deal, maybe, to go through five or six.
Yeah, there's— I actually know someone who recently — she painted for me. It's my friend Zoe. I'm going to do a podcast with her, actually,
about specifically 1Q84 and also art. And she's this really amazing artist. And she created a mural for my studio here.
And while she was doing the mural, she was listening to 1Q84, which was extra cool, because now I can say the mural was somewhat inspired by 1Q84. But there actually are glow-in-the-dark two moons that at nighttime light up, and you have a big moon and then the smaller

48:25green moon.
Beautiful.
Which is so unnecessary, but is pretty cool.
But she's big on books. She reads a lot, and 40 hours — that's how long 1Q84 is, right? It's just—
It takes you to another universe, right? Her reaction was so interesting, because she almost wanted to hate it, but it's just so compelling.
Yeah.
That you can't just hate it. You're confused by it. You're intrigued by it. Of course, the main criticism of 1Q84 is that it's way too long, that Murakami could have just chopped 25% of that away, but

49:13purist Murakamians like ourselves would say every word is perfect. I don't know what your thoughts on it are, but I need to know exactly how he's cooking his pasta, right?
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's extensive. It's really extensive. It's repetitive, but this is what we need, right? We need these repetitive passages, and
you know, for 1Q84, just an example, I was distracted by the passages that I've mentioned, right? But still, I wanted to know how it's going on, what will happen in the end, and I just caught myself in the double standard. I was like, I don't like these passages, it's oversexualized, it's unnecessary,

50:02but so it was like, "This book is so damn cool. I need to read it." Right.
Right.
Yeah. And that's the same with The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle. So we got a re-release in Germany, which is now over 1,000 pages long. The initial release was 600 pages.
Oh.
So, yeah. And I tell you why. Because the English version has been shortened. I guess it was Jay Rubin who decided to cut out some passages. He said they are unnecessary. How many pages you got over there?
Yeah. So this is the — I'm just trying to make sure. This is the Jay — yeah, this is Jay Rubin, and this is

50:50607 pages.
Yeah. And the German release, the initial one, has been translated from Jay Rubin to German at first, and in 2020 they took the Japanese original version and then retranslated it, and now it's over 1,000 pages. You see that blue book on my shelf over there?
Yeah.
Wait, wait, wait. This one?
That's The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle. Yeah. Yeah.
Wow.
Wait. So hold on a second. So you're telling me you have 400 extra pages of the story?
Yep.
Dude, I'm so jealous. What the heck? Wait, so
when is the English one coming?
Ask Jay. What the hell? What the hell?

51:39You know, there's—
We got to give it to someone else, then. Give it to Philip Gabriel or something.
Yeah. Yeah. The thing is, that's also very interesting. I don't know if you heard about it, but, you know, at first the books have been translated from English into German, right? And
they started to translate it from Japanese quite late. But guess what the reason was? The reason was a German TV show.
So they were discussing South of the Border, West of the Sun live on TV. There is a German TV show running since the '80s, which is called The Literary Quartet. So it's four hosts sitting down and discussing several book releases, right? And they were discussing South of the Border, West of the Sun,

52:26which has been translated from English to German, and they were talking about all these passages, like the intimate passages, and one of the hosts was like, "I don't like them. This is written like fast food. It's bad." And two other hosts started yelling at her, saying, "You don't understand the book. You're too prudish. This is a great book. These are the thoughts of a young man." And this one host decided to leave the show afterwards, after more than 30 years. And since then, the hosts are changing monthly. So they invite guests every month. And then the book has been retranslated from Japanese into German. And the one host that left the show was

53:15like, "The book is much better now." They got converted.
Yep.
Interesting. Okay, so we have something to look forward to. I mean, we got the new version of Hard-Boiled Wonderland in English,
right? So I actually bought it, but I haven't gotten around to reading it yet. 'Cause I imagine it's — well, I guess I don't know. Are you familiar with the differences in that version?
So the title has changed. It's the original title right now.
Yeah, it's backwards.
Backwards. Yeah. But I'm not sure what the other differences are. So,
Okay.
Yeah. Need to check it out. Definitely.
My understanding was it was an entire retranslation by — I think Alfred Birnbaum did the first version,

54:03and then Jay Rubin has done this version.
Okay. So it's a total new translation, but I'm not sure how much it actually changes the plot or anything, or if there's more passages and stuff. It sounds like this Wind-Up Bird is almost — you're getting a new book, almost, right? A new part.
Yeah.
Which is really exciting. So wait, did you read that new version yet?
Yeah. Yeah, I read it, and
and how different is it?
It's quite different, because these are whole chapters that have been left out. Oh, wow.
Whole passages
with — I can't remember the name of the mother and the son. What, like Cinnamon and—
Cinnamon? Yeah. Yeah.
Yeah.
More stuff with Cinnamon, and also more

54:51passages that were set in Manchuria, right?
So there was a whole chapter in Manchuria, which didn't add much to the story, but it added much to the vibe of the book. Yeah, that book, Wind-Up Bird, I think that's his greatest work.
Yeah,
I think it's just — I think all around,
Mhm.
there's just something about that book that is—
I don't know. It takes all of the — it's every single special attribute of Murakami books,
and infuses it into that. The only thing that maybe

55:38it doesn't have is the, you know, young love, coming-of-age stuff. It doesn't really have that, except maybe with May Kasahara, but not really with her.
So it's missing that trope, but it has almost every other trope.
True. It is. It is definitely in my top five, you know. My most favorite is Kafka on the Shore, because it has this—
Really?
Yeah. Unhinged creativity, you know.
But maybe it's a more personal thing. I'm not into cats or something. That's not the deal. But, you know, the old man Nakata really touched me on a different level. I don't know why.
Uh-huh.
Yeah. But—
Yeah, so my only qualm about Kafka — I love Kafka,

56:25but Kafka is a lot. Kafka just was an onslaught of weird.
Yeah.
It's relentless with the weirdness.
It's obviously very cool. It's an entire book about — is it the Oedipus story, essentially?
Yeah. And so I thought that was very, very cool. But the thing that kind of feels unfinished — which, again, that's my Western ideology and upbringing, that I need things to be finished. But the thing that feels unfinished is when you had that weird situation happening in the woods, where all of the kids kind of

57:17became unconscious, or whatever happened to them. We never get an explanation to that. Do you have an explanation to that? Why? Like,
what happened there? 'Cause it was so intense at the beginning of Kafka. There's all this paperwork and documents, classified documents that are being read, but then you never actually get anywhere, which I guess
is maybe like any UFO thing that happens ever. You don't get an explanation. But I'm curious your thoughts on it.
I think it's his take on World War II, right?
Some sort of attack from the clouds, right? From warplanes. Because he uses this theme in The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle as well,

58:05like the — what was his name? Lieutenant Mamiya.
Yeah.
And Honda. And, you know, Murakami himself was born shortly after World War II, and his father fought in World War II. And I think we underestimate the trauma that Japan still has of World War II, right? It's the same thing here in Germany. So we have been one of the major parts of World War II, and it's present in almost — you know, we talk a lot about it in school, and we talk about the historical responsibility and so on, and this is what he covers in his books as well. I think also in Kafka on the Shore, you still have the

58:54metaphors from KFC. What was his name again?
Colonel Sanders.
Colonel Sanders. And also—
Wait, what's the metaphor? What's the metaphor, aside from the fact that he's a pimp?
That's a good one.
Yeah. What's the other metaphor? I think I missed that. I think it's just the way Nakata copes with the past, that, you know, these planes are responsible for his loss of — how can we call it? You know, he's not an adult anymore. He still acts very childish, and he says about himself, "I'm stupid." Like, "I'm stupid," right? Which made me very sad.
Is this — are

59:43you referencing the United States's attack and bombing of—
I think that was the symbol, right? Because
in these documents they are mentioning — they always mention high-ranked officers and generals,
and it's not only Colonel Sanders, it's also the Red Label Johnnie Walker guy, right?
Right.
And maybe these are the symbols that stand for the Western influence in Japan, right? That he took those symbols, which are well known. I guess you can also take, like, Ronald McDonald.
Could also be a way to use this.

1:00:32But maybe that's his way to cope with it, right?
Interesting. Yeah.
This is something I saw. Yeah, actually, I saw this also in some YouTube videos. They were talking about it, right? So that's the influence of — and the way of, you know, the Japanese trauma, that they use these things to process the past. So I'm wondering if you could tell me a bit about the end of that book. And again, spoiler alert for those — we can put another timestamp here — who haven't read Kafka. But this is sort of going back to the original theme of this conversation, right? And the original theme that I wanted to discuss today was — and

1:01:22Strecher puts it really nicely. He calls it the forbidden worlds of Haruki Murakami. And I wish I brought the book, 'cause I had it with me. But these forbidden worlds — at some point we're in base reality, right? The base reality is
Kafka is sleeping at the library, right? And he is, you know, whatever. He's run away from home and blah blah blah. And then he's staying at the house in the mountain.
But then at the end of the book, he leaves through the forest and goes into this other portal. And we're not really sure where that portal is exactly, where it begins, where it ends. And this is

1:02:11a theme in many, many Murakami novels, right? You don't really know when reality ends and unreality begins. For a couple examples, right? In 1Q84, you have the highway where, you know, she — or the overpass, where Aomame goes over the overpass, climbs the ladder, boom, she's in 1Q84 all of a sudden. But also, there's a lot of debate. There's a lot of weirdness. Exactly. Again, where does 1Q84 end and 1984 begin? Right. And the same thing with Wind-Up Bird,

1:02:58with the well. You also have Killing Commendatore, with the well and the passageway that he goes through and being ferried across to the other side. There's a ton of these examples. And what are we supposed to make of these metaphysical places? Where are we? Have you given a lot of thought to this? 'Cause this is a huge part. It's like 50% of his books. 50% is in the real world. 50% is in this other world. What is this other world? Is this other world even a separate thing? Or potentially is it telling us that the real world is infused with these synchronicities, with this weirdness, that it's not separate, that it's maybe just a part of daily life? I

1:03:47I'm still kind of confused about it. And anyways, I'd love for you to say more, especially on the Kafka
side of things. So what I for myself explained was this limbo that they enter, that this is a neutral point between life and death, right? Because in this limbo, things are not like in the reality, because they are able to perform things that the body can't perform in the real world, right? And there's always this duality between Kafka and Nakata, right? So every time Nakata passes out, something horrible

1:04:35happens. Something he would never do. And this is the point where his mind enters the limbo and his body stays in the real world. And at this point, where you got the separation between body and mind, you lose the things that you're standing for, right? And this is also something that I got out of Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World, and also now The City and Its Uncertain Walls, because you got the separation between body and mind. And the shadow is something that reminds you to not lose yourself and to not lose yourself into work, losing your passion and creativity, losing your

1:05:26emotions, right? There's a very important passage in Hard-Boiled Wonderland where the shadow talks to the buddy. They are in the city, I guess, and he visits the shadow, and he's like — because that was written during the economic bubble in Japan — and he's like, you know, the people living in all these busy towns only work, and they don't have anything on their mind, they don't have any emotions, they only have stress, and they need, you know, the stress is like their fuel to go on and live. But who are we if we don't have any creativity or emotions inside our heads, right? And again, in Kafka on the Shore it's a little bit different, but it's also very hard to explain it. I sometimes have struggles to put it

1:06:14into words, but you have the theme in Kafka, like Kafka and Nakata are somehow connected, right?
Mhm. And Kafka is described as very mature for his age. And Nakata is very childish for his age. And maybe this is where the separation came, right? And they need to enter the limbo to perform all the acts that they can do. I think it's just the human spirit in this, and it tells us, like, don't lose yourself. Don't lose yourself into work. Never lose your creativity. Never lose your emotions, and do what you love. Because in the end, this is what he does. He knows how

1:07:03studying works. He knows how to run a jazz club, but now he's living the life he always wanted. He's just following his passion. He's writing, he runs, and the rest of the day doesn't have any schedule. I guess we all know his routine, or Murakami fans know his routine. He wakes up at 4:00, writes for several hours, then goes out running, and the rest of the day is unplanned, unscheduled, and then he goes back to sleep at latest 8 or 9 p.m., right? And this is — I think he's just trying to tell us his, you know, his — what is it called? Let's say his mantra. It's his mantra to live like this.
Yeah.

1:07:51So combining both worlds, even in your own life, not to get too caught up in, for example, making money and allowing life to pass you by and not actually participating, feeling, letting the weirdness of life take part and
be a significant component of your life. Yeah, because this is sort of an argument against nihilism, is what I see. There is meaning. You have to allow the meaning to come in. Don't block yourself away from it.
At least that's what I got

1:08:37from it. And specifically because he's a huge fan of Jung. Jung is all over his
his literature, and Jung is not a nihilist. He wrote that famous essay on synchronicity, and he tracked all the weird things that happened to him in his life and believed — I'm not really prepared today to do a deep Jungian-Murakamian overlay, but they both believed in this collective unconscious. And the connectivities, as if it's sort of like an iceberg, and everything above the iceberg is connected somehow beneath the iceberg to one another. Which is why he

1:09:27has all these tunnels and these wells and these portals, even like the Dolphin Hotel,
going up into the rooms and the hallways and stuff. There's this underlying infrastructure of connectivity that Murakami taps into that Jung describes as — I think Jung calls it unus mundus, like one world,
where everything is connected to one another. And that gives hope. I think ultimately that's the message, that — don't feel — it's like an argument against your existential crisis. You're going to have that existential crisis if you get too caught up in the regular, mundane, boring. Which is why he takes

1:10:17characters like in Wind-Up Bird and has the cat disappear and then has the wife disappear, and it's like this guy's life was about to
just become totally lost to obscurity.
Yeah.
Because he was a lawyer that was not happy with his job, and he was just living that life. If the cat didn't disappear and if his wife didn't disappear, he would probably be stuck in that world that you just described, that they refer to in Hard-Boiled Wonderland, as the people that take their jobs too seriously or whatever.
Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. Yeah. Did you read Abandoning a Cat, his

1:11:07short story?
Is that the one about his father? Yeah.
No. No, I don't think I fully read that one, because that's not in one of his short story collections. That was submitted to the New Yorker or something.
Exactly. It's an online story, and it's not really a story. It's more like he's telling a story from his past, and
you know, they had a cat at home, and one day they just decided to leave it at the beach, and they leave it there, and they drive home, and once they arrive home, the cat is already back, and they can't explain why. And, you know, that was his answer on why do you always have cats in your books, right? I

1:11:54mean, the cat is always very present in Japanese history and media, like the waving cat, the story of the maneki-neko,
right?
And — but I think his real fuel was this happening with the cat and his father, right? So he hides a lot of personal things in his stories. He's not telling too much, but I think many things of his past find their way into his novels at the end, you know, coping with the war and
this cat, and also Tengo's final meeting with his father,
right? Yeah. So you think that reflected his own reality a little bit?

1:12:44I think so. Yeah. That there are more influences than we think there are. Yeah.
Yeah. Well, he has to be pulling them from somewhere, right? There's only so much that he's getting from his day-to-day life. He has to be pulling it from his past somewhere, most likely.
But he's really just such a remarkable writer, and a very different writer than so many others. There's a lot of great writers. I love reading many other authors, but there's something about him that just keeps drawing me back over and over. And I haven't done a lot of the rereads yet. I'm going to get to the stage soon where I'm going to start rereading things, but I just finally finished the Rat Trilogy,
and finished Dance Dance Dance. And I

1:13:31thought Dance Dance Dance was incredible. It's definitely in the top five, for sure.
I love it.
At least in mine. I'm curious — I want to get to what your top five actually looks like. But before that, in Murakami's — the way he describes a lot of his characters, they're very imperfect. They have a lot of problems. Tengo, for example — I mean, dude is not in shape, things are not going well, he's balding, he's getting migraines, he's got a lot of trauma.
Yeah.
But all of his characters seem to be these passive, imperfect people. Do you think that's just to appeal to the general population, that, hey, these are not superheroes, these are

1:14:18regular everyday people? Or is there something else going on there?
No, I think so as well. And also, you know, a lot of characters are very reclusive and get sucked into situations they are not used to.
Right.
Right. Very introvert people that meet extroverted people, or people that tease them, right? And
yeah, that's a common theme, right? And I don't know if he does it because he just is like this himself, or if he just thinks that this is a good opportunity to, you know, create these situations that happen in the end.
Mhm. Yeah. It's,

1:15:07as is the case a lot of the times with Murakami, difficult to know his true
his true motivations for things. Okay. I want to know your favorite scene in any of his books.
Phew. That's difficult. Could be a favorite scene or a favorite character, I guess.
Favorite character is Nakata, definitely.
Right. Right.
But favorite scene could be — yeah, favorite scene is Tamaru and Ushikawa in 1Q84. That's so badass. I love this.
It's crazy.

1:15:55Yeah. I know there are much, much more beautiful scenes in his books, and, you know, I love Sputnik Sweetheart. I love The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle. I love 1Q84. Kafka on the Shore is my most favorite book. But I don't know why — you know, this is so organic, it's badass, and it's at a point where you are very thrilled to know what's going on, and then this character just comes in. And Ushikawa has always been a threat in the book. You were somehow afraid, right? And then Tamaru pops in, and it was like, "You know what? I'll bring this to an end right now. Sorry for this, but you got no chance."
Yeah.
The plastic bag, too.
The plastic bag. "Don't take it personal. It's just business," right?
Yeah.

1:16:43And your—
Yeah, that was really cool. Yeah. One thing on Ushikawa: I remember listening to the — so, 1Q84 is three books in one, essentially, right? And in Japan, it actually came out in volumes. And when I was listening to the audiobook, I didn't realize that it was three books.
I was just listening. So when the second book started, I thought, "Oh, okay. It's just a second book." And then when the third book started, it actually switches. So you have the Aomame chapter narrator, then you have the Tengo chapter narrator, and on the third book, the third book opens with the Ushikawa chapters, and now you're getting those chapters mixed in.
Yeah.
And it switched narrators to a new narrator.

1:17:30And that blew my mind when I was listening to it. And now it's a new narrator, and you get the perspective of Ushikawa. I was like, "Oh my God, this is so cool." So I thought that was really cool. But that's not really a scene. That's just sort of a comment on Ushikawa. I'll do my favorite character as well, and then I'll do my favorite scene. My favorite character is actually — it's difficult for me to say exactly who right now, but I did really like Menshiki in Killing Commendatore.
Yeah, he's cool.
He's really cool. He's more of a side character than a main character, if anything. But

1:18:18the protagonist in Dance Dance Dance is unnamed in that whole trilogy. I think he's unnamed, right? I don't think he has a name.
No.
Yeah. So he's pretty cool, too. My favorite scene is — you know, I asked this question, and then I didn't really narrow it down on my end, but
it's difficult. It's really difficult.
It's really difficult to pick exactly one. I really like the execution of the Leader in 1Q84.
Mhm.
I thought that was just very, very interesting. I also really liked the scene in Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki

1:19:10where his friend is telling him this weird story about this guy that his dad met in the mountain.
Mhm.
At that random resort, or whatever that was at, or hotel, or whatever. I don't remember exactly what that was, but with Murakami scenes, sometimes it's not even about the content, but it's about the vibe. Yep. And there's a few situations where — what I really love that Murakami does is he takes a situation where some people are going out for a drink or having a cup of coffee, and there's just two of them, and they're sitting with each other, and it feels like they're in a totally different portal or universe

1:19:58or somewhere that
you're now about to embark on a totally new journey together. And so it happens with Menshiki in Killing Commendatore, where he comes over to hear the sound, like the bell that's going on, and they just sit there having some whiskey, and they're just talking.
There's all sorts of these scenes, like in Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki. They're just talking together in Tsukuru Tazaki's room. There's another scene like that where Creta Kano from The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle is talking about all of her story, of her pain in her life, and they're together, seated, and there's all

1:20:45like, whenever you have these one-on-one situations, you know there's going to be some incredible anecdotes that are about to be dropped.
Yes.
And that part I really, really love. I really love the Town of Cats
story in 1Q84.
And as far as a visual, I think the visuals that really got ingrained in my brain — the top one would be in Sputnik Sweetheart, where — I forget the name of the woman, but it's the older woman, when she's in France and she's on a Ferris wheel, and
she sees herself. She's on this Ferris wheel in some place in the countryside of France, and there's this little festival that's happening, and

1:21:33she's on the Ferris wheel by herself, and she can see, about a kilometer or so away, her—
Herself.
She can see her apartment, right?
And in her apartment, she sees herself in her apartment, and that's when her hair all of a sudden turns silver, turns gray. There's these very weird — I don't even know what to say about it, but in Sputnik Sweetheart, you have a lot of those. Especially when he's on the islands, all of a sudden he hears a pan flute
in the background,
and he goes chasing after that. That has stuck with me.
Yeah.
To this day, whenever I hear a pan flute, I'm like— and especially when I was in Greece.
Yeah.
Oh, because Pan— yeah. I could go on a whole tangent about this, and

1:22:22you just asked, "Hey, what's your favorite scene?" But I can just go on and on and on. There's so many incredible moments that just stick with you, and you can't get over it. You can't shake it. They're just there. You carry them with you. The scenes in Murakami novels you carry with you in your backpack for the rest of your life. Exactly.
You can't drop some of these scenes.
Yeah. Exactly. Absolutely. Yeah. Every time I see a Ferris wheel, I see Miu, right?
Yeah. Miu. Yeah. Exactly.
Yeah. I just read this passage last week again, when I was in Greece, and — but still, it's very layered, right? So he's — I don't know if we can talk about Sputnik Sweetheart right now, but, you know, he covers themes of

1:23:12— let's name it, it's rape, or it's an out-of-body experience.
It happened to her, and she tries to cope with it with the metaphor of the Ferris wheel, right?
And
he knows how to pack things. He knows — and in a very, very — how can we call it? It's a very creative way he does it, right? So the dialogues are always very organic. You know, when people talk to each other, it's like they're talking about weird stuff, but still it's very realistic, right? Just like if K talks to Sumire in Sputnik Sweetheart, they are totally different,
right?
You know, but the dialogues are just — it's beautiful to read them, and that's the Murakami vibe. Same for

1:24:01Dance Dance Dance. It doesn't have a plot at all, but still it has a plot, but you're caught up in '80s Tokyo. It has the vibe, right?
When I read Dance Dance Dance, I always have music in my mind. I have, like, night sky in my mind, like just watching Tokyo from a distance in the night, right?
Yeah.
It's a beautiful book, and people hate it. Most people hate Dance Dance Dance because they say, "Yeah, what's the point of Dance Dance Dance?" It's like, the point of Dance Dance Dance is just do it. Do whatever you can.
So I'm based in Vancouver, Canada, and there's a lot of used bookstores here.
And

1:24:48it's funny, 'cause almost every used bookstore is run by a 60-year-old-plus male who seems like he's unmarried and kind of like a Murakami character. And funny enough, Murakami books at used bookstores are incredibly difficult to find. The minute they're there, they disappear. I don't know if it's like that in Germany, but they fly off the shelf. And so I'm kind of known — for a while, I was known as the guy who'd be finding used Murakamis. I have a huge collection. I actually own every first edition US paperback and hardcover. And if I can get a

1:25:36first print, I'll get a first print. Beautiful. But I did a lot of my digging at these bookstores. I got to know the owners, and I would ask them, "Hey, what's your favorite Murakami?" Because a lot of them are Murakami fans, actually.
Mhm.
Every single one — we're talking about four distinct owners, or I guess maybe not that distinct if they're all so similar, but four owners said Dance Dance Dance was their favorite Murakami novel.
Yeah.
Yeah. And I think Dance Dance Dance requires a bit more of a sophisticated lens, because there is no plot, really, except "need to find Kiki," right?

1:26:23But because of that, it just becomes more of an internal plot, where you're just in the labyrinth that is the psyche of the protagonist, right?
Yeah. Yeah, definitely. Well, we can obviously talk for hours. I want to wrap with your — yeah, give me your top five. I'm just curious about your top five. But then also, I want to know your favorite short story of his, because the short story world of Haruki Murakami is arguably — you could make the argument that they're even better than his novels. Some of his short stories are incredible. They also leave an imprint on you. I just can't forget some of his short stories. But yeah, go ahead.

1:27:11So, it's very difficult. I can do a top five, but I need to do some honorable mentions, if it's fine for you, right?
But if I need to name a top five, it's Kafka on the Shore,
1Q84, Hard-Boiled Wonderland. Now it's getting very difficult. Norwegian Wood. I really like Norwegian Wood.
Okay.
And Sputnik Sweetheart. That would be my top five. And if I can name some honorable mentions, it would be—
It's funny that Wind-Up didn't make it into the cut. Yeah, I love The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle. But the thing is,

1:28:00this — and it also helped me through a difficult time. That's why it's in the honorable mentions. But, you know,
this releasing schedule here in Germany, this issue really stressed me out. And when I read it, I was like, why couldn't I read that the first time?
Right.
Right.
And I think when I first read it, I missed some really important parts. And it's like getting a director's cut of a movie right now. But it was always this
disappointment that you couldn't watch it in cinema in this version, right? So
that's why honorable mention for this one, and also for Killing Commendatore, and also A Wild Sheep Chase, of course. You know, these are all great books. It's very difficult. It's really, really difficult.
Yeah.
Yeah. What's your least favorite? And then we'll get to the short story.

1:28:48Oh, of course. So the least favorite is — can we also include short story collections, or does it need to be novels?
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Sure.
Then it's First Person Singular, because it is okay, but, you know,
I think there are some stories that are not that cool, you know? And
Mhm.
Favorite short stories are — I love Tony Takitani.
Have you seen the movie?
Yeah, you too? It's not a bad movie.
It's cool. It's a good movie. But—
Yeah,
but did you think about — it was a very short scene when they showed him in the student years. Did you see this?
Oh, early on?
Yeah. Yeah. And it was before they even

1:29:36existed. They just — he had long hair, a little bit of makeup, and put him into some—
I feel like that part I don't even remember. I remember that movie felt more like a music video or something. It's not really — 'cause it's a — yeah, but I don't remember that scene in particular, because I think — the movie itself was not that memorable, but I thought it was a pretty good rendition overall, and the music was really good. Yeah.
But the story is incredible. It's a pretty
it's a pretty messed up story, honestly. Oh, yeah, it is. It is. Yeah, I like this one. I like this one. And I also really like — you know, "Landscape with Flatiron" is cool,

1:30:27because it has this vibe again.
Which one is that in?
It is After the Quake.
Oh, yes, yes, yes. Yes.
Yeah.
That was the first short story collection of his that I read.
Oh, good start.
Good start. Yeah. Yeah, that was a really good collection. Okay, sweet.
I want to hear yours.
Yeah, that's awesome. That's really good to know. Yeah. I mean, quickly — and I don't know if I can put a top one, but I would say the top one and two is 1Q84 and Hard-Boiled Wonderland. Mhm.
And then I would go Wind-Up Bird and Sputnik Sweetheart.

1:31:17And I really like South of the Border.
Mhm.
Yeah, I really like that one. And honorable mentions I would give to After Dark.
Good one.
And Norwegian Wood. Yeah, there's not too many that I hate. Killing Commendatore, I feel, is really, really, really good, but it doesn't really bring me back to reading it.
And, oh, I guess the Rat Trilogy is also up in there. Yeah, I don't know. It's so hard, man. I think rating Murakami books, if you're a Murakami fan, is basically impossible. It's like asking which child is your favorite, you know?
Yeah. Yeah.
True.
It's pretty hard.
My least favorite book, I'll also — yeah, First Person Singular really was

1:32:05just not amazing. I will say that "Cream," the first story in First Person Singular, is one of my favorite Murakami short stories.
Yeah, that's a good one. That's true.
I really like "Cream." The fact that he gets this invitation, and then he goes up this little hill to this concert, and then no one's there, and then he just sits in the park, and then—
It was quite good.
One of — yeah, "Sleep." "Sleep" is a really, really good short story of his.
Yeah. But there's too many short stories, and I think the short stories are an entire ocean of unexplored territory for a lot of people that have dabbled in Murakami.

1:32:53I would even recommend people to start with his short stories, 'cause nowadays I don't think people even have attention spans, if you recommend, like, Wind-Up Bird. It's like 800 pages or 600 pages. I don't even know how many people are going to read that. But what I do is, if I want to recommend Murakami to people, I give short story collections away, and I say, "Hey, you should read this story." And nine times out of ten, people are reading it. But if I give a full novel, most of the time they're not going to read the full novel. So that's a hack for those Murakamians listening to this. If you want to convert people, give them his short stories first. And my one desire is that his publishers can publish some of his short stories

1:33:41individually.
Mhm.
So that you can give away as a gift a single short story. I would love that if that existed in the world. I think more people are going to read, and you'll be able to give gifts easier, and then — I don't know. What do you think about that? Just short story publications? Yeah, they do this already as an illustrated version. I don't know if you have this, but they do this here in Germany.
Oh.
Maybe not.
We have "Honey Pie," we have "Birthday Girl."
Then there is — I will send you a link later. There is a collection with several stories, and
ah, I know why you don't know them,

1:34:28because the first English short story as an actual illustrated book comes out in October, which is "Super-Frog Saves Tokyo."
Right, right, right. Yeah, I think I heard about that. Did you release this one? And in Germany, we already have the ones I mentioned, but
I think this is a great opportunity to introduce Murakami to other people. Awesome. Okay, I know I said it was the last question, but I have a last, last question for you, Salih.
Go ahead. And this is more of an appeal to, let's say, people that are on the fence about getting into this world of Murakami. They might think it's frivolous. They might think it's maybe a

1:35:15waste of time, that their life is complicated in its own right. Why should I read about some passive Japanese protagonist who doesn't have any conviction in his life and just allows the world to happen to him? Why should people read Haruki Murakami if they're busy in their own life? They have a lot of things going on. Maybe they're going to get something better from reading, I don't know, let's say, Atomic Habits or Tony Robbins or one of these books that is very clearly and directly going to, let's say, improve their life. What would be your argument for people to read Murakami in order to help themselves grow as humans,

1:36:05and even fiction in general?
Mhm.
'Cause that's what Nectar of Time — that's what my podcast is all about. It's trying to convert people from strictly reading non-fiction for growth and getting them to also have a hybrid model, where you read fiction and non-fiction. So what's your argument? 'Cause I'm convinced, I know, and I know you know, but in your words, why should people give Murakami a chance in particular?
I think the main thing is that reading fiction opens you more perspective than someone does who talks about daily life only, right? Because we're all living in our own world, in

1:36:56our own bubble. And we can try to adopt things that people recommend to us, which is good. It's always good to find a method to cope with something, right? But reading fiction also — maybe it opens up a spark in your mind that, you know, inspires you to act accordingly, by getting all the situations and happenings that maybe don't happen in your daily life, right? And you can always try to adopt metaphors that Murakami writes into your own life. I can only talk from my own perspective. So there were certain people in my life that felt like a threat to me, and it helped me to adopt them into

1:37:46metaphors, and which felt very easy to cope with in the end. You can try to take things easier, right? You can try to adopt maybe the routines his characters have, because I didn't act like I'm acting today, right? I'm taking more time to do things that he describes in his books, right? I reflect a lot more than before. I take my time to cook things. I take my time for practice, for sports. And reading fiction calms you down, right? Because when you read non-fiction, it's always like, I read this book and I need to follow all these guides that they've given me. But reading fiction pulls you down from something, and

1:38:34it grants you more time for reflection, and
more time to try other things.
I love it. I think that was beautifully said, and hopefully some people have been convinced. But, Salih, I really appreciate your time today. This was really incredible. It's really an enjoyable experience to share Murakami with someone that appreciates him just as much, if not more. So, yeah, you're really doing a great job advocating and building community,
and showing the world how beautiful Murakami's world is. So thank you for the work that you do. For people to follow you, I think you're at

1:39:22Haruki Murakami Art
on most places, right?
Yeah, mainly on YouTube and Instagram. So just write Haruki Murakami Art, and I think you're going to find me. And—
Do you have any projects lined up that people can look forward to?
Oh, I forgot. So we also have a podcast with my friend Leo from Kentucky. So if you check out Convo on the Shore on Spotify, we got some episodes out. So one book per episode is being discussed, and we'd like to invite you as well. I think we will have a good opportunity to discuss together.
So,
yeah, sure, why not? I was listening to the last episode, I think,
on Norwegian Wood. So that's

1:40:09fun. That's really awesome that there's a dedicated Murakami podcast.
So much more to discuss. We'll leave it for another day. Thanks again, Salih.
Yeah, thanks for having me again.
Thanks. Thank you very much.