Do I Enjoy Writing?
I just finished Haruki Murakami's book on running, "What I Talk About When I Talk About Running," which is actually a book about novel writing, disguised as a book on running.
What struck me the most about it, was that as you read it, not once is there a single moment where Murakami enjoys running, at least in the traditional sense where you have a big smile on your face while you're doing something. The entire book is about pain management and self-discipline, which sounds terribly dry and unenjoyable. It's also a book about failure, about the countless events Murakami enters and doesn't do quite as well as expected. (And where he gets kicked in the side by competitors, and where he hyperventilates, and where 18-year-old Harvard girls with ponytails speed past him.) Unless you're a novelist (or a marathon runner, for that matter), and you sort of get it, any sensible person would be less inclined to take up long-distance running or novel-writing than before reading the book.
As a novelist, though, and as someone who has participated in a triathalon, not to mention the countless hiking and mountain biking "adventures" I've put myself through, I kind of get what Murakami is saying. When you're on mile 19 of a marathon, or when you're deep in concentration on a novel, you literally are not there to enjoy it. The part of our weird human split-brains that can analyze a task while performing it doesn't exist. You are literally one with the writing or the running--there isn't a you to feel any sort of emotion towards what you are doing.
Like I said, there's no enjoyment while this is taking place. If an outside observer were to take a look at your face while you were experiencing this, they would observe that you have a grimace on your face, and look like you're deep in thought.
And yet, when you're done and you come back to normal reality, where the left half of your brain splits off with your right half, you feel, well, there's no other good way to put it--laid.
What struck me the most about it, was that as you read it, not once is there a single moment where Murakami enjoys running, at least in the traditional sense where you have a big smile on your face while you're doing something. The entire book is about pain management and self-discipline, which sounds terribly dry and unenjoyable. It's also a book about failure, about the countless events Murakami enters and doesn't do quite as well as expected. (And where he gets kicked in the side by competitors, and where he hyperventilates, and where 18-year-old Harvard girls with ponytails speed past him.) Unless you're a novelist (or a marathon runner, for that matter), and you sort of get it, any sensible person would be less inclined to take up long-distance running or novel-writing than before reading the book.
As a novelist, though, and as someone who has participated in a triathalon, not to mention the countless hiking and mountain biking "adventures" I've put myself through, I kind of get what Murakami is saying. When you're on mile 19 of a marathon, or when you're deep in concentration on a novel, you literally are not there to enjoy it. The part of our weird human split-brains that can analyze a task while performing it doesn't exist. You are literally one with the writing or the running--there isn't a you to feel any sort of emotion towards what you are doing.
Like I said, there's no enjoyment while this is taking place. If an outside observer were to take a look at your face while you were experiencing this, they would observe that you have a grimace on your face, and look like you're deep in thought.
And yet, when you're done and you come back to normal reality, where the left half of your brain splits off with your right half, you feel, well, there's no other good way to put it--laid.
Labels: Haruki Murakami, marathon running, Writing Process
posted by bigdumbjim at 08:28
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