Haruki Murakami's words--and stories--are transient, but the feeling they create and leave behind in the reader is anything but. I am sorry if you have not read at least a couple of his books, for what I am saying wouldn't make much sense to you. I can recollect nothing more about 'The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle' than the graphic description of the torture of some soldiers. Does that count for anything at all? I doubt. The same is true of 'Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman'. All I can remember of the book is some details about the title story, or rather, some images: A boy and his uncle (I am not sure if he is the boy's uncle or neighbour) on a bus; a lady on the hospital bed. Similar is the case with 'Norwegian Wood' and 'South of the Border, West of the Sun'.
Does this mean Murakami has failed as a writer, at least with me? Far from it. No other writer (my modesty quite intact, I would like to believe I have read a decent number of authors) has left such an indelible imprint on my mind. Murakami deserves no bracketing with any member of his ilk not because of what he writes, but because of the upshot of his writing. The fact that I remember not a single story of his, but yet grant him the throne, is evidence enough of the man's much-contested prowess--and that of Jay Rubin, Philip Gabriel and Alfred Birnbaum, his equally-gifted translators. Or, because I have not read Murakami in the language he writes in, do I have to concede I have no right in appraising his talent and settle for the much-easier task of singing his translators' praise?
A word of caution to like-minded people: Never read a Murakami book that meant something to you the first time you read it, twice. If you own it, just give it away or, if you can't, burn it. It's a price worth paying for the inexplicable feeling that you will always carry in your head (provided you don't become neurotic or slip into a coma) and that you can retrieve whenever you want to be entranced, calmed, uplifted and what not. I made the mistake of reading 'South of the Border, West of the Sun' a second time sometime back and paid the price for it. The treasure-box with all those little thoughts and emotions the book brought about when I had read it the first time, vanished. Maybe, to begin with, the book, according to the current-me, is not as great as thought by the me who had read it then. But, I don't give a toss. The book could be a piece of drivel, but I want my treasure-box back.
This brings us to the topic of criticism. Criticism, as considered by those who apparently mastered it, should be driven by more than the momentary, the transitory. They say a work of art should be evaluated keeping in mind the various factors at play, not least the myriad contexts it ought to be viewed from. Maybe so. Maybe, rightly so. But as a reader, I leave it for the birds. To me, any work of art viewed with a critical eye grows ever-so-distant from the reader, movie-goer or music aficionado. To me, the relationship that's forged between the former and the latter is of utmost importance. That relationship is just not possible with the spectre of criticism lurking in the vicinity. I have been for quite a while now trying, but in vain, to stop reading reviews or critiques of any film or book or music album, and wait till my mind decides if it's willing to carry the work, or rather its consequence, with it to the grave. What if Truman Capote, in what is considered by many a website to be the "greatest literary putdown of all time", called 'On the Road' "typing, not writing"? My mind is blank whenever I recall 'Breakfast at Tiffany's' or the first few pages of 'The Grass Harp' which I trudged through. On the other hand, my remembrance of 'On the Road' is accompanied by my journey in a 'beat' car parallel to the one with Sal Paradise and Dean Moriarty, through the fascinating land called America, watching them make time with countless women and discomfit many a poor soul with their drunken outbursts. I remember not much else from the book, but the question is, do I have to?
I no longer consider my inability to review a work of art a handicap. I couldn't do it even if I were paid to. And thank the heavens I couldn't. I might rather go to bed with the work than sit by the bed, flinching, accusing, correcting. It's another thing that the post-coital experience might not always be memorable but I take heart that I at least got into bed.
