Photo/Illutration Fans of Haruki Murakami show his new novel, “Machi to Sono Futashikana Kabe” (The City and Its Uncertain Walls), as they purchase the books at a bookstore in Tokyo's Shinjuku Ward at 12:05 a.m. on April 13 immediately after it went on sale. (Asahi Shimbun file photo)

The sight of this year’s freshmen workers in their new suits brings back memories of my own rookie days. Even after three decades, I still cringe in shame at the many mistakes I made back then.

But I just happened to read “Machi to Sono Futashikana Kabe” (The City and Its Uncertain Walls), the latest work by Haruki Murakami, and I was deeply impressed.

The author says he finally settled an issue he’d left unresolved since he was a newcomer 40 years ago.

The new novel, the themes of which are walls and shadows, is based on a shorter novel of a similar title that Murakami wrote for a literary magazine in 1980, the year after he made his literary debut.

The work was never published in book form, however, as Murakami was dissatisfied with it.

He incorporated it partly into his 1985 novel, “Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World,” but he still let it remain as unfinished business, so to speak.

I encountered this original version in a literary magazine when I was a teenager studying at a British university. I found the magazine in the Japanese language section of the university’s library.

The story’s unexpectedly blunt opening line--"Words die”--instantly grabbed my attention, and I started reading it right then and there. I remember hearing the library’s closing time music when I had finished.

Less than 10 years later, Murakami’s works became available at bookshops around the world and were translated into more than 40 languages. He also became a candidate for the Nobel Prize in Literature.

Murakami’s books rarely come with a postscript, but the latest work does. In it, he notes that for years, the shorter novel had “remained like a fish bone stuck in my throat,” and he expresses relief that he was finally able to rewrite it.

He also says he started working on it just around the start of the COVID-19 pandemic and that it took him three years to complete.

I compared his 1980 original story with his latest novel and could see how the passage of 40 years has polished the work to perfection.

It appears that regretful mistakes we made as rookies are not entirely wasted--provided we don’t forget the little fish bone and keep trying to do better.

--The Asahi Shimbun, April 18

* * *

Vox Populi, Vox Dei is a popular daily column that takes up a wide range of topics, including culture, arts and social trends and developments. Written by veteran Asahi Shimbun writers, the column provides useful perspectives on and insights into contemporary Japan and its culture.

Related News