This is my blog post series on NOVELIST AS A VOCATION by Haruki Murakami. I'm documenting my thoughts on each of the essays and the things I've learned about myself and my process.
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"Are Novelists Broad-minded?"
Murakami's first essay opens up with the idea that he does not have any fear about new novelists entering the field, that he welcomes them with open arms because he feels that novels are not a zero-sum game, and ultimately writing a novel is a difficult thing and deserves his respect. And at this point in the essay, I'm following along pretty well.
And then it takes a turn I wasn't expecting (sasuga, Murakami-sensei). He writes:
"The way I see it, people with brilliant minds are not particularly well suited to writing novels."
I'm sorry, what? I mean, "brilliant mind" is one of those terms that is thrown about with all the great novelists. But Murakami continues to explain that one does need a certain level of intelligence and education, but, he says:
"[...] anyone with a quick mind or an inordinately rich store of knowledge is unlikely to become a novelist. That is because the writing of a novel, or the telling of a story, is an activity that takes place at a slow pace. "
"[...] Someone whose message is clearly formed has no need to go through the many steps it would take to transpose that message into a story. All he has to do is put it directly into words - it's much faster and can be easily communicated to an audience. [...]The listener will slap his knee and marvel, "Why didn't I think of that?" In the final analysis, that's what being smart is really about.
In the same vein, it is unnecessary for someone with a wealth of knowledge to drag out a fuzzy, dubious container like the novel for his purpose."
This. Hit me. So. So. Hard.
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I have a lot going on in my life. I know I'm not alone in that, but I have to list it all out so you can understand where I'm coming from.
I have four kids and a wife, all with their own needs from me. I want to be a good husband and a good father, so I won't ignore them. I spend time with them. More importantly, I spend time thinking about how I can fulfill those roles better for each of them.
I work as an administrator in public education. It's a stressful job, but it's also one I care about. I spend time doing the job, but I also spend a lot of time thinking about the job, even when I'm not there.
I have to take care of the dog, because I'm the only one who will walk her consistently.
I have a podcast to schedule, record, edit, and maintain.
And there's other aspects of my life (like anyone's) that are complex and time consuming and generally a hindrance to doing creative work.
There's not a lot of time in my day to write. In fact, time management and time optimization is kind of obsessive for me. You only have to go look at blog posts from July and August of 2022 to see that.
But I'm also able to keep all these things (and more) balanced because I'm a really fast thinker. I can process information and accomplish stuff, generally speaking, faster than most people I work with or know. If I couldn't, I would've given up all this stuff a long time ago by necessity.
But because this is such a valuable skill in my day-to-day life, I somehow concluded that I needed to do all my creative work the same way - faster, better, more brilliant, more efficient. And I was seduced by some ideas and some writing communities - from the generally harmless NaNoWriMo to groups like 20 book to 50K, which said that if you can write and publish 20 books you could generate 50,000 in passive income. This was a group that used phrases like "lowest viable product" - meaning "what's the crappiest novel you can write and still get away with it."
So I trained, and copied, and outlined, and regimented and tried to get my brain to churn out the highest quality story I could in the shortest possible amount of time.
I was trying to do what Murakami is saying is impossible.
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Murakami concludes his observations that novels are a bad way to communicate ideas by writing:
"An extreme way of putting it is that the novelists might be defined as a breed who feel the need, in spite of everything, to do that which is unnecessary."
I've talked about this before, but I've tried to quit writing. Twice. It didn't stick. I have to do it. And, it turns out, I have to do it the way I've always done it. By the seat of my pants, in a meandering, inefficient way where I barely know what's going to happen next. And then I will rewrite it. And rewrite it. And rewrite it. And then eventually there might be something worthwhile at the end.
Because that's the only way I've ever really finished something and felt very proud of it. And it was the only way I've had the most fun.
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This essay really made me have to go back and have a hard look at myself, and to realize that the parts of my brain that make me effective in so many arenas is not the same one that will make me effective in novel writing. It made me accept what I had been trying to reject and reform.
I got the book on December 1. I read this somewhere between the 2nd and the 4th.
By December 13th, I was already back at writing my newest novel.
These essays have been gold, but if nothing else, this first one would have been worth the cost.
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Study Questions: Do you agree with Murakami’s assertion that a novel is an inefficient container for ideas?
How do the quoted lines make you feel about your own work?