What I Talk About When I Talk About Running - Murakami

 It is a well known fact that Murakami has a set schedule to write, run, swim etc and there are writers and creative people who try to copy his style of living in the hope of uncorking the kind of creativity he unleashes. In this 170 page book Murakami writes in a manner that I can understand and remember - I love the way he writes but I can never remember the characters or the story afterwards. He simply writes about running.

Murakami says he started running rather late - 34 I guess. Since then he has been running non-stop, several miles a day, has run marathons, has entered ultra marathons (running, swimming, cycling) and writes about it all. Why he started I do not remember but I do remember that he started a night club before he became a writer. Murakami has this great love for music - western music for sure -as he quotes songs left and right in his stories. He writes somewhere about the number of records he has and how he has spent a large fortune on buying vinyls and CDs.

While running the night club, he was married then (speaks very little about his wife and mentions once or twice about his fear of her coming to know his secrets - neurotic like most writers!), he has the same issues we have in India. I do not know how to run a business he says. But he had the clarity of mind that he would cater to a certain kind of customers and he would not worry about keeping everyone happy - just his type of customers. Sometime then he started writing - a couple of short stories that got published and got his some acclaim. He then decided to sell his night club and write full time. Of course he realised that he cannot do both because he was exhausted by the work at the night club and decided that he needed to fully concentrate on writing. I liked that - and also liked that he followed up on his plan properly.

This meant he had to reduce meeting people and he started to spend specific hours writing and then going out for a run to clear his head, a swim. Gradually he started to run longer. One mantra of his is not miss running more than once. He listens to music - some fav bands of his which suit his running mood he says. He meets certain people - an old Indian lady in a sari is one of them. He writes how many miles he ran each month, talks about his run from Athens to Marathon in a hot environment, his progression to running marathons and ultra marathons.

He talks of how he would not do things if someone told him to - only if he owned it would be do it wholeheartedly. That's something I think we all identify with. H talks about his wife finding out his secrets. His love for challenges. He talks about how he realised he had to write original stuff and nothing else - and how it worked for him. He talks of editing his drafts, of his comfort with being by himself.

And again, like Joseph Campbell. he also heads off to Hawaii which seems to be the place all these writer types seem to go to and have a good time. Perhaps its the peace and quiet. Or whatever else they find there.

Anyway, it was a good insight into his mind, his thinking. I liked it enough to ask Prarthana to buy me a copy of Murakami and his music which also appear to be non-fiction. I found myself agreeing with most of his thoughts. I hope I can get hooked on to running like he did and hope I can continue it like he does. Hopefully that will get me to be as productive as he is too!

Good stuff